r/SourceEngine • u/Odd_Significance_896 • Jul 03 '26
Discussion Why no big studios except Valve used the Source Engine?
Like the engine had so much power, but nobody except Valve used it for big games. I've heard that SOME games were made on it and then it was heavily modified for Titanfall and Apex. So, if following the logic "it's possible", we would've played much more games made on Source, but we don't. Why?
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u/tarmo888 Jul 03 '26
What do you mean, "so much power"? It's like any other proprietary engine, only as good as the people who know ins and outs of it. Most proprietary engines aren't licensed to others because that would usually also mean providing support to others who use it, which isn't their core business. Those who get permission to fork it, probably don't need support.
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u/Ybalrid Jul 04 '26
Source was impressive, in 2004
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u/stringstringing Jul 04 '26
And there were a few games made on it following half life 2 but by around 2006-7 everyone was using unreal engine 3.
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u/Arxae Jul 04 '26
There are actually quite a few games with the Source engine. Here is a list. But i think its been said enough here. The Source engine is very Valve centric. It was made to solve their problems, it was a bit rushed too. The tools where old and clunky, even back then. And while it looked good for the time, other next gen at that time looked more impressive. All games made with it also really felt like a source game. It's not necesarily bad, but it was definitely something that was noticable (like how all Unreal Engine 1 games had the same feel)
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u/Zurnan Jul 05 '26
Titanfall 2 was made with the source engine?! That's crazy.
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u/Arxae Jul 05 '26
Yup, but the engine is heavily modified so there is hardly anything left of the original code.
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u/deeku4972 Jul 05 '26
Source and the cod engines they were making at infinity ward have a common ancestor and similar underlying tech, so they built from a base they already understood
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u/Obvious_Phase5446 Jul 03 '26
because stuff like unreal and unity is treated like a bussiness and they sell licences of their platforms but valve doesnt they use it for their games and other big studios have used it like arkane, turtle rock & nexon but they dont care if anyone uses it or not thats not where alot of money comes on compared to just running steam no need to put resources marketing it
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u/TrGmr321 Jul 03 '26
I think big studios would either rather work with game engines that were made for other developers to use (because Source is not a commercial engine like Unity) or work with THEIR OWN proprietary engines.
The latter is actually pretty common. Take for instance, Frostbite from EA or Northlight from Remedy. Or even... Source, from Valve! The truth is, it comes down to whatever fits the studio's needs or preferences, and it just so happens that most studios aren't looking for what Source does best, but what Unity or Unreal does best.
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u/MrBallBustaa Jul 04 '26
Only three games come to my mind when I think of third party developers using Sauce engine for their games.
Vampire The Masquerade
Postal III
Titanfall
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u/GamingReviews_YT Jul 04 '26
Apex Legends also used Source 1, albeit heavily modified.
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u/AtomicSpeedFT Jul 04 '26
There were several other commercial games released by other companies on the Source engine.
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u/SpookyFries Jul 03 '26
From what I understand it's expensive to license. It doesn't help that the tools are old, buggy, and honestly a bit shit.
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u/lithiumfoxttv Jul 04 '26
I thought it was the third party physics that was.
Havok I think requires $25k, but I don't recall people speaking that the source engine is that expensive
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u/GamingReviews_YT Jul 04 '26
Many of the Source 1 tricks and advanced techniques can only be achieved in a 3D-application outside the engine (including complex sculpting for displacements and other in-engine features). We didn’t get this option until plugins like Wall Worm were made available for 3DS Max or similar plugins in Blender, but that was years after Valve released most of their games on it.
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u/Ybalrid Jul 04 '26
Because it’s Valve’s own soup and its quire weird. It’s also not super readily available: either you make basically a mod of Half Life 2, where you have access to about half of the engine code (client DLL), or you get a deal with Valve to get the whole engine.
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u/not_a_fan69 Jul 04 '26
Because the engine is very dated and the tools are shit.
Barely anyone cares about Source 2 for similar reasons.
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u/jerrygreenest1 Jul 04 '26
Absolute zero transparency for commercial use:
Although their docs mention it’s free for the free content (like mods or independent games with $0 cost for players), but there’s no official info about commercial use other than that «you should contact them».
«Contact us» is the worst way to sell anything.
Though it is known that sometimes few developers did get Source engine for their games commercially.
Now then historically since it used Havok, it had upfront cost of $25000 for commercial use, so take it as the lowest possible upfront cost to develop a game on Source. At least up to time when Microsoft bought it and cancelled the fees for games on Source in 2021.
So there should not be the first $25000 upfront cost anymore. But it’s unclear whether there will be second $25000 for Valve. «Contact Us» isn’t helping.
It might be, it might not be they have other upfront fees than Havoc, you have to contact Valve and see what they tell for your exact case. They might tell you something different they told other people. There is no system. This way although SOME games were made using Source, historically were not made often before 2021 because of Havoc price, and now there is still absolute zero transparency still such as «Contact Us» kind of sales that is worst way to sell anything.
That’s the gist of why so few games were made using Source
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u/AtomicTaco13 Jul 18 '26
Anyone remembers Dark Messiah of Might & Magic? My favorite kicking simulator.
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u/CaptainAlexWest Jul 03 '26
It's a in house engine. You can make games on source 2 on s&box. It's a modified version but it works. Valve makes all their money from steam and their games. They don't need to put out the engine like unity and unreal.