ReportVG Insights
The Big Game Engine Report: 2025
1 Jan 202525 pages~14 min full read
Proprietary in-house engines have seen their market share of new game releases decline to approximately 13% by 2024.
See it on page 10Unreal Engine 5 has established itself as the industry standard for high-fidelity, large-scale AAA projects.
See it on page 15Unity maintains market dominance by volume, particularly within the indie and smaller-scale development sectors.
See it on page 7Engine selection is highly correlated with project type, as high-graphics titles favor Unreal Engine while strategy and simulation games remain concentrated in Unity.
See it on page 19Specialized engines like Godot and GameMaker are successfully capturing an increasing share of the indie market, intensifying competition for Unity.
See it on page 7Industry consolidation is expected to continue through 2030 as studios abandon legacy in-house tools to reduce the high costs associated with engine maintenance.
See it on page 11The game engine landscape is undergoing a significant transition as developers increasingly move away from proprietary, in-house solutions in favor of established third-party platforms. This shift is driven by the need for immediate development readiness, access to advanced graphical features like Nanite and Lumen, and the ability to leverage a broader, pre-trained talent pool. While custom engines historically dominated the industry, their market share has declined sharply over the last decade, falling to approximately 13% of new releases by 2024.
Unreal Engine has emerged as the primary beneficiary of this trend, particularly among large-scale AAA studios. By 2024, Unreal Engine and custom engines collectively accounted for the majority of unit sales on Steam, with Unreal Engine 5 becoming the industry standard for high-fidelity projects. Conversely, Unity maintains a dominant position in terms of the sheer volume of games released, particularly within the indie and smaller-scale development sectors. However, Unity faces intensifying competition from smaller, specialized engines like Godot and GameMaker, which have captured a growing segment of the indie market.
The analysis, which covers over 13,000 games released on Steam, utilizes proprietary tagging and estimation methodologies to track engine adoption trends. Data indicates that engine preference is heavily influenced by game scale and genre; high-graphics, large-budget titles skew heavily toward Unreal Engine, while strategy and simulation games remain strongholds for Unity. Looking toward 2030, the industry is expected to see continued consolidation as more studios abandon legacy in-house tools to mitigate the high costs of engine maintenance, further cementing the market dominance of third-party public engines.
