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This seems unfortunately true so I wonder if there is "another way." I don't know much about this, but don't many companies "reinvent the wheel" by creating their own engine for their game?


Not all the time. Lets see, current FPS engines I can name off the top of my head available for license:
Doom 3 engine from iD software
Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Megagames
Lithtech from Monolith
Source from Valve

And most of these are very capable of being used for other things. The Unreal Engine 2 has been used for a MMORPG called Lineage II, and was being used on another.

There are also MMO specific engines that can be licensed like NeL from Nevrax and Mafate from NPCube. Physics engines like Havok and Karma.

Even licensing this technology leaves a lot of work to be done. Art has to be created. 3D models are getting horribly complex, and Unreal Engine 3 works best with a high resolution model to examine against the same thing in low resolution. Think 8 million polygons for the high resolution and 8,500 for the low model for a character. You still need sound creation. You still need cinematics if the game calls for it, requiring even more 3d work. You need programmers still, because the engine simply knows how to display graphics. It still has to be told how a weapon works, or what an item should do when interacted with. Thus, a lot of work = a lot of money needed.

Oh, it seems GU Comics agrees with my paranoia over buying from Steam.