On game engine middleware

I’ve been digging into game engine middleware a lot lately. In the past few months, the number of companies interested in selling you a complete package to build a game on top of has grown quite significantly. The business models are spread out, as well – flat-rate per SKU, royalties on the back end, per-seat at the studio – there are all sorts of options. It’s becoming more and more interesting if you are a studio open to licensing technology.
You can understand on one hand why lately there might be an increasing number of game engines available due to the economy: If you’re a studio and you’ve got some seriously good tech, why not try and license it to generate some more cash flow? And it just so happens that the timing in the industry is great as well, with an increasing spread of platforms that is driving many people to wonder how they can amortize their development costs. Of course, “just” licensing the tech you used for your last game is not as easy as it sounds.
After some discussions with game engine middleware manufacturers, I decided to post a couple of surveys to see if I could get the pulse of what game developers are thinking. If you work in the game industry I would love to hear your thoughts. For producers, take this survey. If you’re a technologist, take this one. They’re both quite short, won’t take you more than five minutes. Thanks!