GODOT ussage this week

Godot wants to thank Unity Technologies for it's generous support
- The Humble Bundle sale is also helping.
  
  For those interested: The Complete Godot Software Bundle
  It supports Girls Who Code

I feel like that's not how you measure a game engine usage, the large majority probably don't install Godot via Steam, just looking at the numbers it's a very small sample which might not represent game devs in general
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling(statistics)
  A doubling of usage amongst steam users is probably representative of a large uptake of Godot overall
  
  Eh, I feel like the sampling is clearly biased toward those who would install a game engine through a service that auto-updates it. (Novices and hobbyists.)
  
  For sure an uptick, but who knows by how much? I agree this is useful for showing something, but it's hard to know what really from this alone.
- Can confirm. I use Godot and didn't even know it was on steam
  
  It might mean something though, FFXIV is a classic example of a game that almost nobody plays on Steam, but its Steam charts line up somewhat well with the game's increasing popularity especially with Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Of course you have to look at actual data to back that up, but soemtimes it can show trends.

TIL Godot is on Steam. Huh, will you look at that.
- What does that even mean? People using gui tools?
  
  Professional game developers do not want their game engines to automatically update because when you upgrade engine versions things usually break. This happens in Unity, Godot, Unreal, and every other engine or framework I've seen in games. For big changes, this is inevitable. So professional game developers download the engine directly from the provider and not a service that will automatically update the engine version from under your project.
  I don't even know why Godot is on steam. Probably to gain more discoverability and popularity.
  
  Yeah there's a couple tools like that on steam. Blender is on it too.

Does godot support 3D? If so does it support PBR materials? Does it support installing 3rd party plugins like HAVOK? Literately the only things i need.
- Yes
  Yes
  Yes
- It support 3D, but I think Vulkan is in Godot 4. I'm not sure how mature it's. In Godot 3, it only support OpenGL.
  
  What are some of the best-looking games in Godot?
- yes
  
  Tbh that's a pretty horrible example. It was a rushed product full of graphical glitches, including rapidly flashing lights. This is true especially on the switch. Idk if it's improved since launch but shit was rough early on.
- Yes, not a great as Unity but it's still pretty good especially after they switched to Vulkan over OpenGL. VR performance still could use some work though.
  Yes, PBR materials are fully supported. Actually one of the earlier things in 3D that was implemented, and then imoroved
  Yes, now I don't know if HAVOK has a Godot plugin but there is a Jolt physics plugin that's designed to be plug-and-play, with a few exceptions (it doesn't suppory soft bodies afaik)
  
  Shaders are still GLSL or SPIR-V. Nothing changes in terms of quality.
- Not sure why would you use HAVOK instead of Bullet, but yes
  
  Already have experience with it mostly. It's what I used and what I'm use to when it comes to physics engines

I did not know Godot was on steam. Why would one prefer to use steam instead?
- I'm assuming for automatic updates. Just like some people do with Blender.
  
  Oh yeah for Windows and mac os that makes sense. The problem doesn't exist om linux with package managers :3
- I suppose it's the easiest way to try it out.
  I wouldn't use it long-term, because you don't want Godot to update without you knowing, if there's something that needs to be changed due to an update. I bet a few people noticed the update from 3.x to 4.x..
  I've read it also doesn't come with the C# support, so that's one reason not to use Steam for it if you're interested in testing that side.
- If you're on Windows, it's an easy way to auto-update. If you're on Linux, there is no need for that.
  
  Dang I've been manually updating this entire time... auto updates sounds appealing ngl
- I use it on steam, for this exact purpose. So it shows in using it. The more people are using it, the more people get aware of it.
  If all these people downloaded it directly and not from steam, this post wouldn't exist :)
  Auto updates is interesting, didn't even consider it, but it can be both a pro and a con I guess...
- Well - you probably don’t have to download any updates yourself when using Steam.
  
  paru -S godot

Just like Linux is default standard for servers, I wish Godot would become a future's stardard of game engine.
Just like hudreds of corpos and many independent individuals commit patches to Linux kernel, I wish the same happens with Godot.
- GPL forces modifications to be best put upstream. Godot is MIT, which usually doesn't get the same effect
- Now that you mention it it's kinda weird it isn't. When our phones, servers, infrastructure, social networks, chat apps and even AI are all open source why are games all still built on proprietary software?

I love seeing more people getting into Godot! It's such a nice game engine with a fun learning curve and the scripting language is mostly hassle free.
- the scripting language is mostly hassle free.
  Is there a reason Godot has it's own language for scripting and doesn't use a common language like unity (C#) and unreal (C++)?
  
  Here is their reasoning, basically summarized as "it's easier to get everything for games into a new language than bolting it onto an existing language". I also recall seeing a blog post where they said their initial implementation of GDScrip took fewer lines of code than embedding Lua did.
  Note Godot does officially support C# and C++, and there is unofficial support for other languages too. But they commonly recommend GDScript for beginners.

What's GODOT?
- The free, open source game engine everyone should have been using and contributing to this whole time but noooOOOooo.
  
  Hahahaha ah ok then.
- It's an open source game engine. People tend to consider it as a replacement for Unity when it come to 2D game development.
  
  hey it's 3d is pretty decent too!
  you won't be making aaa games with it anytime soon but it's really good for 99% of tasks
  
  For indie game development in general as of Godot 4.

... and I assume that's just the instances installed through Steam.
- yup, thats steamDB, I do wonder how many devs installed it via DL from the site or other ways
  
  I had no idea you could even get it on Steam
  
  My bud and I have it from a non steam source. So that's 2 at least.

Unrelated question: is it pronounced go-DOT as in polkadot, or go-DOH, like the actress Gal Gadot?
- Theres no official pronounciation
  The most common ones are guh-dough & go-dough (+ other variations) with the t silent, but the lead developer as well as a bunch of others call it go-dot and some people put the d in the first syllable instead to do things like god-oo
  Q&A with devs talking about it
- Go-doh, like the coffee lover from ace attorney.
- I think it's pronounced "God OO"
  Like the play. Although I have no idea why it would be named after the play.
  Also the logo doesn't really have anything to do with anything. The whole thing is weird.
  
  As an ever evolving piece of software, you are always Waiting for Godot.
- Go-DOT is how the developers pronounce it tmk

While the numbers themselves are just a small fraction of actual usage (as I guess most people using it don't do it thru steam), it doubled in about a week.
What would be an "educated" guess of steam/non-steam users ratio? 1:50? 1:100?

Awesome- hopefully more money will get put into the development fund as well. It is rather small yet.
- I forget who and I'm too lazy to search, but a company just announced a recurring $10,000/month donation to Godot. A few others are donating too. So they do have some monetary support!
  
  OSS Capital

Godot Humble Bundle from Zenva right now: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to-know-about-godot-4-encore-software
Additionally, 4 Godot books in the C++ & Unreal Engine Humble Bundle from Packt: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/game-programming-with-c-unreal-packt-books

What is Godot?
- It's a free and open source game engine a bit like Unity. https://godotengine.org/
  I use it and I think it is quite nice.

*usssage
- Back in the USSSage...
  You don't how lucky you are.... boy
  
  Usssssausage. Mhm... tasty. :p

Is there any reason to install it via steam and not just via the official site?
- I don't use the Steam version because it locks my steam library when I'm coding.
  edit: yeah, that update thing @MJBrune@beehaw.org mentions too 😀
- Maybe auto updates?

It increased.

I can only hope this continues

Godot is free and open source Steam is not. Learn the difference. Steam is just as Unity if not worst.
- Why would Steam be worse than Unity? You are mixing things together. Steam Hosts FOSS for free as far as I know - how is this a bad thing in your eyes?
  
  https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/steam
  Unity is a game engine, Steam is some bullshit market place that locks other software behind all sort of junk like drm. As far as i know Unity doesn't promote gambling to kids