How Do Game Engine Get Designed? Can they be downloaded?

[napninjanx]

Note: This question is not towards piracy, only want to learn more about game engines etc & game developing.

Like downloaded meaning free ware aka free source.
How were they designed like for Example RenderWare is a famous game engine used to create Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Burnout, etc.

Is it possible to download a game engine and use that engine to make a video game out of it?
Or is it specially owned by a private game developing company only not avaible for the public?

I've been reading about RenderWare game engine on Wikipedia no were to download it. Only talks about who owned who and which company bought it.

[mike_2000_17]

Most game engines that commercial games use are proprietary, meaning that they were developed by a game company who now owns it and licenses it to other companies (or just uses it for its own in-house games). If company A wants to use a game engine developed by company B, then they would contact them, and strike a licensing deal which would include (I'm guessing) an initial payment to get the engine and be able to work on it, maybe some recurring payment for technical support during development (so that people at company A can get help from people at company B), and then, some royalty on the final product (e.g., 5% of sales of the game goes to the game engine company). Of course, when a game company develops its own game engine, then it doesn't have to worry about any of this.

That said, there are some open-source game engines out there, and also some that are dual-license, meaning that you can download it and develop games with it for free, but if you want to sell a game you developed with it, you must negociate a commercial licensing deal (e.g., a royalty on your sales). One nice and popular open-source game engine (well, only the main part, which is graphics rendering) is Ogre3D. Another popular option is Unity, which is a kind of dual-licensing engine (but it's more closed-source, and more of a share-ware thing). Gamedev is a great resource for this too, check their sticky on indie game engines.

[jwenting]

Unity isn't so much dual license as much as offering a limited version with reduced functionality for free (they I think also introduce some advertising into your game when you use it, like a splash screen).

For the rest, as Mike says, most engines are either proprietary (though maybe for sale given enough money) and/or created with resale in mind and offered to people for sale.

There's some free ones of course, even open source ones, but as always you get what you pay for.

[kiail]

I'm not sure about Renderware, but yes, there are free game engines out there for you to use in your game development. There are also others that require you to license it and pay them money according to how they want it(some is an up front license fee, others require you to pay them for every game sale, etc...). You can also develop your own engine if you would like also. A simple google search for (Free 2D game engine, Free 2.5D game engine, and so forth will give you options). There is a wiki link here on game engines(free and not)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

I wish you the best in game development and hope you find what you're looking for.

[AceStryker]

Good engines for advanced members that are free for use: CryEngine(Crysis, Sniper Elite, Warface, Rise), Source Engine(Titanfall, TeamFortress, Counter Strike), but as mike said, if you want to use them for money you'll need to pay.