The topic I know is very cliche, but it's usually different for everyone. So a few friends and I want to start getting farther into the game development stage of our lives [we've all been there]. We were looking through some engines and came to a few good choices. We are willing to spend money on the engine, but we of course can only spend so much. We originally were gonna use the Blender Game Engine, but we wanted to be realistic. We've come down to a decision between CryEngine 3, Unreal Engine 4, and Unity 5 (we are looking at nextgen engines). Unreal Engine 4 seems to be evolving with support really fast and seems pretty well maintained. Unity 5 looks like it has great performance with great features, but we have no idea when we will actually see a potential release date. Then we have CryEngine 3 which has no more support for the free version and now requires a subscription for the latest version. With CryEngine, we are a little iffy because there is not as much documentation as Unreal is picking up, and as community driven as Unity. The cheapness of Unreal's monthly payment along with source code was something that really bought our attention, but then again [as I understand it] Unity just has a onetime $1000 payment and the engine is then free to use with no royalties included. And from what I've seen, CryEngine has a similar payment method to Unreal (minus the source code access). We started getting familiar with UDK, but Unreal Engine 4 soon came out and we then decided UDK wouldn't be worth it.
So what would you guys recommend? Wait for Unity? Start investing in Unreal? Get to work with CryEngine? Even if you haven't used the Engines, what seems like the better choice? We're not looking to make an MMO or blockbuster game, but we want to make some decently built 3rd person platformers, so suggestions are appreciated. We aren't really set on any projects, but we want to start learning and seeing what we're capable of, and build up from there.
So what would you guys recommend? Wait for Unity? Start investing in Unreal? Get to work with CryEngine? Even if you haven't used the Engines, what seems like the better choice? We're not looking to make an MMO or blockbuster game, but we want to make some decently built 3rd person platformers, so suggestions are appreciated. We aren't really set on any projects, but we want to start learning and seeing what we're capable of, and build up from there.