I'd happily wait another 5-7 years for a new game on a new engine then have a new game in two years that feels identical to others.
And then open-source it and let the creativity roam free.
Most indie games and devs would not exist without Unity and it makes perfectly sense to use services from 3rd parties. We all do, we all rely on others.
On the other hand, a steady and trustworthy business relationship is key. While I understand Unity, they wanna earn money, I think it is bad to act in such a manner.
Regarding the "look a like" feeling: This only shows, that the market works this way. How could an engine change that?
A game to me modeled in Unreal engine feels like all others created in Unreal.
For instance the kinds of games made in RPG Maker vs Threejs vs Unity vs Pico-8. So by having more engines we'd get more types of games because the different constraints of those engines would impact the games developers will make.
Hence like I said the engine is the medium.
Why reinvent the wheel? The examples you mentioned would mean, that everyone who is using Pico-8 is basically a rip-off and not creative enough to build their own completely innovative platform. RPG Maker is Unity in disguise with a different business model, same goes for any other platform.
There are a lot of great ideas no one is willing to pay for. Sacrificing time for no pay is a hobby. I wish some many game dev a cash cow, so that they can focus on others things as well. I don't have a problem with artists going so-called mainstream to earn a living.
I wouldn't say that everyone is a rip off using Pico-8 in fact I think Pico-8 is amazing and I'm very grateful that the platform was developed because it's changed my views on game development and its author would agree that the medium you work in is very important. he idea of a cozy design space is what lead to its development.
And RPG Maker certainly isn't Unity in disguise (well I guess the older versions) and because they way it's designed leads to very different games then Unity even though you can create the same kinds of games in Unity.
I have no problems with artists making a living from their work either and I also have no problems with people exploring new ways to make games.
so I guess what I'm saying is not everyone needs to go out and make a Unity/Unreal/Godot clone but I wish more people would explore the fact that their tools are a medium and can greatly impact the type of art they make.
On top of that, FF16 is using some custom engine as well. People assume it's a fork of FF14's engine, but nothing official.
Studios will take more risk on a $3m game than a $6m game.
>And then open-source it and let the creativity roam free.
Well now you're just hoping for the moon. Many studios do indeed have their own engines in house, but I believe CryEngine is the only one that eventually became open source (over a decade, an aquisition, and two forks later).
>And then open-source it and let the creativity roam free.
These things are mutually exclusive.