Remember: it's not a game in a box

Sometimes a little upfront work will pay massive dividends in the backend. You can’t install a game engine, and click a “make game button” – and that’s a good thing. Middleware is not “your game in a box” – if it was, everyone would be making your game. Good middleware is a framework that saves you from starting at 0% -- saving you months or development-years of effort. You’re still going to need to modify it for your genre, your title, and your studio. You’re still going to need to create game assets, and feed them through a production pipeline. But having a solid foundation that works with your internal tech and is flexible enough for your entire team to work with is an investment that you’ll reap for years to come. Not only look at out of the box, but look at middle of project, iteration, validity of code to be ready for shipment – all stages of your project need to be focused on when you’re looking at middleware and how to use it.