20 years ago, when much less things were expected from engines and graphics alike.
It's like a web framework. Coding one when CGI came out was way less work than now. If you want to match what django or rails does now, it takes years.
I read somewhere it would cost millions if you tried to hire dev to recode django at today's market rate.
While these tools such as django and rails or Unreal and Unity are excellent achievements, we'll never get even better tooling if really smart people aren't working on these sorts of projects.
I follow a project called Handmade Hero[0] by a longtime game and game tooling programmer where he codes a complete game from scratch with absolutely zero dependencies except Windows. It's an excellent educational resource and I've learned a lot about how games work, including game engines such as Unreal of Unity. This has enhanced my knowledge of how I might better use those engines and I feel that it's been a valuable use of my time.
It's like a web framework. Coding one when CGI came out was way less work than now. If you want to match what django or rails does now, it takes years.
I read somewhere it would cost millions if you tried to hire dev to recode django at today's market rate.