   Component based development
  Allright I'm interested how many of you game developers are using COTS (Commercial/Off-the-shelf) components for your game development? I'm interested whether people start building a game from scratch or whether first suitable COTS are being evaluated to reduce development costs. I myself am programming a simple puzzle game using the popcap framework. I would be interested in what genre of game you are developing and which components are being used. I'm assuming a lot of games are probably based on low level libraries like OpenGL / SDL / DirectX (see picture). If you divide your game in layers I'm interested in COTS being used above the system software layer (e.g. directX/ openGL) is in the OS not in your game.) An example COTS could be the unreal engine or the havok physics engine which are built on top of openGL/directX.    
  I would imagine most amateur developers create as much code themselves due to cost restrictions on commercial modules. Most people embark on game development because they think it'll be a cool thing to do (without thinking through everything involved) and they want a slice of the big pie.Commercial developers however do use commercial modules for physics, 3d techniques, visual effects etc. Just look at the logos plastered over a commercial game and you'll see this.   