Wine for Amiga is as confusing as Windows Subsystem for Linux. I thought it would be a port of Wine for the Amiga but it's instead something to run Amiga software on PC.
It also makes even less sense than the Wine name. "Wine is not an emulator" - but it is! It's an API emulator, not an instruction set emulator. "Wine for Amiga" is an emulator in both senses.
Amiga Forever is a distribution of software (Amiga ROMs and OS disks) and a full system emulator: CPU, custom chips (graphics/sound/..) etc. It allows you to emulate various Amiga systems completely.
vAmos is just CPU and an embedded ROM/OS replacement that does just enough to run (some) AmigaOS command line programs. The primary use case is for cross-development (running Amiga compilers/tools, testing simple stuff, etc.) without having to boot a full system emulator for each command and better integration with e.g. host-side Makefiles.
With the vAmos=WINE analogy, Amiga Forever=VirtualBox/VMWare.
He says verbatim his goal is to be a stepping stone for serious engine programmers (not necessarily "general purpose", but definitely AAA-level), even though obviously we are not going to be making a AAA game for obvious reasons :)
So fair enough, but between that and his claim that he's showing people how to create a "professional quality" game I think the difference between a AAA game and a "AAA-level" game engine has no distinction, it's basically the same thing.
Is what he has done so far professional grade, capable of "AAA-level" games? I don't think so, but I concede that probably depends on what your parameters for "AAA" and "professional quality" are. It might be fine for indie games but it seems to me that Casey was selling an audience on revealing something deeper.
They do need to lock it down if they want to subside it with store purchases, otherwise it's too tempting for non-gaming uses where they don't get any money after the initial sale.
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