Quote: "umm...Blender is a 3d modelling app, not a game maker"
When it was originally released (1997) it was a game development package for 3D independant games. It did actually have a predecessor for 2D games as well.
A version of Blender was compatible with the Playstation NetYaroze C SDK, and was used by some of the independant development companies to create some nice games. When 2000 hit and the next-generation happened Blender's developers could not afford to support the Playstation 2. As such focused more on Windows games development. With competition from Blitz3D, DarkBASIC, DIV Games Creator, eventually they lost support ending up having to declare bankruptcy.
This is a shame because Blender was possibly the best example of what a "complete" game development studio should be. It had a scripting engine, but wasn't required to make basic games but more expand on what you had created. It had a prefab library, but again a built-in modeling application for world and objects ment that you didn't need a 3rd party application or worry about scale or compatibility. It also had quite an extensive sound, music and effect library, with again features built-in for midi development and basic sound editing.
You could make basically everything from the application itself.
After Blender's creators went bankrupt they decided to release the source so the community could continue it's development, and under GPL it makes sure that the app will always be free.
I think it's quite ironic that because the community focused on improving the modeling features, it has become a better known freeware modeling application that it ever was as a game development application.
Still it's probably still got the original game development features it used to sport.
Reckon that if someone bothered to they could make something very similar now and clean up with XNA.
