Do you expect the AAA publishers to release source code more often under open-source software licenses in the future?
Some major companies have been promoting FOSS in the gaming industry.
Google mostly for server-related things.
https://opensourcelive.withgoogle.com/events/gaming-day-2021
Red Hat has promoted it for way more varied uses (networking, compilers, software to create art assets, middleware, formats, even engines).
Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid and The Witness) says that OSS in general sucks:
 |
 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
|
>Do you expect the AAA publishers to release source code more often under open-source software licenses in the future?
No. Google releases open source code when they can't make any money from selling it. The goal is to create a secondary market around the code to profit from. Red Hat is a support company. All their profit comes from the secondary market.
Video games will never do this unless you really like scammy NFT lootbox games that aren't fun making you participate in a secondary market grinding and selling items. Selling the games is the primary market. They don't have a reason to open source anything.
Makes sense.
Red Hat's business model implies they don't actually know anything about anything. What they do is look around the use cases in a market, find a gap, and try to fill it with their services.
But it's not uncommon for the markets to be extremely out of their wheelhouse. Like what do you expect redhat to know about AI and actually build a product that data scientists would like?
Same could go for games.
Look at the people involved then look at the quality of their products then you'll arrive at your answer
no one cares about foss
most games are programmed using machine code in a hex editor so they are already open source / there is no source.
>Jonathan Blow
>Jonathan Blow
>Jonathan Blow
I've heard that one before...
>Joseph Bellow
ah close enough
lolno. the game industry is unsustainable without proprietary licensing, and nobody wants to jump through hoops to make a modern game with a plugin architecture that lets them sell proprietary games with FOSS engines.
>hoops
>unsustainable
homie just sell your game on steam and release your code as GPL-3 on your personal git server (frick github and gitlab) ? how is this any different than releasing a game without DRM? none. The game industry and game developers are a joke that is.
>how is this any different than releasing a game without DRM? none.
legally free and illegally free are not necessarily the same in effect. legally free software can be redistributed more openly, and is inherently more trustworthy than some "repack" torrent that probably has a cryptominer baked in.
and even if it was the same in effect, FOSS is so alien to game dev homosexuals that it'd never happen for cultural reasons. loud midwits like blow are the rule, not the exception
Yeah, you can just do this and the homosexuals that use steam will pay for it anyways.
Problem is, I've met many "gamedevs". They're mostly people who are very much not interested in programming in general but very much interested in wasting their time playing video games all day so they're very unproductive people who have no real idea what they're doing. I bet most of them don't even know what foss is
Releasing the source code under a free software license is not really harmful to profits.
It's not beneficial either
You stand to lose more than you gain
>You stand to lose more than you gain
A lot of video games had their source code lost, and thus couldn't be ported to new platforms.
That's got nothing to do with open source, that's just people not bothering to make backups
Releasing the source code to the public under an open-source license makes it less likely to be lost.
Are you stupid? That's like saying give every a copy of your hous keys so you don't get locked out of the hous
If you want to retain your code, make a backup somewhere
You don't just "lose" it
>hous
>That's like saying give every a copy of your hous keys so you don't get locked out of the hous
The most valuable things in video games are branding, and the assets. None are given away for free with a source code release.
It basically boils down to this
>disadvantages of open source
someone can take your code and build a better competing product pushing you out of the market
>advantages of open source
???
that disadvantage is pretty unlikely, but there are no advantages so what's the point
>someone can take your code and build a better competing product pushing you out of the market
That already happens without having the source code released.
of open source
>???
Remasters are big money makers.
>That already happens without having the source code released.
No it doesn;t. Nobody can take your code if you don't release it. And remasters have nothing to do with open source. Remasters are mostly graphical improvements, and if someone else remasters your game who isn't you, you aren't going to see any money from it
dude, have you any experience of what the insane re shit modders are doing ?
re shit?
>No it doesn;t. Nobody can take your code if you don't release it.
Fair enough. I should have said cloning, which for all effects it's the same thing.
>Remasters are mostly graphical improvements, and if someone else remasters your game who isn't you, you aren't going to see any money from it
What part of "assets don't need to be free" and "remasters and ports are way harder to make if no one preserves the source code" you don't understand?
why don't you understand that open source has nothing to do with preserving code? if you want to preserve code, just put it in a private repository somewhere
Wide availability is preservation. If a person owns a copy and that copy is destroyed for any reason, it's lost forever.
If you release the source code under an open-source license, you can ask more people for the source code instead of a single person when the time for a remaster comes in.
Preserving source code is not a problem. It's not difficult to keep some code. There's no need to release it to the public in case you might lose it
>Preserving source code is not a problem. It's not difficult to keep some code.
Don't forget we're talking about the video game industry.
?t=3069
People "lose" source code because they didn't consider it valuable and worth preserving
If you WANT to keep source code, it's easy
Fair enough.
Jonathan Blows
I like how I'd software used to release their engine source code once they moved onto the next one. I dont think anyone really did anything with it, but it was cool.
I doubt they will now they are part of Bethesda/Microsoft.
>I dont think anyone really did anything with it
source ports
chex quest
team fortress
Yeah, no one ever did anything with them.
>chex quest
They bought a proprietary license, you dumb frick. In fact, the source code wasn't released in any form until 1997.
>team fortress
The standalone versions of those games use GoldSrc/Source.
Chex Quest was licensed and TF was a Quake mod
It probably helped people write stuff like ZDoom and Darkplaces, so thats something
The correct answer was 'the dark mod'
But the point was that very little was done with the code for some pretty decent engine
That was the whole reason why the GPL was chosen. It's by design.
GPL was chosen because the company didn't want people making anything of value with the code, John Carmack wanted to release them with a permissive license
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
Bethesda hated that shit.
>Do you expect the AAA publishers to release source code more often under open-source software licenses in the future?
Nope, there's absolutely no reason to do so, and the ideological brainrot of FOSS hasn't taken hold in the game industry
>Do you expect the AAA publishers to release source code more often under open-source software licenses in the future?
No, Carmack was the only one who gave a shit about doing that and he's long gone from the industry. Your only hope is if the funny burger lady has a source code to some random IIGS game she worked on.
>Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid and The Witness) says that OSS in general sucks:
No idea who this fat homosexual is but I heard the words
>the term "pull request" is offensive
and lost it
This guy is a fricking moron, kek.
No.
The AAA gaming industry is just a profit driven industry where total control over the entire videogame means they don't have to share any royalties with other companies or developers.
Starting from scratch every AAA blockbuster allows them to sell the idea to stupid goyimg cattle the game has the quality justification to sell at 80 usd and 500 USD microtransactions.
It's more like spend the most money so you can later make 5X times the ROI.
If a company spends 500 millions starting from 0, but can easily make 5 times in microtransactions, it means 2.5 billions in returns.
But when you see the indie industry, is as much as what you describe, usually they share a lot of open source shader recipes, tutorials, even free assets packs in music, 3D models, pixel art, ect.
Being an indie developer usually a lot of times means you need to relly on the work of others to realistically deliver a game.
And yes, there's now an entire indie game development industry, not to make games, but to create the tools and assets, indie developers can use to make games.
And a lot of times, is basically open source and relly on patreon patronage.
t. indie game developer
>The AAA gaming industry is just a profit driven industry where total control over the entire videogame means they don't have to share any royalties with other companies or developers.
But a lot of modern games use Unreal Engine and lots of proprietary middleware.
To save cost.
They're still royalties that are being paid.