Submitted 8 months ago by wawe@mastodon.gamedev.place to games@lemmy.world
@games Do you find open source games interesting/good thing as a gamer?
I am a game developer working on game called Mushy Score. I decided that my niche would be to create open source games. I think these could be helpful for developers or teachers to teach about games and how they are made. Most open source games are small game jam games, but there are few “real games” that are open source like 0 A.D. and Doom. As a non-developer do you think open source games could be good thing?
Doom’s engine was made open source in 99, which was instrumental for opening up modern source ports and the current modding scene which I’d argue is one of the strongest.
I think they are a good thing, since in general you get better compatibility with more esotheric hardware, for example i’ve seen people run godot games on raspberry pi boards, which is pretty nice; also as you mentioned doom and 0 A.D., both of them have prolific modding communities because it’s easy to make mods when you have the source of the game, and in the case of doom in particular the fact that it’s open source allowed people to build lauchers to make it run on newer computers without needing dosbox and co. To even have a chance to play.
There are several open source games that I love and have played regularly:
I wish more games were open source.
Whether I find an open source game interesting is whether or not it’s good, so my opinion isn’t very helpful since what’s good is subjective.
Games like Mindustry, SuperTuxKart, Super Tux Advance? Great!
Games like FreeCiv? Don’t like (mostly because I can’t even figure out how to end a turn or do anything despite looking up how to play).
I started building games thanks to open source.
It’s why I open source all my demos.
So the least it can do is inspire future developers.
Having it open source, does not.make it good. I think I’d prioritise making it fun, try to.make a profit, and then open sourcing it. I don’t think having it open source will help you sell copies… you might sell less. Make your money first, have a feasible business strategy, so you don’t go bust. Then try to keep the game alive vis open sourcing it.
If you actually want to make games for a living, then don’t do open source. Have people pay for enjoying your work. If it is a hobby, open source may be beneficial, because you can then team up with other hobbyists.
The only open source game I know is Pixel Dungeon, and I love that one because it has spawned so many derivatives. So I guess I’d support it if it were more common.
I think if I really wanted to contribute open source have code, I’d look into working on something longer Godot.
The main issue i see with open source gaming is that most games rely at least as much on things like artwork and level design as they do on coding, but the open source ethos isn’t very popular with artists and art-adjacent professionals, so fully open source games usually have to make do with very little art, or amateurish art.
If you contribute to an open source engine, you’re writing code that will go into real games without needing non-software people to work for free.
If you look at what Valve does, it may be. With software companies being too big to challenge by themselves alone, with top specialists and budgets, they bet on open source to connect with every little player on the market and probably choose the direction it would evolve in the future as Steam revenue lets them be the bigger fish of that pond. And, for what they did with SD they made open source products accessible.
I feel like the problem here is funding full-time developers, marketing, so to convince moneybags to bankroll you on a product that people can build and modify. That’s not easy, but we saw, once again, Valve and others employ and support modders and other volounteers. So probably sticking to some platform or fundraising place may be a must. Passion projects may be endlessly cool but there is only so much you can do on your own and if it’s not a hit like Minecraft, the result would have that junky feeling not inviting a regular consumer at all.
One of the greater foes is intellectual property and getting one’s name known. There’s no way to put together a project with a lot of designs and voice acting for cheap because artists and actors usually want at least a mark in their portfolio and their contribution is not very cheap in commercial works (like IT doesn’t). They can do it as an act of charity or just for their name recognition, but it’s hard to suspect from top shelf personalities, and unless money are involved, the most probable source of talents is college students. That can hurt their output and quality.
Having said that, my first pick would be educational and casual products done for public funding. They usually don’t require overcomplicated mechanics, done in a cartoonish style that’s easier to replicate (although by a designer, so it stays tasteful) and are what many would find essential to be free and open source. I think it’s not the worst way to collect initial funding for more complicated products.
You have Beyond All Reason which has both an active development cycle and player base, because it’s basically the best classic RTS available in years.
I don’t have any input as a dav but I do enjoy finding, learning about and playing open source games. There is something about it that I find interesting and although most of them are not great I check back every so often on my favourites.
I think that FOSS games are cool and can often have better hardware support and modding communities, but they often seem to focus on being FOSS rather than being a good game. However, if you can avoid that, making your game FOSS would probably be a good choice as long as you aren’t trying to make heaps of money. Some other FOSS games that I like are minetest and veloren, and classicube is also pretty cool.
I’m a gamer and I love it. Without it I wouldn’t be able to play my favorite such as Open Transport Tycoon or OpenRA. We need more to make old games better.
I really like GNOME’s games. Flightgear is a good project too. But “real games” are usually very large projects that require several thousands of hours of labour so I think open-source is not the way to go for them, unless they choose a paid source code way with the price of a single license set to thousands or even millions of dollars (which is still not a very good way because it can be abused by the original developer)
Deestan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
A game with open source is better than the same game with closed source, basically by definition.
A problem open source games tend to have, is that they often have an overly democratic development process. Art by committee can at best closely resemble another piece of art. It also makes it hard to reject ideas and kick out people who pull in the wrong direction.
The focus also often ends up on the code being presentable rather than the game being engaging. Real games that are made in reasobable time and have the necessary tons of little tweaks and adjustments needed to be fun have HORRENDOUS code as a result. Few developers are willing to settle for that if they know the world will scrutinize their code and judge them for it.
Weslee@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s nice my unreadable code is getting the attention it deserves