Games: The Boundary Of Open Development?

Clyde writes "Computer games represent an interesting frontier for Open Source development. Unlike other desktop applications, games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work. This discussion with Scott Draeker, president and CEO of Loki Entertainment Software and Jorrit Tyberghein, volunteer project leader for Crystal Space sheds some light."

Comments

Re:Unfortunately true

[Ian Wolf]

Art is important too. The problem with many games is that art (sub: eye-candy) is the basis of the game (Myst). Some games put a premium on their art, and usually pay the consequences. However, there are quite a few that draw from these qualities and make for a much richer experience. There are games out their that achieve a good balance between art and gameplay. Starcraft, European Air War, Rainbow 6, the Quakes, and most of the EASports games, as well as many more examples that I'm leaving out, do an excellent job of mixing good visuals and good gameplay.

BTW my favorite game of all time is the graphically spartan Civ2. I have to admit that sometimes you don't need flashy graphics to make a great game, but they can certainly make it better.

Open Source and 'Open Art' at work

[P_Simm]

Take a look at WorldForge, a fully open-source development project creating a massively multiplayer online gaming system. They already have a very large team of volunteer artists as well as volunteer coders and managers. While discussion has gone on within the project as to what license to use, they are implementing copyright licenses for artwork which allow both reusability, distribution, and editing.

It's been a while since I've had time to watch the development more closely, but it's still a superb example of the potential of open source game development. It's a very highly ambitious project which looks like it can pull off it's goals.

You know what to do with the HELLO.

Unfortunately true

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

"...games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work."

This is true--and unfortunate. Think of all the computer games you've played in your life. Rank them in order of "playability" (judged by how often you replayed). Now look at the top ten: How many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?

For me, the answer is 1 and 0. The only game I've liked enough to keep playing AND that had decent art was Civilization--and some would argue that the art sucked. In any case, the art itself had almost no contribution towards the playability.

Right now I'm hooked on xscorch . The art is pitiful. The game is addictive.

Clearly, YMMV--I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I exist (and I know I'm not the only one). Why is this market not being exploited? Make some good fun games that cost half as much (fire the art staff) as the art-filled wonders that crowd the shelves.
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The problem.

[Matt2000]

The problem with open source initiatives seems to with creativity, and this hurts in game developement the most.

I have yet to see an open source project that is not a clone or a close relative of something that already exists in the world. Perhaps it's done better, but that's not the point.

Open source breeds innovation, not invention and in the world of game design this is death.

My current theory is that new ideas need alot of high-bandwidth discussions, i.e. face to face meetings, to hash out and transfer the idea from one brain to another. Open source projects rarely have this luxury and so perhaps are forced into pointing their efforts at a well understood problem.

Summary: I find it unlikely that an amazing open source game will emerge under the current community conditions.

Hotnutz.com - Funny

Re:this is more of what we need

[Jon Peterson]

"In one area (PC) the best games are the ones left half, or completely, open"

REALLY??? Angband springs to mind as a game that benefited from OS development. Yes, there were some truly nice mods to Quake and Doom.
But,
Day of the Tentacle
Dungeon Keeper
Populous
Elite
X-com series
Civ series
billions of others

They were all very very very closed source. Games are imaginative. Committees don't have good imaginations. OS games generally suck unless they are simply feature-crammed implementations of tried and tested formulas.