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On The Difficulty Of Developing Open Source Games
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Competitive Enterprise Institute essay for discussing lessons learned by looking at the history of open-source games (PDF link, text version as posted to Politech list.) The piece suggests that "generally, games have not been a success story for the open source community", arguing that "...the consensus among gamers and developers is that open source games still lag behind proprietary games in originality, sophistication, and artwork; many are clones of earlier
proprietary or shareware games." It notes that "...the open source business model seems to have trouble coming up with large initial investments at the cutting edge of innovation, where risks are greatest", and then suggests some larger lessons for governmental public policy on open-source software.
Laxius Power is a free SNES-type RPG created by one person in France with RPG Maker.
The website is: http://laxiuspower.fr.st/ and its about 20 megs, and one of the best damn RPGs I have played. If you are a fan of SNES-era rpgs, check this game out. At times it is very difficult, but very fun and rewarding.
... is that the open source mevement lacks good artists, you know, open source apps are usually well-coded but lack a good GUI, in games, good graphics / sounds greatly affect the gaming experience, so developing a good open source game requires programmers (already available) and artists (aren't there yet unfortunately).
The IT section color scheme sucks.
The only reason is because of the artwork and graphics. Programming is easy and many programmers have lots of free time and don't mind working on open source stuffs. That's why software is the primary open source product.
Art and graphics and such take a lot of time, effort, work, etc. Nobody who has the ability to do that stuff well is going to do it for free and release the rights to it in a GPL style license. Especially if they design marketable new characters or make new amazing music. The talented folk who do that stuff well all have jobs doing it for a living. So they sure aren't going to want to do it in their spare time.
Look for open source game engines. You'll find a-plenty of high quality ones. But complete games need artists in addition to programmers. And these types aren't into the open source action. Old games work very well for open source because they are all pixely and you don't need to be a great artists to do them, just a decent one. A programmer who can wield the gimp well can make an old school game. But I'd like to see you make a modern fps at the Half-Life2/Doom3 level with just 3 programmers in a basement. Expensive artists are an absolute requirement.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
http://www.capitalresearch.org/search/orgdisplay.a sp?Org=CEI200
The CEI appears to be a pro-business lobbying organization. Their donors list is a who's-who of US automobile and oil companies.
The article referenced can be summed up as: "There aren't very many open source games, therefore governments shouldn't open source code they pay to have written and shouldn't have procurement policies that prefer open source code." No real effort is made at connecting the thesis and conclusion. (Governments don't buy many games--America's Army aside.)
I'm not certain why a very minor article from a propaganda organization would be considered newsworthy.
Most people can't afford to develop games full time without getting paid. The software industry has become more mature in figuring out ways to make people buy games. People who do want to develop games as a hobby tend to use ready made editors. The Warcraft 3 editor is extremely powerful and can make games well beyond the RTS genre. These "new games" are open source by default but can be protected if you really want to (most people don't). Many people downright encourage manipulation of source (check out wardraft for example).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
In addition to the extreme cost of producing media for games such as artwork and sound, there's also the problem of legal threats. A lot of game companies try to bully small and open source game producers into shutting down their projects. Hasbro has done this dozens of times, taking their small competitors to court, losing because ideas aren't protected by copyright, and appealing until the defendant gives up or go bankrupt.
An example of an open source game being bullied to death is FreeCraft, a great WarCraft II clone developed by fans primarily because WarCraft II doesn't run on Linux or Windows, and Blizzard showed no intention to port it. Despite the fact that it encourages you to buy a copy of the game to rip the tilesets from, Blizzard shut them down earlier this year by threatening to sue. Since most non-business oriented open source projects aren't backed by money, the developers had no choice but to give up on the well matured project, despite having a a good chance of winning if they had gone to court.
Unless you're inventing an entirely new genre, you'd be taking a big risk developing an open source game these days.
This "report" is filled with all sorts of wonderful crap, isn't it?
Furthermore, some of the political support for building preferences for open source into the process comes from anti-Microsoft sentiment...
Perhaps it's more a matter of the government being wary of being completely and utterly dependent on a company who makes products riddled with security holes and has already been found guilty of illegal market practices.
GMD
watch this
The amount of creative conflict present in a team increases exponentially with the number of people on the team; thus, without a clear leader who can hire and fire, large "open source" teams will never be able to resolve their creative differences.
Image 25 people trying to paint a painting. Without a single vision, such an effort is doomed to fail, which is why knockoffs are common among open source and freeware games; they're easy to agree on, and have a functioning prototype sitting right there. Game mods succeed for the same reason; it's easy to agree on how to take something and vary it, much harder to agree on what to build from the ground up.
It's creative differences, not talent or tech needs, that keep open source teams from succeeding.
People comparing how "open source" or "free software" has failed compared proprietary software are performing a non sequitor. It's like saying Susan B. Anthony failed to live up to the standards of attractiveness compared to women in her day. Of course! That's the whole point--feminism wasn't about bettering oneself in the eyes of common feminine mores, it was about rejecting those mores. Correspondingly, free software is about rejection of the proprietary model, it isn't just another business model.
People can and do make money by centering their business on free software, but the success or failure of these companies is not the metric by which free software should be judged. Rather, it is entirely incidental.
The real question is, "Have we formed an alternative to proprietary software?" And I think the answer is Yes, we have. Now, I'll be the first to admit that most free games lack the sophistication of their proprietary brethren, but this is not very important for two reasons. First, these are games. It's not like forcing me to use proprietary products to submit a resume or file my tax return. Secondly, and this is related to the first point, most games lack "network" effects. You pick up the game, play it, and buy a better one a few months down the road. There is no vendor lock-in. Each game is a new creature.
... they draw in sketchbooks, paint, sculpt, design web pages, or any other of a variety of personal artistic projects.
now the question then becomes: "well what of the CG artists who have an itch to scratch?" well, many of them opt to create their own highly detailed renderings, or digital paintings, or even make their own animated shorts. there is far more artistry at your fingertips when you are not constrained by the limitations of a realtime graphics engine.
"ok, ok, but what about the miniscule subset of artists who both work on computers and have some odd fixation on creating graphics for games, and have an itch to scratch because they aren't working in the games industry?" Well, they have their outlets, such as making add-on artwork for professional quality games, or perhaps contributing artwork to one of the many many mod projects out there.
"ok, ok, but what about the hypothetical subset of artists who work on computers, have some odd fixation on creating graphics for games, have an itch to scratch because they aren't working, don't mind subjecting their creativity to my ideas while working on my pet OSS game project, and share in the ethos of open source software?"
So is this starting to make sense to you guys yet?
Discalimer: I am a computer scientist and a former professional video game artist, so I might know what I'm talking about.
I disagree with OS games not being original. Liquid Wars won Happy Penguin's "Most Original Linux Game 2002", and is IMO on of the most original games I've ever played.
Just my 2 cents
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First off, it is true that open-source games lack a lot of the glitz and spectacle of closed-source games. But that's actually not relevant. Look at a great open-source game like armagetron. My non-geek friends love this thing. Everyone I've introduced it to gets hooked on it. But it's really nothing more than "Worms" done right with great gameplay.
Armagetron, in my opinion, is like "The Blair Witch Project". They are both the work of talented amateurs. Armagetron will never be Doom 3, but Blair Witch will never be Waterworld. The great thing about open-source games is the same as ultra-low-budget moviemaking: the barriers for entry are so low that anyone can cross over. No one will make Doom 3 or Waterworld that way. But I for one liked Blair Witch better than Waterworld. And while I'm not prepared to say I'll like Doom 3 less than Armagetron, I do think there is a strong niche for light, cheap, well-made games. I mean, honestly, if it were all about the frills, who would still bother playing chess?
This could be its own Ask Slashdot post, but it seems relevant enough here. It's clear why Linux makes people money. Because it's not trivial to put together a distribution, people will pay for one. People will also pay for support. And Linus gets paid to do speeches. It's clear why things like Zope or JBoss make money. Because it's not trivial to build a website, people will pay someone else to do it or they'll pay for training. It's clear how a multiplayer game could make money. Sell subscriptions to access the servers hosting the game. But a single-player game seems the most contradictory to an open source model. People buy the game and essentially throw it away (as a couple other posters have mentioned). If others can just redistribute the game for free and undercut the cost of the original developer, then the developer has no incentive to produce the game in the first place. And the better the game is, the less money you would make, because the game would spread that much faster. I'm trying to get into game development, and I can see only three reasons for making open source software: I think I can make a game that's so great that other people want to advertise on my site. I think I can make a game that's so great people will want to buy t-shirts and hats. Or I think I can make a game that's good enough that a company will hire me--to help make a proprietarty game! Can someone dispute this?
the most insightful post in the thread.
The best way to make money is to create a commercial game, and build an edit module so that the user community can build their own rooms and levels. Not unlike Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, and others.
Thus, your game is not "disposable" when finished - the commercial game serves as an education for amateur developers, who then make new content (for free).
Next, develop a moderating system for the user-created content (to weed out the crappy stuff), and see what floats to the top.
Once people stop buying the commercial game, open source the engine. This would be ideal, as you would have:
1) achieved profitability
2) a large user base
3) alot of pre-developed content and artwork
4) an enhanced reputation among the gaming community (everybody loves Bioware after NwN and KOTOR. Just imagine how cool they would be if they open-sourced these games in a couple of years!!)
5) "ideas" from open source developers to use in your next commercial engine (or even hire the best developers outright)
Sell T-shirts and hats to cover your bandwidth costs after giving away the farm, and you are money.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
As everyone knows, Open Source software is the wave of the future. With the market share of GNU/Linux and *BSD increasing every day, interest in Open Source Software is at an all time high.
Developing software within the Open Source model benefits everyone. People can take your code, improve it and then release it back to the community. This cycle continues and leads to the creation of far more stable software than the 'Closed Source' shops can ever hope to create.
So you're itching to create that Doom 3 killer but don't know where to start? Read on!
2. First Steps
The most important thing that any Open Source project needs is a Sourceforge page. There are tens of thousands of successful Open Source projects on Sourceforge; the support you receive here will be invaluable.
OK, so you've registered your Sourceforge project and set the status to '0: Pre-Thinking About It', what's next?
3. Don't Waste Time!
Now you need to set up your SourceForge homepage. Keep it plain and simple - don't use too many HTML tags, just knock something up in VI. Website editors like FrontPage and DreamWeaver just create bloated eye-candy - you need to get your message to the masses!
4. Ask For Help
Since you probably can't program at all you'll need to try and find some people who think they can. If your project is a game you'll probably need an artist too. Ask for help on your new Sourceforge pages. Here is an example to get you started:
Thousands of talented programmers and artists hang out at Sourceforge ready to devote their time to projects so you should get a team together in no time!
5. The A-Team
So now you have your team together you are ready to change your projects status to '1: Pre-Bickering'. You will need to discuss your ideas with your team mates and see what value they can add to the project. You could use an Instant Messaging program like MSN for this, but since you run Linux you'll have to stick to e-mail.
Don't forget that YOU are in charge! If your team doesn't like the idea of giant robotic spiders just delete them from the project and move on. Someone else can fill their place and this is the beauty of Open Source development. The code might end up a bit messy and the graphics inconsistant - but it's still 'Free as in Speech'!
6. Getting Down To It
Now that you've found a team of right thinking people you're ready to start development. Be prepared for some delays though. Programming is a craft and can take years to learn. Your programmer may be a bit rusty but will probably be writing hello world programs after school in no time.
Closed Source games like Doom 3 use the graphics card to do all the hard stuff anyhow, so your programmer will just have to get the NVidia 'API' and it will be plain sailing! Giant robot spiders, here we come!
7. The Outcome
So it's been a few years, you still have no files released or in CVS. Your programmer can't get enough time on the PC because his mother won't let him use it after 8pm. Your artist has run off with a Thai She-Male. Your project is still at '1: Pre-Bickering'...
Congratulations! You now have a successful Open Source project on Sourceforge! Pat yourself on the back, think up another idea and do it all again! See how simple it is?
The reason why open source games can't compete with big-budget titles is because corporate game houses have a small army of best-of-breed artists, designers and coders (and marketing sheep). The OSS collective has a handful of genius kernel hackers and network engineers, and a bazillion lazy perl/php monkeys. Let's face it, we're better than the unwashed masses but we suck as a whole when it comes to coordinated effort. Look at the biggest most successful OSS projects: most were made by a single person slaving for weeks/months, the rest of us just provide feedback, occasional patches etc. And then there's a hundred clones that never seem to get finished.
There's also the issue of survival: game developers get paid to work 80+ hours a week exclusively on their title. We have day jobs and do this stuff as a hobby. A true indie game programmer has to be either a 16 year old that doesn't go to school and lives with his parents (no job), or someone in-between jobs that has enough savings to live for a few months. Even then, just one person can't create Quake 4. It takes years of man-hours to get it done, and it happens to be quite difficult to get a bunch of unemployed talented game developers and artists together at any one time.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Games aren't like any other piece of software, in that, as a class of software, they exhibit two qualities that most other software doesn't:
Writing big games as Open Source typically doesn't work out for the above two reasons. Developers want to sink their time into software development projects that are going to be somewhat lasting -- something they can contribute to over long periods of time, and continually refine.
But you can only refine a game so much. I'm sure there are all sorts of optimizations you can add to Pac Man, but no matter how much you debug it and modify its routines, in the end it's still the same game, and won't ever hold the same popularity it did in the early 80's. Pac Man with cutting edge graphics is still Pac Man. Gamers want something new to play -- constantly and consistently.
Most Open Source developers, in my experience, want to work on more important software -- stuff that will be useful to people for years to come, to which they can add new features and continually improve upon. Games simply don't fit will into this sort of development model.
(Plus, of course, I completely agree with all the previous posters who pointed out that artists and musicians/audio engineers are typically exceedingly difficult to find for Open Source development. Heck, for my project I once asked a graphic artist I knew who owed me a favour to put together four 40x40 icon graphics -- and they refused because I wasn't going to pay them (nevermind the fact that the week before I starred in their art film for nothing...grumble grumble grumble...)).
Yaz.
Maybe...but then again, one could argue that Shakespeare synthesized new plays from material that was available then; from what I've seen from at least some of the sources for some of his plays, there are enough differences between what Shakespeare wrote as a play, and what the sources Shakespeare probably used actually said, that Shakespeare's stuff comes across as mostly original and unique.
Music has a similar problem: yes, musicians can borrow either theme or sample from an existing work (or body of works), but generally their new syntheses of those themes and samples turn out to be different and unique from the original source(s).
I do think it's a difference in mentality between artists and OSS, but I think it's less to do with artists not having their own 'open soucre community' and more to do with them not realizing the benefits of doing things for free. :-)
Advertising, being one of the biggies: I'm sure there are more than a few 'starving' artists who would not be 'starving' if people saw their work...but, if the galleries in the artists' city don't display their work for whatever reason, what are the artists to do?
Alternatively, if those same 'starving' artists did some original artwork for a OSS game or two, their work would be more visible quicker than if they waited for some gallery to display their work. True, the artists might not hit the right audience, but they would be more likely to hit any audience...
(Besides, the artists-in-question might find they like drawing dragons and gun-toting demons more than they like drawing portraits and bowls of fruit. :-) )
Same goes for music. Yes, you aren't going to be monetarily compensated for the work created for OSS (at least, not typically); on the other hand, you get increased visibility and potentially new legions of fans and word of mouth...:-) Fair trade, I think.
And advertising's just one example; there are a lot of things you could do within a trade/barter system. Money is not the only way to pay for things; maybe an OSS game programmer/designer could offer the artist computings services (website design, e-mail account, server space, etc.) in exchange for some original artwork for the programmer's game. That stuff is useful, and doesn't come cheap. Again, I would think that's a fair trade...
OSS needs to do a better job of playing up the values of 'free as in beer'. :-)
My $0.02...
tigermonkey