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Is Open Source An Advantage For Game Developers?

Posted by timothy on from the if-they-want-to-be-in-debian-it-is dept.

chas7926 writes "OSNews.com is running an article that claims that the open source development model is not a very effective way to develop high quality games. Even the exceptions are not much of a threat to major label products. Does open source development only make sense for products like web servers and operating systems?"

11 of 493 comments (clear)

  1. Why is Frozen Bubble used as an example? by tgd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I mean its a pretty slick polished game, but its a direct knock off of a game thats been around for ages.

    No creativity in game design, just in artwork.

    I've seen a lot of slick opensource games (Super Tux is really coming along, too), but they're all derivatives or direct clones of existing games.

    Where is the real creativity?

    1. Re:Why is Frozen Bubble used as an example? by j-pimp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For an original game, that means you'll need a good idea (pretty rare in itself), a rudimentary (or better) engine -- that you'll have to code yourself, plus sufficiently well designed graphics and sound to get people interested.

      Well Carmack has release the engines for Doom, Quake, and Quake II. Granted their not state fo the art, but I still enjoy a good game of Doom deathmatch. Also look at all the features that are supported by doom these days. OpenGL, mouse look, jumping (from a standstill), and more. Sure most of the creative doom and quake mods are simply counterstrike clones, but they are perfectly good engines that you could make an original game with. The diversity of games cloned with the4 engines prove that.

      --
      --- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
  2. FOSS developers don't tend to be gamers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anybody ever consider that? FOSS is about scratching an itch, the drive to solve a problem. Gaming is about recreation. After an hour of Vice City you're ready to work again. I think it's for the same reason we don't see that many open-source films or CD's.

    1. Re:FOSS developers don't tend to be gamers by Nos. · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But at the same time, there's the mod community that does produce open source work for a lot of games. I guess this could be called scratching an itch as well, since they see something lacking in a game.

  3. Re:Different Exceptions by jellybear · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't forget Cannonsmash, the best table tennis simulation I've yet to see.

    http://cannonsmash.sourceforge.net/

  4. quite true ! by phreakv6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    very true... the main reason i think is coz a game is not very usable until it reaches the final stage hence there are less hackers interested in working on it.. but if its a product like an instant messenger.. we have a basic product with basic features on top of which hackers would implement features like archiving,adding a new protocol,new buddy icons etc. thereby making a better product... its only the hacker-attractive products that become very successful open-source projects.Check out the top 10 in sourceforge and you will know what i mean.

    --
    fifteen jugglers, five believers
  5. Contents-driven development by News+for+nerds · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Today, rather than in hardcoded programming source code, heart of games gets more and more outsourced to script, texture, polygon model, FMV, and so on done by artists - which can't be Open Source in its nature. You may ask Creative Commons License for such artworks, but I don't think it can be generarized and viable for games, let alone GPL among Open Source licenses.

  6. Re:"One play" games are the problem here. by syrion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The game industry isn't struggling. At all. Recently Interplay has gone under, and Acclaim is bankrupt, and Atari looks shaky, but these are by no means general indicators of weakness in the market. Think of it as the "crap games tax."

  7. Re:It might not be open source... by ricotest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Open source still works on the coding front. How about Crystal Space which supports everything from portals and volumetric fog to XML levels and ODE-based physics?

    Level design can be done the same way. Something like CUBE's multiplayer, online level editor would allow anyone to drop by and improve the levels.

    But unlike a general purpose application with obvious goals, games are carried by the vision of one or two people usually - and the essence of 'collaboration' is marred by this leadership. Usually everyone ends up with their own idea for how the game should develop, and without the monetary incentive or a healthy relationship, random groups of skilled coders or artists can easily fail to produce anything. Which explains all of those empty Sourceforge projects.

  8. Re:Digital artists are needed by BenjyD · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldn't say that creating artwork is any more difficult *to an artist* than coding is to a coder. I just think that not so many artists are either aware of or prepared to work for an open source project.

  9. Re:Oh please! by Alioth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It should not take me 30-60 minutes post installation to get most of the features I've listed above.

    OK, let's compare installing Windows XP with Fedora Core 2 here (I choose FC2, because I installed it over my XP partition last night).

    Installing Windows XP:
    0. Insert disk. Wait for it to churn. Let it reboot (automatically). Enter language and network settings.

    So now it's installed. This is what has to be done next.
    1. Install service packs/security fixes (3 hours, but unattended).
    2. Log in when it's done. Download and install latest NVidia drivers (10 minutes).
    3. Download and install drivers for my HP printer (10 minutes).
    4. Install sound drivers.
    5. Install commercial DVD playing software (10 minutes, including fiddling to make it see the DVD drive which for some reason it didn't by default).

    So Windows has already taken 3 hrs 20 minutes after installation. It WON'T sync with iPods/iPaqs by default until I:
    6. Install some software to do so (depending on the device) - probably 10-15 minutes.

    With Fedora Core 2.
    0. Install FC2. One reboot.
    1. Double click on the little red exclamation mark to fetch updates (45 minutes but unattended).
    2. Install NVidia drivers. (10 minutes - no reboot required).
    3. Discover I don't have to worry about the printer because the FC2 installer picked it up.
    4. Install two RPMs (one for Xine and one for libdvdcss) to play DVDs (10 minutes).
    5. Copy (no, not re-install) - just copy because there's no registry madness - the game I was playing on RedHat 8 (Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory).

    The thing is OSS gets held to a higher standard. Most people never install Windows or the drivers because it all comes pre-installed. If you actually install Windows XP from scratch, it really is no easier than a recent desktop Linux distro, and takes considerably longer due to the size of the security updates - which only cover the base OS.

    On Windows, I would now have had to install all the other things (an office suite for example) that just come by default with a good desktop oriented Linux distro.

    If you're installing both OSes from scratch - and therefore comparing like with like - you'll find it's considerably more effort to get a useful Windows install - I wager to get all those features you're after, even ignoring the time to patch the OS so it won't get owned in minutes, you'll spend at least half an hour installing drivers and rebooting. The last Windows XP install I did (for work - build an image for a fairly standard PC, with no unusual hardware) was well over half an hour installing drivers just to make the basic hardware - the ethernet card (not detected by Windows XP), the video card (a common as muck Intel chipset that comes with most business desktops - not detected by XP), the sound hardware (again, very common sound hardware - but not detected by XP) and mainboard chipset (a standard Intel chipset - not detected by XP!). The Knoppix disk I use to run our "factory" disk ghost imaging of the 70-odd machines we're deoploying on the other hand recognises all of this hardware. Linux has supported the hardware in these boxes (with the exception of the Broadcom ethernet hardware) for years. Of course, the normal user doesn't see this because they buy the machine with Windows XP pre-installed from Hewlett-Packard.

    The irony is the fact that Linux supports so much hardware out of the box and Windows doesn't is partly because manufacturers don't support Linux, therfore the community has to write OSS tools for syncing with Palms and phones and printer drivers - and as these are OSS too, they get put on the Linux distro install disks so they are there ready for you on a default install, whereas with a fresh Windows install you're having to go through a pile of driver CDs to make your devices work because Microsoft doesn't have the freedom to put this on their XP installation disk.

    There are many criticisms that can be

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows