Actually that's not true at all;) A lot of the games played competitively (esp. those based on the quake engine) have the ability to record and playback games for postgame analysis. Games like wolfenstein (http://www.clanbase.com/rating.php?lid=984) have a spectator mode which lets you roam freely and observe/record the game - with many top clans releasing demos/recordings of their games (www.clanbase.com).
Bani who produce the very popular ET Pro competition mod for wolfenstein (http://bani.anime.net/etpro/) have been working on "ET TV", a broadcast mechanism for the game which will let players tune in and watch the top teams fight it out live - complete with comentators (on shoutcast), cameramen and editors who select the best shots to watch.
Unfortunately there are patent issues in broadcasting games over the internet which may scupper the ET TV project:(
Of course, it is a niche - but for anyone thinking there isn't a demand for this kind of thing... I suggest you try playing competative games;)
I have thought for a while that they games market has become commoditised. Like toothpaste, washing powder, soap and other commodity markets, there's not that much difference in the products - it's just about packaging and marketing.
It's not that games can't be creative and innovative - on the contrary, I think we still have much left to see;)
However the industry as it stands does not make it easy for people to experiment and try ideas and failures in the market place are unforgiving for indie developers. Rather I think we will see innovation in games coming from outside the industry, quite possibly from academic circles (e.g. liquid narrative - http://liquidnarrative.csc.ncsu.edu/)
I certainly hope games can be more innovative than other commodity markets - not much creativity in creating a new bar of soap I think
I disagree that the open source model can't produce a good game. Actually I think the games would benefit from the bazaar approach, and stop the endless flow of lacklustre 'me too' games which are currently available. I would like to see people experiment and play around with new artistic and game play ideas. There are certainly people out there who are interested in pushing the boundaries of gameplay (ludology.org, experimental-gameplay.org) but in this very risk adverse industry the progress is shockingly slow and defensive. And that is precisely where I feel open source can and should lead the way.
The problem, as Shawn Hargreaves alluded to in his article, is there is no decent environment or support to try out new ideas in the OS community (actually there is very little homogenity in the idustry as well;) However, there certainly have been some very successful mods of commercial games (Counter Strike for example), which shows what can be done by talented enthusiasts given the right tools.
One of the things I would like to see to assist the OS gaming effort is some kind of repositry for OS gaming assets (sound effects, models, textures, etc). A sourceforge for non-code related things. There is the 'Gamasutra Exchange' program, however this is aimed at commercial projects, and of course the 'creative commons' project which is a step in the right direction.
However to be useful the data would have to be available in some kind of portable format so it could be imported into the game engine format easily, and so engine independent tools could be developed.
I think we won't see many decent open source games until we can cut the programmers out of the loop;) Hey wait, that's my job... doh!
That's ironic, because I have always thought that the values which seem to be central to the open source community (liberty, self expression, etc) are ones which have also been leitmotif of the more artistically inclined long before computers ever existed.
There may be few artists in the open source community, but I feel generally there are far more 'artists' contributing to the public domain than there are programmers. Skins are a good example of artist contribution to the public commons (for example www.themes.org, www.skinz.org). Maybe there are no 'true' successful open source games, but 'Counter Strike' was a tremediously successful mod for HL.
Looks like the talent is active and out there, just the two communities don't seem to speak to each other;)
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Actually that's not true at all ;) A lot of the games played competitively (esp. those based on the quake engine) have the ability to record and playback games for postgame analysis. Games like wolfenstein (http://www.clanbase.com/rating.php?lid=984) have a spectator mode which lets you roam freely and observe/record the game - with many top clans releasing demos/recordings of their games (www.clanbase.com).
Bani who produce the very popular ET Pro competition mod for wolfenstein (http://bani.anime.net/etpro/) have been working on "ET TV", a broadcast mechanism for the game which will let players tune in and watch the top teams fight it out live - complete with comentators (on shoutcast), cameramen and editors who select the best shots to watch.
Unfortunately there are patent issues in broadcasting games over the internet which may scupper the ET TV project :(
Of course, it is a niche - but for anyone thinking there isn't a demand for this kind of thing ... I suggest you try playing competative games ;)
I have thought for a while that they games market has become commoditised. Like toothpaste, washing powder, soap and other commodity markets, there's not that much difference in the products - it's just about packaging and marketing. It's not that games can't be creative and innovative - on the contrary, I think we still have much left to see ;)
However the industry as it stands does not make it easy for people to experiment and try ideas and failures in the market place are unforgiving for indie developers. Rather I think we will see innovation in games coming from outside the industry, quite possibly from academic circles (e.g. liquid narrative - http://liquidnarrative.csc.ncsu.edu/)
I certainly hope games can be more innovative than other commodity markets - not much creativity in creating a new bar of soap I think
I disagree that the open source model can't produce a good game. Actually I think the games would benefit from the bazaar approach, and stop the endless flow of lacklustre 'me too' games which are currently available. I would like to see people experiment and play around with new artistic and game play ideas. There are certainly people out there who are interested in pushing the boundaries of gameplay (ludology.org, experimental-gameplay.org) but in this very risk adverse industry the progress is shockingly slow and defensive. And that is precisely where I feel open source can and should lead the way.
The problem, as Shawn Hargreaves alluded to in his article, is there is no decent environment or support to try out new ideas in the OS community (actually there is very little homogenity in the idustry as well
One of the things I would like to see to assist the OS gaming effort is some kind of repositry for OS gaming assets (sound effects, models, textures, etc). A sourceforge for non-code related things. There is the 'Gamasutra Exchange' program, however this is aimed at commercial projects, and of course the 'creative commons' project which is a step in the right direction.
However to be useful the data would have to be available in some kind of portable format so it could be imported into the game engine format easily, and so engine independent tools could be developed.
I think we won't see many decent open source games until we can cut the programmers out of the loop
That's ironic, because I have always thought that the values which seem to be central to the open source community (liberty, self expression, etc) are ones which have also been leitmotif of the more artistically inclined long before computers ever existed.
;)
There may be few artists in the open source community, but I feel generally there are far more 'artists' contributing to the public domain than there are programmers. Skins are a good example of artist contribution to the public commons (for example www.themes.org, www.skinz.org). Maybe there are no 'true' successful open source games, but 'Counter Strike' was a tremediously successful mod for HL.
Looks like the talent is active and out there, just the two communities don't seem to speak to each other