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[Shine Klevit]

Well, as of now, I have a pretty significant project going. Something that's well too far in it's infancy to announce, or expect any time soon, but something I am very serious about completing. I originally wanted to simply make the whole thing, and release it entirely free on principle. However, considering the amount of time I'm going to have to spend on it, I'm thinking that'll be an immensely stupid decision. I mean, if it ends up being as good as I want it to be, then it's going to be worth money, so I might as well try to sell it.

With that said, I don't want to give up the idea of releasing the source for it. Not so much that I expect it to be something to brag about, but I feel there are some advantages to this.

1) It more or less immortalizes a game. If it's popular enough, once the source is handed over to the greater community, it allows them to maintain it in ways beyond what I have the time for. I mean, the limit on platforms it can be released on is only limited to how much effort they are willing to put into porting it. Something far too difficult to maintain just on my own time.

2) It allows access by programmers other than myself, programmers who are often much better than me, to spot my own bugs, and other design flaws. It allows suggestions of various improvements that could benefit my game in the long run.

3) It may inspire people to come up with their own ideas, or give them ways they can do similar ideas better. Maybe even open up the door for mods, and various other extensions. I mean, that could also be an amazing tactic to foster creative relationships with talented like-minded developers.

With that said, I am fully aware of the risks involved in doing such in terms of content protection(even though I'm not so naive I don't realize that if somebody really wants your code, they're going to get it anyway), but I'm thinking that the pros outweigh the cons. Plus, I'm a huge fan of the egalitarian aspects of open source software.

However, I just have confidence my content, the real selling point, will be worthy of some sort of compensation. That's why I'm curious about this model. Not to get ahead of myself, I still expect that this project will probably take 3-5 years(and that might be generous) at the very least to complete considering the absolute scope of it. I also haven't looked too much in the details of copyright/licensing to see how it works entirely(something I plan on doing much closer to release). I just thought I'd throw this out there, and see what people think of the idea.

[bateleur]

The first thing to ask yourself might be: Does open-sourcing a game significantly increase piracy?

I think the answer might well be that it doesn't. For very popular games pirate copies are easily obtained. For less popular games, only a tiny fraction of your potential players will even be aware the source has been published and most of those will be principled enough to pay for the game if they plan to play it.

Also, the open sourcing itself might be newsworthy, which could generate additional sales.

[darkhog]

I think opensource engine/paid content is a good strategy. id Software had been doing it for years and piracy of their titles is minimal. It also increases modding possibilities since modders can basically warp game in any way they please.

[oahda]

What about games that don't really lend themselves to modding in a meaningful way? Like perhaps a heavily story-based game or one meant to offer a very specific experience or mood? I wouldn't mind people modding my games, but I honestly can't see why anybody would, that's all. They're not platformers where it'd be fun to build your own levels to jump around on, really. Is it then meaningful to release source at all? Like modding something like Journey, I could absolutely not see the point of that for example.

[darkhog]

What about games that don't really lend themselves to modding in a meaningful way? Like perhaps a heavily story-based game or one meant to offer a very specific experience or mood? I wouldn't mind people modding my games, but I honestly can't see why anybody would, that's all. They're not platformers where it'd be fun to build your own levels to jump around on, really. Is it then meaningful to release source at all? Like modding something like Journey, I could absolutely not see the point of that for example.

Let's say I didn't like ending of said story. Then I can make my own which still somehow fits and distribute it as a mod.

[oahda]

Maybe I should build moddability straight into my engine, heh. Any suggestions on how to do that in a good way?

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

hmmmm... how many people really wants to mod the ending of a game because they didn't like it? don't they just go on and play another game? (if you went till the ending of the game, the game somewhat managed to grab your attention)

[Shine Klevit]

What about games that don't really lend themselves to modding in a meaningful way? Like perhaps a heavily story-based game or one meant to offer a very specific experience or mood? I wouldn't mind people modding my games, but I honestly can't see why anybody would, that's all. They're not platformers where it'd be fun to build your own levels to jump around on, really. Is it then meaningful to release source at all? Like modding something like Journey, I could absolutely not see the point of that for example.

I was more just asking because I'm looking into it from a personal point of view. Not stating that it is necessarily better or worse than any other approach. I think the more options that creators get in ways to release their work the better.

Actually, there is a small sort of episodic free game I'm working on right now that I'm hoping to start releasing within the next few months. Even though it's free, I'm weary about releasing the source alongside the release because it has easter eggs that are very easy to discover simply by looking at the code and that might spoil the fun in finding them. I'm probably going to release it as either partially open and/or release the source for the previous episodes while the new ones come out.

So, there's advantages and disadvantages to everything.

[bdsowers]

Making your code open source doesn't mean it suddenly becomes available for everyone to build it. Build setups are often very tricky things to reproduce... easier with modern tools, but it's still not always a "hit build, watch magic happen." So I guess ask yourself: if you put your code out there, will people *actually* be able to change anything? Or will they just be able to look at your code and... not do anything with it without a ton of work?

Also ask yourself: is the code really the best point of access to mod your game? If your game is heavily content-driven, modding may be more a process of modifying scripts or altering assets than it is actually touching code.

Also also ask yourself: are you using any 3rd party libraries? Keep in mind any licensing restrictions they have. You may not be able to just share them as part of your code without jumping through hoops (or at all).

[Abadox]

Shine Klevit, I pretty much agree with your thoughts on the benefits of open source. I would add that users have a right to know what the software on their computers is doing. Also, just because you open the source doesn't mean you have to release all the assets into the public domain. My feeling is that the perceived benefits of closed source are largely illusory. Like we're somehow afraid that other people are going to profit from our hard work, but I think the only people who are going to look at the source code are other programmers and sharing ideas is part of being a programmer. Just my two cents.