Where are the Good Open Source Games?

[worker201]

I don't game - I have an SNES emulator and Freecell game on my Mac, but that's about it.  So excuse me if this seems to be somewhat ridiculous.

Why do games have to be proprietary?  Just because they are open source doesn't mean you have to give them away for free.  Let's think about what you're paying for when you drop $50 at the store for a game.  You're not paying for the box, or the disc - that's like $2.  What you are paying for is the artwork, the concept, and the long hard hours it took to make the darn thing, plus a bit of profit all around to all parties.  I suspect that a somewhat restrictive license, saying that you can't redistribute the source in another context, would keep the games safe.  The point of closed source is to protect the game engine and the artwork from being stolen, right?

Here's a metaphorical example.  I have an alarm clock.  It uses simple technology to display red numbers and transmit/amplify radio waves.  On the bottom, there are 4 screws.  I can take the screws out and take the whole thing apart, if I want to.  With a bit of work, I can make the numbers blue instead of red.  Or maybe increase the tuning power of a certain band, to get better reception.  Now, when this clock dies, am I going to make my own clock?  Hell no, that's too much damn work.  It would take me literally hundreds of hours to make my own digital alarm clock from Radio Shack parts, even if I had another clock in front of me as a reference.  My time is worth a whole lot more than the $20 it would take to just buy a new one.

So leave the game open so that developers can port the game, or adjust certain settings, or build their own levels.  Actually, have the source available via CVS, and you have to be a development partner to log into CVS.  That way, you can keep track of who is using the source, and prevent someone from changing tiny things and reselling the game.  And you sell the game in stores - I don't think making the source available would reduce POS sales anymore than piracy already has.  Hell, having Linux available for free over the internet has not hurt retail sales of Linux products at all.

I guess this would be less of an "open source" model than an "available source" model.

One last thing I would like to bring up.  IF selling games was illegal, punishable by death, do you think that game development would stop?  No.  It just so happens that right now, the best and brightest of the developers happen to be getting paid for their work.  But that doesn't mean that game development is dependent on the retail sales market - it merely means that dev is dominated by the retail sales market.  You think these creative geniuses would stop making games if they worked at 7-11?  I really doubt it.  The fact that you can buy nice games in pretty boxes at the store is a side product of the gaming market, not the dominant driving force behind game development in general.

[Refalm]

So leave the game open so that developers can port the game, or adjust certain settings, or build their own levels.  Actually, have the source available via CVS, and you have to be a development partner to log into CVS.  That way, you can keep track of who is using the source, and prevent someone from changing tiny things and reselling the game.  And you sell the game in stores - I don't think making the source available would reduce POS sales anymore than piracy already has.  Hell, having Linux available for free over the internet has not hurt retail sales of Linux products at all.

And this is exactly what game developers don't want. If they make ports, they want to distribute it themselves, either their own distribution, a big distributer (like Atari, Sierra or Activision), or a specialised company in ported games (like Contrabent Entertainment).

[Kintaro]

Click here for the full artical.

And I'd like to add another reason to the debate: game developers can't make money from selling services.

I know some people here disagree with proprietary software but if you eliminated it you would have no games, so what do you think of semi-open source games like Duke Nukem 3D where the source for the exectable is open but the art and aound is all proprietary? Do you think this would be a reasonable compromise?

I think thats perfectly reasonable. Because it costs a lot of money to design artwork and stuff, and unlike software it has little benefits in being open like software.

[Kintaro]

And this is exactly what game developers don't want. If they make ports, they want to distribute it themselves, either their own distribution, a big distributer (like Atari, Sierra or Activision), or a specialised company in ported games (like Contrabent Entertainment).

So John Carmack isn't a game developer, and if he is he never actually released the code he wrote to Wolfenstien, Quake, Doom, etc?

[Kintaro]

Another point with artwork and things, especially Music scores and Sound Effects is the simple fact that even if you find musicians like me who love music and would contribute to an Open Source game for free, you still need recording equipment which can add up into the tens of thousands to get anything that will sound as good as what big companies use. Unlike me, recording equipment doesnt just grow from from a sperm and an egg, and it actually costs money.

[Kintaro]

The workaround would be a not-for-profit studio that works on donations and anybody can come in to record or whatever for free under the condition that they release the work freely.

Bands that are only small and local to an area still often will save their pennys to spend $800-$6,000 dollars (I have some friends in a small local band that spent $15,000 on their latest album) to rent a studio. This is because producers usually like to get paid and because equipment costs money.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Legends is pretty cool. And I love playing a little bit of Chromium B.S.U. and Frozen Bubble.

And Wolfenstein 3D: Enemy Territory isn't Open Source, but it is free and awesome. Download them here:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/

Legends looks a hell of a lot like Tribes 2 ... but that's for the better

[themacuser]

...or FlightGear, for those among us who think Microsoft has the market cornered on flight simulators (I especially like the realtime updating map add-on - try THAT, FS!) :cool:

MSFS is suckage anyway. It's incredibly unrealistic. The only reason people use it is the scenery and graphics are good. X-Plane is awesome - the graphics are catching up, and the realism is excellent.

[MarathoN]

bzflag is one kick-ass free game. Can't wait to get hardware acceleration (Christmas probably) so I can play it some more.

I agree, I've been playing BZFlag for over a year now, and it is one of the best games I have ever played, the graphics are good and simple and the gameplay is very addictive and fun.


Hardware Acceleration in Linux - Can anyone say Nvidia?

What graphics card are you looking to get pP?

[piratePenguin]

Hardware Acceleration in Linux - Can anyone say Nvidia?

NVIDIA cards have good hardware acceleration with the non-free NVIDIA driver. However, NVIDIA doesn't release much documentation for a third party (the DRI guys) to write a free driver with 3D hardware acceleration.

I already have an on-board GeForce 4 MX, which would work fine for bzflag and anything else I run if I installed the non-free NVIDIA driver, which I won't, because I have a not-too-bad and more-exciting alternative:

What graphics card are you looking to get pP?

Probably an ATi radeon 9700 or 9800 Pro, with this experimental free driver. My brother already has a 9800 Pro so I can borrow that and make sure I can play bzflag in it before I buy my own card.

[worker201]

Wow.  You're going to buy a $300 graphics card, and use a driver whose own developers say is dangerous to your hardware, just so you can be completely open source?

Fuck, that's hardcore.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

It's ... not a very bright idea ... I would not recommend ATI ... ever ... and I certainly would not recommend using experimental drivers for it either ... if it meltsdown don't say I didn't warn you ... even the devs warned you

[piratePenguin]

You're going to buy a $300 graphics card

Hm, I hadn't checked prices, but I never expected they'd cost that much. Damn graphics cards aren't depreciating enough these days. I'll be getting whatever I buy second hand anyhow.

There's a 256MB ATi Radeon 9800 Pro going on eBay for

[Pathos]

The nvidia drivers worked perfectly first time for me.

just download and run in text mode, easy.

[Pathos]

Hm, I hadn't checked prices, but I never expected they'd cost that much. Damn graphics cards aren't depreciating enough these days. I'll be getting whatever I buy second hand anyhow.

if you consider how much load they take off your processor they are well worth it for a gaming pc. Latest nvidia card is over $600 US.