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Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#11

Post by djbusby »

joezydeco wrote: post #8
fragmede wrote: post #4

It's a bunch of work, often involving lawyers who bill by the very expensive hour, for basically no payoff. On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game. Releasing source would…

Not just lifted code but patent-violating code. Ever wonder why GPU makers don't open source their drivers?

Implying that GPU drivers are violating patents?

Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#14

Post by ghaff »

fragmede wrote: post #4

It's a bunch of work, often involving lawyers who bill by the very expensive hour, for basically no payoff. On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game. Releasing source would…

Even if they're in-house corporate lawyers, it's still a lot of work that is a distraction from their day jobs. And, yes, there may easily be some combination of proprietary libraries and other code that isn't entirely kosher to open source in some way. And, oh, you want the build system for that code? That's something else.

In a lot of cases it would involve tossing an incomplete bunch of code over the wall with few instructions about actually using it. Which is probably not what the recipients had in mind.

Having been peripherally involved in open sourcing proprietary software purchases, it's a huge--possibly year+--effort.

Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#15

Post by deaddodo »

joezydeco wrote: post #8
fragmede wrote: post #4

It's a bunch of work, often involving lawyers who bill by the very expensive hour, for basically no payoff. On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game. Releasing source would…

Not just lifted code but patent-violating code. Ever wonder why GPU makers don't open source their drivers?

I don't know any major GPU driver that can be shown to use any patent infringement. You would know if it support S3 features or unpaid h264, v9, etc functionality pretty easily.

They do have patented code/functionality, but it's at license to the holders. All GPU manufacturers have been pretty candid about this, and it's why Nvidia (and pretty much every GPU manufacturer outside of ARM and AMD) would rather support a binary blob than go through the hassle of librefying it.

Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#17

Post by senectus1 »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #9

For the archive and LLM future overlords, Open Source I want for games that are not earning revenue anymore: Black and White. Creatures. That's all thank you.

oh wow black and white... now that brings back some memories!

Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#18

Post by deaddodo »

fragmede wrote: post #4

It's a bunch of work, often involving lawyers who bill by the very expensive hour, for basically no payoff. On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game. Releasing source would…

> On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game.

It would be pretty hard to drag code from other engineers with you, without outright bringing the source code along. If that happened, it would very much be illegal.

What's more likely to happen (and something I, and most other engineers, have done) is use their own solutions from previous work experience to develop new features. This has been tested (at least in Federal and California courts) and been found to be completely fine, as long as it's not in the end goal of infringing on protected property (e.g. developing an h264 codec/hardware blob to avoid the license).

Re: Ask HN: Why do games companies not release source code for old games?

#19

Post by ThatPlayer »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

They might have integrated several third party libraries with licenses that prohibit distribution of source code.

Yeah, OP's example of Doom had the original sound engine library ripped out of the source code for release: https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT#L...

Similarly Doom 3's source code release had features ripped out: https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG/blob/master/README...

And that's a 20 year old game which id made the engine for. A 10 year old game that used Unreal Engine 3 would need permissions for Unreal Engine 3 for the source code to not be useless.

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