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Spurn the computer game industry

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Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#31

Post by RandomOpinion »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #15
jim-greer wrote: post #12

Why does it matter if games are free software? I don't see why they should free as in beer - developers need to get paid. As for being open source, it depends on why you think that’s important. To me, the goals of open source are: - Make sure that you aren't building your business on top of proprietary software. This isn’t relevant for gamers. - To increase the productivity of all software developers. This is achieve…

Because it makes for better games. To me the golden era of gaming was about 10 years ago. Game engines weren't designed to make Hollywood blockbusters (see the current Battlefield engine and series). They were easily moddable. Maybe not surprisingly from that era came Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, Desert Combat (the precursor to Battlefield 2) and mods you've never heard of like Tribes Football which anticip…

You're looking at the past through rose colored glasses. Most games of a decade ago did not have a mod scene. Those few that did either had active / tacit support from the developer or were loved enough that fans did the work of reverse engineering them.

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#33

Post by aaron-lebo »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #31
aaron-lebo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes for better games. To me the golden era of gaming was about 10 years ago. Game engines weren't designed to make Hollywood blockbusters (see the current Battlefield engine and series). They were easily moddable. Maybe not surprisingly from that era came Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, Desert Combat (the precursor to Battlefield 2) and mods you've never heard of like Tribes Football which anticip…

You're looking at the past through rose colored glasses. Most games of a decade ago did not have a mod scene. Those few that did either had active / tacit support from the developer or were loved enough that fans did the work of reverse engineering them.

Yes, and my point is that all of that happend without the tacit support of the developer. People were willing to do that for free with no ownership.

Now if they could take what they created and own it (and really own it, not just rent tech via licensing) and have a profitable business model going forward, there's no telling what that would do for the gaming industry as a whole.

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#34

Post by merlish »

I guess the author must not agree, but I honestly consider video games more as interactive art than software.

There are several great open source games. And older games that went open source after the fact (id engine et al).

Spurning the industry seems a bit like saying: Hey movie industry - I've already got enough films, thanks, you don't need to make any more. Or telling writers that there are already enough books.

(FWIW, I hope to make a living from creating video games one day. I'd feel hypocritical not to buy games I want, and try to content myself with a selection of older FOSS games.)

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#35

Post by jakebasile »

This article boils down to "stop liking things I don't like!". I play games for the fun of it, not for the ideology of their licensing.

> Most commercial computer games are not only proprietary software, but also require proprietary platforms such as Microsoft Windows and Steam. This means you do not have the ability to understand or maintain your computer.

I understand my gaming machine very well. I don't often dive into the code behind my Linux boxes, or look up the Darwin source for my Mac either. Having access to source isn't required for running and maintaining a system.

> Most commercial computer games require very powerful computers.

False, check out LowSpecGamer[1] or the Potato Masher PC build[2]. Many PC games are quite capable of running on a wide range of hardware, you may have to turn down rendering resolution. The most popular genre of games today (MOBAs) are known to run on quite old hardware. The claim that you must buy a GPU more expensive than an entire laptop is disingenuous as well; an example is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050ti[3] which can run many modern games at 1080p quite well and costs about $160.

> gaming-hardware-fetish-industry where people spend all their disposable income on bullshit such as graphics cards that cost as much as a laptop.

What I spend my money on and get enjoyment from is my own business. I enjoy reading about and sometimes purchasing new hardware. You might see it as a waste of time and money, but I do not or else I wouldn't do it.

> that means they don't require bullshit like Windows and Steam

I am not a big fan of Windows, but it gets the job done. Steam is an excellent source of games and is a big part of why PC gaming is in such a good place right now.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQkd05iAYed2-LOmhjzDG6g

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZR-a35sxLg

[3]: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/gefor...

edit: more info about hardware

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#36

Post by BoorishBears »

xabotage wrote: post #17
BoorishBears wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why the author is so fixated on OSS games as opposed to more open (or at least easily accessible) tools. I mentioned something similar in my comment, but I don't see why a publisher spending millions on development is going to allow the developers to open source their game. What's more realistic is that money that's being spent on development also funnels into tools so that everyone can reap the benefits…

I agree with a focus on open tools. Luckily, there seems to be quite a few OSS game development tools out there, which is why Unity and Unreal now give away their full platforms for "free". That being said, I'm highly skeptical of the "openness" of those platforms, which is why I can't quite bring myself to abandon Blender as a game engine, even though it is somewhat inferior. The problem is, now that Unreal and Unit…

Unreal is open source.

Unity is making commitments to open source and is open sourcing more of their tech but open source remains a very very expensive option only for AAA teams.

Open engines like Godot and Irrlicht are still around even with all that happening. Sometimes the building blocks to build a AAA game engine are still somewhat closed (due to licenses on platform SDKs or 3rd party libraries) but overall you can make some pretty advanced game engines using openly available graphics techniques.

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#38

Post by gambiting »

This is probably the stupidest thing that I read all day, and I work in the games industry. It's like me getting upset that there are companies making ferraris or mclarens, because I can't afford one, or because Ferrari only sells to a pre filtered list of clients and not just anyone off the street. Or getting upset that new movies are released on Blu-Ray, when you don't have a Blu-Ray player, even though DVD copies are still available.

Games are made for systems people have, not the other way around. The only thing that could make people switch en-masse to Linux for games would be to release latest Fifa or CoD on that platform and on nothing else. Of course, for EA it would be like killing a goose that lays golden eggs, so why would they.

I was recently told that we should develop our games for Linux. And while I agree with the sentiment, the truth is that if the game has a PS4/X1/PC version, then PC version will be 5% if not less of all sales - it doesn't make any financial sense to spend time on various sub-segments of the PC market.

As for the comment that you need super expensive PC to play latest games - also nonsense. I have a really old desktop pc, with Core i5-750(which is a 7 year old CPU at this point!!!!) and a GTX750Ti, and it plays any new game, on low-medium settings.

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#39

Post by gambiting »

xabotage wrote: post #11

>Most commercial computer games require very powerful computers. This means that a less-wealthy person cannot play online games with their more-wealthy friends. This is especially a problem for young people, for whom gaming is an important social activity. This. I'd love to try out a variety of fun Half-Life 2 or Quake 3 mods (which all work just fine on an old, low-end laptop running Linux), but everyone I could con…

Overwatch will run on some ancient hardware, just like any other blizzard game. Unless your laptop can literally just about run HL2 and Q3....then I really find it hard to sympathize, things can be expected to run on low and oldish spec, but something that's decade old won't even run Chrome or Firefox smoothly, and games have become more computational intensive, not just because of graphics.

Re: Spurn the computer game industry

#40

Post by current_call »

merlish wrote: post #34

I guess the author must not agree, but I honestly consider video games more as interactive art than software. There are several great open source games. And older games that went open source after the fact (id engine et al). Spurning the industry seems a bit like saying: Hey movie industry - I've already got enough films, thanks, you don't need to make any more. Or telling writers that there are already enough books.…

I've already got enough films, thanks, you don't need to make any more. Or telling writers that there are already enough books.

That is a reasonable opinion.

http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics

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