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As someone who got to be quite good at Red Alert back in the late 1900's, I look forward to taking a look. While the commercial value of the code dropped to about 0 over a decade ago (or did it?), eventual release of source code is better than never releasing source code.
I laughed at "1900's" — technically, you could have gone with "1000's" just as well :)
I'm curious about how this is allowed under GPL. Are you allowed to link GPL'd code against a closed source codebase? Shouldn't they be releasing the whole thing?
One of the best things that could happen to the gaming landscape would be if companies like EA and similar learned from Microsoft's move to open sourcing more software and involving the community more gives them a lot more goodwill and business as a side-effect. And then us gamers get more long-lived games as a benefit as well.
Imagine if Bungie open-sourced Destiny and Destiny 2.
Sure, you don't have to buy the game anymore to get the software, but they also don't have to let you onto their immersive and highly moderated and orchestrated servers. They can offer their own signed builds that you need to access the official universe.
So you could still break the game apart and build new content for fun, but the main game could still stand on its own and still be easy to sell to people because you're not selling the world, you're selling the experience.
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A lot of newer games probably include middleware licensed from other companies that make relicensing more challenging
This is why the original Doom (1992) source release had no sound, for example.
Hey EA, how about the Bullfrog games next?
I'd love to play Syndicate again. Does anyone know if there are any similar modern games btw?
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There is nothing in the GPL that prohibits you from selling games: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMon...
It does effectively prohibit you from competing with someone else who compiles there code and puts up a download link for free. The “but you can still charge money for it” aspect has always fallen flat, especially since most people won’t pay for disks containing something they could download online these days.
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To just make it playable you can just have any bunch of people with suitable tools make placeholder art, a sprite that says "TANK" on it is good enough for the tank moving code to run. But that looks really bad, and to make it look good (as almost any even mid-budget video game looks) you need an art director who can deliver consistency. For a small game that art director might also just make all the art, so it ends…
>Or maybe you've run into somebody who believes code should use character U+0009 for indentation "The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning." John 3:8
And all that have unicodes in the keyboards, and in the memories, of all that move in the disks, and of any living thing which is in the extended ranges, they shall be an abomination unto you."
One of the best things that could happen to the gaming landscape would be if companies like EA and similar learned from Microsoft's move to open sourcing more software and involving the community more gives them a lot more goodwill and business as a side-effect. And then us gamers get more long-lived games as a benefit as well.
I wonder if we could create a tax incentive for this. For example, if a publisher commits to open sourcing N years after release, they get a break on sales. Or get to capitalise R&D more aggressively during development.
One of the best things that could happen to the gaming landscape would be if companies like EA and similar learned from Microsoft's move to open sourcing more software and involving the community more gives them a lot more goodwill and business as a side-effect. And then us gamers get more long-lived games as a benefit as well.
They don't want long-lived games. They want you to buy new games
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I wonder if we could create a tax incentive for this. For example, if a publisher commits to open sourcing N years after release, they get a break on sales. Or get to capitalise R&D more aggressively during development.
IMHO, I think this counters a philosophical point of open source software. The open code to the software we use should not be a handout or a gift ex post facto. The open code to the software should be an invitation: to collaborate on it, audit it, or frankly do anything you want with it (e.g. WTFPL); before, during, and after using it.
Open source should be a big tent - it should be an answer to questions people have many different motives for asking. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.