From what I understand, if a game engine's source code is GPL, there is no legal way to require derived games release their assets under a CC license. Does this mean we need a "super license" that incorporates the terms of both GPL (for the code) and CC-BY-SA (for the assets)?
Publishing free software video games
11–20 of 103 posts
Re: Publishing free software video games
#12> The Quake engine was also released under the GPL, and went on to be highly influential, serving as the basis for dozens of games, including time-honored favorites such as the Half Life series. Large swaths of the gaming canon were made possible thanks to the generous contributions of free software game publishers. This seems misleading. Half-Life was released in 1998, but the Quake engine's source code wasn't relea…
It's not just misleading. It's wrong. The timeline and order of those events is wrong.
The phrase says "dozens of games" not only Half Life from 1998. So if after 1999 some games used the engine, the phrase is still correct.
Re: Publishing free software video games
#13From what I understand, if a game engine's source code is GPL, there is no legal way to require derived games release their assets under a CC license. Does this mean we need a "super license" that incorporates the terms of both GPL (for the code) and CC-BY-SA (for the assets)?
Why should derivative works have to release assets under CC? What's the goal? Is it so bad if people still have artistic IP but the underlying code is Free?
Re: Publishing free software video games
#14This is targeted toward "securing your game’s legacy", but it seems to be missing a crucial part of some games: servers.
When games have a required online component, servers shutting down are the most likely reason the game becomes unplayable, more than the client not working on current platforms.
So another option that could be added to the list would be to make the server free software (or at least share its binaries) before the client's assets or the client itself. This can also boost the community if they can host their own servers with custom mods (eg. Minecraft)
Re: Publishing free software video games
#15A friend explained to me that the real benefit of foss is the community building huge things together, faster and better than any individual. So, you don’t make your game foss, but rather, you build a set of foss tools for everyone to benefit from, and the community eventually begins to contribute back, and you end up with a huge machine that does really cool things. Everybody then uses these tools to make amazing th…
The tools thing seems to be the right approach.
A lot of huge gaming genres came to be from modding, level editors etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_derived_...
ARTS (Dota, LoL) to battle royale (PUBG, Fortnite, Apex), Tactical shooters (CS), team/hero shooters (TF, OW) and more…
All of these genres came from making modding accessible and are some of the most successful genres to date.
The new trend however is to close games down, DRM, “life service”, fewer possibilities and very strict IP implications on derivative work (we own everything you create etc.)
Free software might be an appropriate answer to this.
Re: Publishing free software video games
#16Barotrauma is an excellent example of fully "source available" in a multiplayer game. Practically speaking, Rimworld and Minecraft are like this. Mindustry is an excellent example of the "have your cake and eat it" open source model. Its sold on Steam, but it's GPL 3.0 and free to download elsewhere. Shrug
Mindustry is an excellent game, and I love the amount of work that the dev has been putting into it. In the time I've played it, the single-player content has deepened significantly - from a mostly-linear campaign to almost an entire world to play with; then on to a second planet with a different play style.
I have to stand in awe of people who are both creative and able to manifest that into creative products.
Re: Publishing free software video games
#17From what I understand, if a game engine's source code is GPL, there is no legal way to require derived games release their assets under a CC license. Does this mean we need a "super license" that incorporates the terms of both GPL (for the code) and CC-BY-SA (for the assets)?
Same logic as with Machine Learning model: the code can be GPL, the weights can be with any other license. (cf LLaMa)
Re: Publishing free software video games
#18[flagged]
Re: Publishing free software video games
#19A friend explained to me that the real benefit of foss is the community building huge things together, faster and better than any individual. So, you don’t make your game foss, but rather, you build a set of foss tools for everyone to benefit from, and the community eventually begins to contribute back, and you end up with a huge machine that does really cool things. Everybody then uses these tools to make amazing th…
The tools thing seems to be the right approach. A lot of huge gaming genres came to be from modding, level editors etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_derived_... ARTS (Dota, LoL) to battle royale (PUBG, Fortnite, Apex), Tactical shooters (CS), team/hero shooters (TF, OW) and more… All of these genres came from making modding accessible and are some of the most successful genres to date. The new…
> The new trend however is to close games down, DRM, “life service”, fewer possibilities and very strict IP implications on derivative work (we own everything you create etc.)
I don't know of any popular game that didn't have DRM and didn't have very strict IP implications on fan content (say, after the early 90s maybe?). It's not like the teams behind the original DOTA or CS or TF ever made money selling those, and would have likely been blocked even if they tried.
It's true though that live service games are quite antithetical to modding because of their need to control player progression and sell it.
Still, I would say the divide between games which supported modding and games that didn't has always existed, with much fewer games in the first category, and there are still huge games coming out today that do. It's even become possible to create mods for console games, so it's not all doom and gloom.
Re: Publishing free software video games
#20This is targeted toward "securing your game’s legacy", but it seems to be missing a crucial part of some games: servers. When games have a required online component, servers shutting down are the most likely reason the game becomes unplayable, more than the client not working on current platforms. So another option that could be added to the list would be to make the server free software (or at least share its binari…
I write and maintain a GPLv3 multiplayer game for Android to satisfy a creative itch. While writing the game, sustainability of the server component is top of my mind. I'd hate for the game to stop working for others down the line because I lose interest or am otherwise no longer able to tend to it.
For those interested, I've documented the process I adopted to try to increase the bus factor beyond one [0]. I want people who download the game and open it to be able to find a public server instantly from the main menu, even if I am unable to maintain the main server myself. This is done via the game requesting a manifest containing public servers from a GitHub repo, which accepts PRs from those willing to maintain their own servers. Although I am the only one able to accept those PRs right now, it would be silly not to be liberal in onboarding others who show an interest in maintaining the list. That way the game lives on beyond just me.
I also make sure to offer local multiplayer, and in other games I've built I which don't need realtime multiplayer, I try to offer "Play against others by sending an SMS invite" or other novel approaches that don't even need a server.
It is a fun space to work on and try to come up with novel solutions to ensure games continue working into the future.
[0] - https://peter.serwylo.com/2021/07/03/sustainable-server-infr...