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S&box is now an open source game engine

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Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#13

Post by jsheard »

tapoxi wrote: post #2

It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.

That's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity.

The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#15

Post by embedding-shape »

jsheard wrote: post #13
tapoxi wrote: post #2

It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.

That's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity. The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.

> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs.

Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty big support by Valve through the years as well. Eventually they even bought the whole IP.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#17

Post by jsheard »

embedding-shape wrote: post #15
jsheard wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity. The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.

> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty…

That was then, in 2025 they don't have a public Source 2 SDK, nor do they generally license the engine to third parties, S&box being the sole exception. They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore.

Even when they were more open with their tech it was on the basis of "you can play with the tools we used to make Half Life and if your idea is sufficiently Half Life shaped then it will probably work", not trying to be a general purpose toolkit a la Unity.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#18

Post by embedding-shape »

jsheard wrote: post #17
embedding-shape wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty…

That was then, in 2025 they don't have a public Source 2 SDK, nor do they generally license the engine to third parties, S&box being the sole exception. They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Even when they were more open with their tech it was on the basis of "you can play with the tools we used to make Half Life and if your idea is sufficiently Half Life shaped then it will probably work", not…

S&B existing and being what it is, effectively makes it the Source 2 SDK, although it's not from Valve. But fair point Source 2 isn't licensed to others, I think the expectation is that if you wanna build a Source 2 game, you have to use S&B. At least for now, who knows what their ideas and ambitions really lie.

Re: S&box is now an open source game engine

#19

Post by wavemode »

super256 wrote: post #9
charcircuit wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Originally people thought the Source 2 sdk, was going to be released with Half Life Alyx, but it never materialized.

It feels like Valve's management changed a few years (decade?) ago. I remember when they were still shipping SDKs and proper mod support, even for their multiplayer games. Today they are just killing everything that could divert revenue from their cash cow CS2 and shipping a half baked js-based scripting engine for their maps. (And in the meanwhile they kill fan projects like CS:Legacy, which is a whole game and not…

Valve's cash cow is Steam.

All of their games (Dota 2, CS, and the other ones they hardly maintain anymore) are basically just passion projects at this point, lingering on from a bygone age when they were a game development company.

Their most recent title, Half-Life: Alyx, probably only got greenlit because someone internally was able to convince leadership that it would help sell VR headsets.

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