Is there the possibility of Open Source Games?

There are thousands of high quality open source games out there right now today. Just download one of the games-centric Linux builds, or pull down any of the thousands of maintained packages that include such games.

And that's not all. There are many additional open source games targeting other platforms and even more that have a general target of the web, not just games for us hippie communist Linux users. :-)

Or old school, if you prefer to go that way, you can look back at games like NetHack that were open source Usenet projects before open source was even a thing. It may be text based and some people don't like that, but it is also consistently ranked among the best video games of all time. It is a game that literally includes the kitchen sink, allows you do just about anything you want including alchemy or attempting to eat weapons and armor, if you are so inclined. You can tame monsters (it is fun to have a few pet dragons). You can anger the gods enough for them to not just strike you with lightning but have them send demons or angels against you or attempt to disintegrate you outright. If you go to a level with trees you can chop them down if you have an axe. Kicking down a door or kicking a sink you encounter might upset those around you, squeezing a monster to death is possible, as is chatting with demons. (The developers even allow a "mail demon" to come into your game and tell you that you have email, you can ask the mail demon to read it to you.) Nethack is an amazing open source game that is still in slow but active development.

So, YES, not only is there a possibility, there is the reality. Go download Tux Kart or Frozen Bubbles or FreeCiv or FreeDoom or a very long list of others.

On the topic of "by players, for players", this often isn't as great an idea as it initially seems.

A lot of time and effort often goes into designing, testing and balancing the most popular games, and that level of precise detail isn't something a lot of players properly understand when they have their own ideas. As one specific example, after a lot of work and testing the developers of Halo found that by adjusting the reload time of the sniper rifle by less than one second the game was significantly better balanced and players had a lot more fun; that sort of precise tweaking just isn't something that's likely to happen in a "by the players, for the players" type of system, nor are they likely to properly and thoroughly think through the huge impact a single new feature can have on an existing game.



On a side note, if you check our "coding horrors" forum right now you'll find a little experiment where members are gradually adding to a small game with no real guidelines or overall design in place - the results so far are pretty interesting, but aren't really a great (or even particularly good) game. There's also a second one that hasn't taken off as well.

As the others have said above though, open source games (in the traditional sense of the term open source) have been around for years, and some of them are very popular.

(Posted from mobile.)

On the topic of "by players, for players", this often isn't as great an idea as it initially seems.

A lot of time and effort often goes into designing, testing and balancing the most popular games, and that level of precise detail isn't something a lot of players properly understand when they have their own ideas. As one specific example, after a lot of work and testing the developers of Halo found that by adjusting the reload time of the sniper rifle by less than one second the game was significantly better balanced and players had a lot more fun; that sort of precise tweaking just isn't something that's likely to happen in a "by the players, for the players" type of system, nor are they likely to properly and thoroughly think through the huge impact a single new feature can have on an existing game.

[...]

So the problem is too many cooks would be in the kitchen? Is this because game design is an art? Is it possible to make game design more of a fool proof science like how they gather tens of producers in hollywood to work on one american idol and manage to get that unknown persons songs stuck into our head? Isn't it good to blend art with science like how they say Steve Jobs did with his career? What about that Linus's Law: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"?

It's too many cooks to a certain extent, but also a lack of proper training and experience.

All of the people working together to get an American Idol's latest song stuck in your head are professionals with years of experience; they have access to data and focus groups on what makes new songs popular, they have experience working with other artists, and established well-tested methods to minimize the chances of failure.

Similarly, AAA games are made by very large teams of experienced developers with huge budgets and established systems for minimizing risk and maximizing the potential of their games selling at least well enough to make back the initial investment. Indie games are typically made by smaller teams, but are either teams of skilled and experienced (often ex-industry) developers, or are made by less experienced developers with a much more hit-and-miss process and a lot of learning and mistakes along the way; very few indie teams are actually all that successful, and only a tiny minority make a lot of money.

Coming back to the "too many cooks" analogy, good restaurants do actually have a lot of cooks; they are all professionally trained however, and are lead by an experienced and well-trained head-chef. Everyone has well defined responsibilities, and there are established procedures in place for minimizing the risk of a bad dish and ensuring the customers receive good meals in a timely fashion.

Does that make sense?

So I guess what I’m asking is if a hockey game, or other genre, can become a viable quality competitive choice for users compared to the commercial titles like NHL2K11 or NHL by EA Sports. Is this just a matter of dedication towards creating a polished piece of free art or are there forces at work that have prevented this from happening? I see people that complain about NHL by EA but I’ve never seen a competitor rise yet? Is the user base too small? Where can one find open source alternatives to commercial titles? I can consider if the cos to build these games is enormous but I think development practices have become more democratized so where are the games?

The difference is one of resources.

Look through the game credits on those games. You might see fifty different people in various development capacities from producers and designers through programmers, modelers, animators, and audio. Then you might see one hundred to two hundred people listed in testing, and another fifty or so in non-development roles.

That may be the equivalent of $3M or $5M or much more. For JUST ONE YEAR of the franchise. Each year they add on to it. The NHL2K series had 11 installments over multiple platforms. Based on the game credits I'd estimate a $10M development budget most years. So the 2014 version of a long-running annual franchise like Madden or Tiger Woods may have a quarter billion dollars in lifetime development investment.

These aren't hobby developers, they are professionals doing work for their day job. There are a lot of them, and they are good at it. It is a huge investment in resources in a well-established system.

There a few open source games that have that kind of love from the development teams, but not many.

It is unlikely that you as a single developer can realistically compete against such a game just because creating all of those assets and all of that code takes far more time than a single individual can produce in a short time.

@jbadams So an open source series can be achieved with leadership, organization and skill?

But what isn't this easier now to accomplish because isn't game development democratized and old enough to a point where most dedicated groups or individuals can apply the principles to create a decent product while requiring little resources?

So I guess what I’m asking is if a hockey game, or other genre, can become a viable quality competitive choice for users compared to the commercial titles like NHL2K11 or NHL by EA Sports. Is this just a matter of dedication towards creating a polished piece of free art or are there forces at work that have prevented this from happening? I see people that complain about NHL by EA but I’ve never seen a competitor rise yet?

@frob

But the problem I have with the commercial titles is that each year very little changes, Isn't it just that they add a few modifications and some new art and assets? With open source would there be a lesser need for resources over time after the initial program builds?


@Tom Sloper

Isn't it okay to use the properties if the game is free? Or even to have creative place holder names? Or even to have the option for users to create their own rosters?

The barriers to entry are lower, and development is a lot easier than it was in the past; high quality tools, engines and middleware are now readily available with very reasonable pricing, or sometimes even for free. Training and educational materials are plentiful and cheaply or freely available. Help and advice is freely available from communities like this one, Stack Overflow, and many others.

There is however a very big difference between development being easier and development being easy, and the process is still difficult and risky.

It's very possible for skilled and dedicated developers to create a good quality game and to attract a following, but competing with AAA games is an entirely different ball game. They have large teams of experienced professional developers, they have huge budgets, and they have existing code-bases from their previous titles. All of those provide a distinct advantage.

Isn't it okay to use the properties if the game is free?

No, it doesn't make any difference if your game is free. You might not be noticed and get away with it, but it isn't really advisable to take that risk and you might land yourself in legal trouble. Even with a free game you're only safe if you have explicit written permission to use the names; and it's extremely unlikely that you'll get that permission given the amounts of money the professional pay to get that permission themselves.

Creative place holder names are usually ok and are pretty commonly used; there is still some legal risk, but it's a lot safer than using the actual names and will probably be ok.

Allowing players to add their own content can still be risky -- the developers of City of Heroes were taken to court because users were able to create copyright/trademark protected characters from comic-books and movies -- if your game got popular you could still land yourself in trouble unless you took the proper legal measures to protect yourself.

@jbadams

So you're saying an open source series of games hasn't been done because it's not easy? Please give a quick summary of the final reason(s)? If it is only because it isn't easy then wouldn't dedication defeat the difficulty factor?

So you're saying an open source series of games hasn't been done because it's not easy?

Not at all, as observed above, there are already lots of open sourced games, and some of them are very popular.

What I'm saying is that it's very very difficult -- not impossible -- for an open-sourced project to compete with large AAA games like the NFL and other sports franchises you mentioned.

Yes, you can overcome the difficulty factor with sufficient dedication, but you need to do a lot of skilled work for a very long time.

Many of the games you're thinking of are developed by teams of 100 or more people, and those people work on the game as a full-time job.

Let's be generous and pretend for example that your project is very popular and you're able to attract 50 skilled people to contribute. Continuing to be generous we'll pretend these 50 people are very dedicated and manage to work on your game for a minimum 4 hours per day, 5 days per week. We'll also assume they're completely dedicated and none of them need any unusual amounts of time off or end up leaving the project before it's completed. With these very generous estimates, you would have half the people, working half as many hours... they're going to take at least 4 times as long to complete the same game!

Because development is so much faster for the AAA team you're competing with you're effectively always playing catch-up -- they can release 4 titles in the time you release 1, and will be making incremental improvements, updating the graphics, etc. while they're doing so. They'll also have a huge marketing budget and professional marketing teams to ensure people know about their game, whilst you'll have to make do with word-of-mouth or any money you can scrape together.

If you can attract skilled developers, or become one yourself, then you can absolutely create a great game, and it could potentially be very popular; it's just very unlikely -- again, not impossible -- to be able to compete with the latest equivalent AAA title. GIMP is a great example of a team that eventually succeeded at becoming a viable and popular alternative to the commercial equivalent (PhotoShop), and even still PhotoShop is probably better known thanks to it's marketing budget and existing user-base. It took a long time for GIMP to get to this point however, and although it always attracted some audience with people who didn't want to pay for PhotoShop it just wasn't anywhere near as good for a long time.

@jbadams

Thank you, I understand. Is open source game development different from other kinds of open source software development? what I mean is is the process more or less the same, what are some of the major significant differences between the two?

@jbadams

Thank you, I understand. Is open source game development different from other kinds of open source software development? what I mean is is the process more or less the same, what are some of the major significant differences between the two?

Games (usually) require a lot of artwork, (models, textures, sprites, music, soundeffects, etc), productivity software does not.

Productivty software is made to solve a specific task so feature requirements tend to be a result of the users needs rather than what the developers believe would be fun.

It is far more difficult to get a lot of skilled developers to help out on an opensource game since everyone has their own idea of fun, most successful opensource games are made by very small teams(sometimes just a single person) who accept usually minor contributions from the community.

With important productivity software things are easier since not only does alot of people have similar needs, there is also quite a lot of money involved as many corporations benefit if the software improves. (Being able to pay developers to work fulltime on a project is a huge advantage)

Games (usually) require a lot of artwork, (models, textures, sprites, music, sound effects, etc.), productivity software does not.

Productivity software is made to solve a specific task so feature requirements tend to be a result of the users needs rather than what the developers believe would be fun.

It is far more difficult to get a lot of skilled developers to help out on an opensource game since everyone has their own idea of fun, most successful opensource games are made by very small teams(sometimes just a single person) who accept usually minor contributions from the community.

Okay thank you.

When I work at the studio I am assigned tasks by my boss. I work on them all day collaborating with others to meet those specific goals. Everyone else also has an assigned role. Most roles are assigned based on individual specialties and competencies. I have many incentives to work hard. On the one hand I work hard because I am passionate about what I do. One late-night discussion was basically "Why are we here at 10:00 at night rather than home with our families?" "Probably because we love the project and are committed to seeing it succeed." "Doh! Why do I care about this stupid project? If I didn't care I could be home right now!", etc. Another reason is that if you don't work hard you might lose your job; this is a fairly strong incentive to most people. We have people whose entire job is to watch others and ensure they are working at maximum efficiency; there are far fewer distractions and management works hard to ensure everyone is performing well.

When I work on open source projects I can work on anything I want, even if I am unskilled in that area. If I want to work on some art I can do so, even if I'm not much of an artist. If I want to toy around with an algorithm I have no experience in I can do it rather than focusing on areas of previous experience. Even though I might love the project my commitment level is much less because I am not dependent on it for my livelihood and even though I may enjoy it as a hobby, I am frankly not as personally committed to it and passionate about it as I am with my projects at work. I do not have a boss. Nobody is looking over my shoulder. Nobody is intercepting phone calls or other distractions to ensure I am performing well. If I do something then great. If I don't do anything then that is great too.

While the tasks involved to produce the software are similar, the infrastructure around those jobs and the management work behind them is extremely different.

When I work at the studio I am assigned tasks by my boss. [...]

When I work on open source projects I can work on anything I want, even if I am unskilled in that area. [...]

While the tasks involved to produce the software are similar, the infrastructure around those jobs and the management work behind them is extremely different.

Point taken, it's like 5% technical and 95% psychological?

Point taken, it's like 5% technical and 95% psychological?

Why do companies monitor their employees? Why do we have supervisors? Why do we have code reviews and art reviews and performance reviews? Why are bug distributions tracked?

It isn't because people are unable to do the work. Most of us are competent in our jobs.

We have those things because without supervision most workplaces would quickly devolve into NetFlix viewing areas, low-lag gaming clusters, and forklift racing centers.

Lots of people think "It would be fun to work on an open source project" ... and then immediately open up their favorite entertainment program. The reason usually isn't a lack of technical ability or skill.