First, a disclaimer:

I think i''m probably the biggest Free Software zealot i''ve seen on these pages. I cringe when i see people use the terms Free Software and Open Source interchangably. I have strong oppinions on the differences between RMS and ESR. You''ve been warned.

Ok, now down to business.

Making games should be about making good games, not about making money. I understand (oh, do i understand) that you have to find a way to make money out of it, but it is my belief that if you have a good game and a handful of foresight, and possibly a bit of luck (as with any endever) the money will come to you.

The Basics of Free Games:

Well, Godfree^ summed it up pretty well. Make the tools Free from the beginning, and after you can''t sell any more copies, make the engine Free. You never have to make the media Free.

Where I''d Like to See Us Heading:

Well, FPS aside, more and more games are staying further away from the cutting edge. Fallout, Baldur''s Gate, Who Wants To Be a Millionair... Even the great Myst was just hypercard. It was a slideshow with imagemaps. In this ever-increasing secter of games, the engine is just a formality! It''s the media that makes the game. Do you think Deer Hunter was such a great success because of the equivelent of the Doom engine for the low-low price of $15? No, it was such a good seller ''cause people want to kill virtual deer. The game was fun.

So, in this set of games, which are definitely making money, the technology is just a prerequisite, and therefore can be Open Sourced, because even if someone takes it, makes it better, and releases a game with it:

a) When they improve it (if it was under the GPL or LGPL), they give their improvements back to the community, and thus cannot rely heavily on their technical advances to sell copies lest they be one-upped and

b) it doesn''t matter because the game is made on the strength of the media, not the strength of the sourcecode (although bad programming can ruin a game)

So, does this guarentee that no one will make a game with your sourcecode? NO! That''s the whole point! Your game will succeed on the merits of it''s media which is still your own. If another company, or if the mod community comes out with better media, or even equivelent media which is free, then you''re out of sales.

Furthermore, as this goes on, it will become easier and easier to achieve that prerequisite of technology because others will be (by virtue of the GPL) adding and improving the technology that makes up the game. There will be more Free libraries and tools available so that you can spend less time and money coding and more on the media. Programmers are expensive. Artists are (relitively) cheap. This means short development cycles, more games, and less investment, which anyone who has ever managed a game company knows are all Good Things.

Notes on MMORPGs:

On the topic of MMORPGs: don''t close-source the server. Free Software has proven OVER and OVER that it''s good for making servers. Bind, Apache, sshd, these are all secure, strong servers, and the MMORPG server is the one place in gaming where all the benefits of Open Source translate perfectly: low downtime, higher performance, increased security, and with something as complex as most MMORPGs want to be, the cost of development is essentially nil. By making the server open, you will actually cut down on cheating by exposing it at the roots. Furthermore, if you were to make a closed server and charge people while opening the clients (it boggles the mind how backwards that is), people would very, very quickly have a clone server and you would be out of a revenue stream.

Instead, OS the server and write propriatary clients, hopefully even Free clients with expensive media. Eye candy is one area where Free Software most certainly lacks, and comercial software excels. Plus, unlike the MMORPG server, the client, especially if Free, is a one-time investment, rather than an ongoing drain on resources that the server is. This pay-once model will also blow open the doors to MMORPGs which most people stay away from because of the monthly costs.

Closing Notes:

As technology creates more and more powerful machines, it will become both increasingly diffecult for the programs to keep up with the technology, and will decreasingly important. Games that ran on hardware litterally hundreds of times less powerful are still fun today, while games that exploit the newest technology are not guarenteed any benefits, but take years to develop with tens of people working on them. This opens the doors for games which no longer rely on the newest technology to sell, but on the value of the gameplay. This sector will only be increasing as time goes on. Anything we can do to lower the technological barrier of entry will help gaming as a whole, and by opening and cooperating with each other, we will make games more robust, engines that offer more flexability (for an example of this, see NetHack), and are less frustrating for the player (at least in technical terms. Even Free Software can''t help bad gameplay).

Ok, those are my thoughts for right now, but watch out, ''cause there''s more where that came from.

-benc
benc@wsnbc.org
Crack Pot Productions

I hereby grant rights of reproduction, in whole or in part, of the previous document to anyone, providing that it is accompanied by this notice and that credit is given to the original author. Alteration without notice is prohibited.

Lord Choas:

You missed my point. I''m not saying that Open Source is a better business model for all games. Granted, there are games which still make full use of new technology, i never said otherwise. What i did say, however, is that there is no space for games which DO NOT make use of it, and in fact, the biggest sellers from the last two years (That is, Deer Hunter and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire) are in this catagory. The market is opening for low cost-of-production -- low sales-cost games, and that is precisely where the independent developer wants to be, and it is where Free software''s benefits outweigh the "costs" of lack of control and so on.

Yes, we can both go on naming games that have done well, both high- and low-tech, but my point is simply that the sector exists.

In response to my own comment, "Making games should be about making good games, not about making money;" i do recognize that this is a bit of an overstatement, but my point is really that if you''re only making a game to demo the engine you want to sell, the likeliness of that game being good or even doing well are small compared to those of a game that is well programed AND has a designer who really feels the game. Again, this is a broad generalization, and there are many exceptions.

Lord Chaos said, "the CRPG genre is using new technology. Everquest is using 3D technology, games such as Revenant and the latest Ultima games are really starting the shift towards more high-tech content in this genre as well."

To me, the 3D engine used in Everquest hardly qualifies as high-tech. I''m seen engines of equal or greater strength come from developers working on pet projects in their spare time. Does this make Everquest a bad game? Not in my book. Everquest is, however, a very complicated game, however, as i outlined in my previous document, i think making the server Free Software could have greatly helped its development while allowing Sony more time and resources to devote to making the client truely great.

Ultima Ascention is technically very complex. It was also a flop. A very expensive flop. In fact, this is the very reason that i see further expansion into the lowtech game, because this amount of risk is simply unacceptable. Granted, it''s like playing roulett, because when you do stike it rich, it really pays off, but with the standard 2 year investment, it is going to look less and less acceptable to more investors. Granted, licencing technologies does help develop time, but many games take that long even with licenced engines.

Lord Chaos said, "I believe the game industry is shifting towards the movie industry in this case. Outsourcing and licencing technology will become more and more common practice. Game companies have the capital but not the time to develop cutting-edge tech, so they outsource/licence it."

Ok, i''ll buy this, but that just makes OpenSource solutions, when available, that much more appealing. If the choice is between licensing a ready technology for a couple million and working what you need into a pre-existing technology for the cost of development, many (although not all) will go with the latter.

Lord Chaos said, "Oh boy. Say that to the face of an experienced artist in this industry ;-)"

Well, i never said i agree with it, but it is true in general. Year-for-year of experience, artists are cheaper than programmers, on average.

Lord Chaos said, "Nope. Look at the way the game industry has been moving the last years, and where the movie industry (or any other entertainment industry for that matter) are today. Cutting-edge technology IS the way to go if you want to create a smash-hit. And don''t shove the Blair Witch Project in my face (personally, I think it was THE worst movie of the last 10 years. I fell asleep after 20 minutes)."

Not to be insensitive, but your oppinion on the matter makes it no less of a good investment (On a related note, i too think that that was one of the most overhyped, trendy, disinteresting movies i''ve seen in a while, though i''ve seen some REAL bad ones from Holywood lately, too). However, i''m guessing it''s just a fluke, and we won''t be seeing too many more BWP''s that make money. However, Holywood''s been making movies which are mildly popular, but so cheap to make that it''s still profitable forever! For examples, see "Plant of the Apes"''s sequels, 2-5. Each one had a smaller budget and a worse box office release, but each one was profitable. That''s where most porno comes in, too, though i can''t give you much of a rundown of that.

Anyway, the main point i want to get across here is that i don''t think big comercial game ventures are going anywhere soon, but the market is ready to open up to us independent developers, and with the exception of MMORPG servers, we''re best poised to take advantage of the Free Software movement.

benc

Ooops. Forgot to sign in. That last one was mine. ;p

benc