Why there are no good free video games? There is a free OS, free Office.... simply there is a free good software for anything but games. Are we programers just not able to produce a hobby project that is a bit more difficult? Or is there no way how to get a free source art? What might be the reason? I am pretty sure that there is no solid free game out there. Ever was not.

wut? newgrounds.com Flash games have been a very strong source of game development.

I used to play free browser games online a lot. The tick based ones. Free games are out there. Just have to look.

Tigsource
GD Showcase

Plenty of other places.

As a counter example of a game with a reasonably long playtime, I think you should look at "cave story". It is actually one of my favourite games.

Are you kidding me?

http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/5days/
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/7days/
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/notes/
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/6days/

Probably one of the best adventure series ever. I know it's free, but it wouldn't hurt to give the guy a donation.

Quote: Original post by JohnnyCode
Why there are no good free video games? There is a free OS, free Office.... simply there is a free good software for anything but games. Are we programers just not able to produce a hobby project that is a bit more difficult? Or is there no way how to get a free source art? What might be the reason? I am pretty sure that there is no solid free game out there. Ever was not.

If you look at the good free office suits, operating systems, webservers, etc you'll notice that:

1) They are not hobby projects, big companies such as Intel, IBM, Sun, Microsoft and others contribute to and sometimes direct the development.

2) Many of these companies make rather steady profits from services related to the free software they are developing.

For games things are different, you won't have big companies willing to pay large sums on a yearly basis for support contracts for a free shooter, they don't even want their employees to use that software during work hours.

That said however, there are plenty of great free games around, If you compare good free hobby projects with commercial indie games the quality is often at the same level, and then you have some rather big budget "free" games such as quake live and battlefield heroes.

QuakeLive?

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Quake Live
Battlefield Heroes
America's Army

Dungeon and Dragons Online
Dungeon Runners

Command And Conquer

etc..
etc...

When did Command and Conquer become free?

There's a huge gap between good free games not existing, and you not knowing about them. Which, it turns out, is the same gap in a lot of "innovation in games is dead" thread. There's a lot of both out there, but you need to put some vague effort into finding those games. Free tends to suggest not much marketing.