Over the last year and a half I've been learning computer programing: flash, python and C++; and have been trying to get into developing my own games with SDL and OpenGL as a hobby.


I have written a few small programs and games, but nothing very big. Now, however, I feel that I'm poised such that I can finaly start seriously working on my first big project.
(I'll probably write a post looking for artists eventully once I have something to show.)


I've also recently met a friend who is dead set on Open source games. His primary argument is that if someone copies my code, then I still don't lose anything. I'd never even know if I didn't have copyright protection in place. He also has a number of pragmatic reasons as well (big linux user).



Now I'm leaning towards making my games open source, but I also want to make a little money off of them. (This is just a hobby, so I don't intend to make alot. Just enough to fuel the creative juices so to speak.)

So I am curious, what are everyones thoughts on open source games? Has anyone tried it? How has it worked out?



One way I know to profit on open source games is to make the game content closed source and sell that. However I'm working with a group of people that belive in moddability (they are all modders, I am the only real game developer). And Sins of A Solar Empire has shown that moddability is a big factor in game succses.


As such, close sourced resources would put a serious krimp on modding, as any modder would have to develop the resources by themselves.

Anouther model is to only release the source code after a designated time after release. (Say, one year). Anyone who wants to play the game during that year needs to buy it. This model seems like it would work to me, but I don't know how it would work in the real world.



Furthermore, since I'm using SDL and OpenGL, my games SHOULD be able to work on multiple platforms. However, I know that I will not have the resources to develop my game on anything but windows. If I make the game open source (and it is a good game), then someone is bound to port it to linux and mac. Which even if I don't see a penny, it would at least give me happy to know that more people are playing my game.



Thanks,

EvilTesla

I've never actually released a game or worked on one professionally, but I see two models that might work:

Have exclusive content that you release for pay. The base game and all of its resources and code are free, but there's some really nice content (new skins, new models, music, maybe even source modules) that you're willing to sell. This might work or it could be a disaster depending on how you approach it (if it feels crippled from the get go, people might not be happy with it).

Release the game and code for free after an extended period (like you've already mentioned). All of the games that I've played that are open source became open source long after I bought them. Aliens vs. Predator is a good example here, as is Deus Ex (as open source as it is anyway, the mod tools and scripts were released which lets you do plenty). I only cared that they were open source because that let me mod them, I had no intention of doing anything crazy like making a new game based on their engines (although lots tried with Deus Ex from my understanding).

I think maybe that's the real drawing point here. I'd say most people only care if they can mod the game. You could still charge for the game but release the mod tools for free. If you use scripts a lot (like many professional game engines such as Unreal do), then you could release the scripts without having to release your source code and allow someone to build the game without paying for it.

Or release only the source and mod tools and leave all of the resources (textures, models, sounds, whatever) only in the installation package. That won't stop people from sharing them of course, but would ensure that honest people bought the game before they mod it.

"I also want to make a little money off of them"

In theory you can sell content. Open source might jive well with a free-to-play model. Of course your content has to be worth paying for. You can also sell binaries - for example, in app stores - and not publish free binaries.

Redhat does the latter with Enterprise Linux. CentOS is a 3rd party that publishes binaries of RHEL for free, and this is 100% legal and legitimate use, and Redhat has a perfectly solid business model anyway (though there's more to it than "sell binaries".)

In practice, making any money is pretty hard. If you haven't done much notable, you might as well just not worry about it yet and make games for the community.

"His primary argument is that if someone copies my code, then I still don't lose anything. I'd never even know if I didn't have copyright protection in place"

His reason is boring. If you do it, it's probably for your friend, and the most spirited people do it because they want to share or make it a kind of community thing and think everyone should be able to really screw with software and have a lot of usage rights. Relatedly, ID Software releases their old games as open source because people enjoy seeing it and messing with it.

In any case, open source depends on copyright law to protect its open status. Things like the GPL that Linux and the GNU project use depend on it and the concept of implicit agreement to usage license to prevent (by way of intellectual property law) people from plagiarizing your work, integrating it into closed products and selling it without releasing the source or changes. Just like selling software, this depends on the idea that as the creator, you have rights over its usage and can control its legal use.

Look at the different licenses like the BSD license, GPL, etc. You can also just put a notice that says "do whatever with it".

And remember - about the free to play thing - that content is also licensed.

Check out the Public Source licence model as well so you understand your options. Public source will allow you to release your source with commercial clauses. Commercial clauses cannot be applied to open source licences. Some companies release source code under a duel licence model - one open source and another licence which applies additional restrictions. I think in this case the end user has the option to choose the licence which works best for them. Check out how MySQL licence their product for a example of this.

Others release products under the open source license model but charge for other services ie support, others have already mentioned charging for content which could also work.

- Kevin.

Check out these guys:

http://www.frogatto.com/

I'm familiar with several people on their team, and some people from my own team also work on this project. I'm not sure how much money they've made, so you'd have to ask them. Basically, the code is open source but the content (artwork, music, etc) is not. They do keep their content available though, and you can download everything from their site and play it on your PC/Mac for free, but they sell the game as an app for the iPhone/iPad and also in the Mac store (even though you can download and play for free on the Mac). Even if they haven't been successful financially, they've made a great little game in a reasonable amount of time.

I've long been wondering about an open source game development model, which still makes money. It would be great if everything I write was available to others, and others contributed, since that would benefit both myself and the others around me. It would mean an increase in the complexity of the games I can create.


Writing an open source engine and selling an "official mod" for that engine is another possible business model. But, I seriously doubt that open source users in general are likely to want to pay money for your official mod when there are a few shitty free mods around, which are ideologically "better" for open source users. They might even view your mod with some hostility.

The primary income source for open source projects is not the code itself, but services based around it. MySQL has already been mentioned, for example they provide professional 24/7 support for their product for money.
Free to play games have been mentioned too, in case of an MMORPG for example ( ok I know it's an extreme ) you can sell items / spells and such ( many free to play ones use this model, and in fact even World of Warcraft is starting to do so, even if they are still pay to play ).
The other thing about MMOs is that it's not easy to host them yourself, because of their complexity and computational needs so you can ask for money for hosting it ( just like the pay to play MMOs do ), so even if the game is open source, they won't be able to use it to play, and if it's attractive enough they will be willing to pay for it. Not to mention that without assets and other type of game content ( like server side scripts ) it's hard to play the actual game

I'll just make this simple. If you're planning on selling your game, you probably don't want to make it open source.

Unless you just want to ask for donations (which is a viable strategy IMO for indie developers), you're probably not going to wow anyone with a payable service.

Keep in mind you can always release your code later but you can't unrelease your code if you decide to profit from your work.

I released all my source code for my prior games but probably will stop doing it with my next one. I look at it like after your basic projects, no one is really going to benefit from seeing the source.

As far as modding, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You need to make a hit game first before people will be interested in tinkering with your engine.

I'm seeing a lot of games that open source their "engine" and close the content. Content is king. Of course then there is Minecraft which uses the opposite approach.

Open source has validity. It's open for anyone to use, open for anyone to build something more on top of and open for building a community to help you make it better.

Lots of game developers use this model with great success. Obviously open source is not for all games, but for what you described it would be great.

If you want a easy way to make some money w/o the "publisher" overhead, PM me and I can help get it into the Ubuntu Software Center.

JP

Thanks for the replies!


I guess it is still too early to be thinking about making money off my work.

And I guess that I need to look over what kind of licencing there is as well.