Everyone, I''ve been thinking about games and money. Specifically, the economics of game development, and how people feel about how money influences games. I''ve seen some different opinions on this subject, and I thought I''d provide some extreme examples to show what I''m talking about. 1. The Artist Games are ART. They are a radically new and powerful art form which combine movies, animation, music, and the power of immersion through interaction to create an experience unlike any other. Any financial concern will taint the purity of a creator''s intentions, so money and marketability should never enter the game development equation. Ideally, game developers, like other artists, should be funded by the National Endowment for the Arts or other public programs, or commissioned to create specific works. 2. The Open-Sourcer Games are software, and software should be free and open-source for the betterment of mankind. If a person wants to make money developing games, they may copyright maps, models and other creative work; but attempting to copyright an engine retards progress in programming and should be unlawful. Programmers should be paid for their work, but there''s no need for them to get rich by holding back progress. Games should be developed first as good and portable software, with all other considerations secondary. 3. The Marketer Games are entertainment, with any artistic or progressive merit secondary. There''s nothing wrong with pandering to popular tastes; games should be marketable so that game programmers can make lots of money. Everyone likes money, right? Games should be developed to cater to what the average gamer wants. Innovation should be encouraged for the purpose of making the game stand out from the crowd, but don''t be too innovative or you''ll weird out your core audience. Now these positions are of course exaggerated extremes, but they are sort of the basic stances on the issue. I personally have a little of all three: I view games as potential art, and I''m not above a little open-sourcing, but I''m also not above including features that don''t necessarily enhance core gameplay but just look cool and maybe make my game sell better (this is all assuming I ever get off my rear and make a game at all). What are your thoughts on this issue? Does money corrupt games? Does art make for weird and unsellable games? And is open source the way, or do you like fat sacks of cash money more? Cheerfully awaiting the coming storm... --------------------------------------------------- -SpittingTrashcan You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

*edit* nevermind... flamebait caught me.

Edited by - zaptrudr on January 22, 2002 8:49:42 AM

quote: Original post by SpittingTrashcan
What are your thoughts on this issue? Does money corrupt games? Does art make for weird and unsellable games? And is open source the way, or do you like fat sacks of cash money more?

I like the fat sacks of cash money more, definately. You will not get anything done relying on "mana from heaven", or rather the blind mindless dedication of a bunch of people who are doing it for the "art" or the beauty of (urg) Open Source.

Money is the best motivator for making popular games - get a top-selling title out, and drive away in your Ferrari. It does not necessarily make GOOD games though, that''s where a bit of "Art"-ishness comes in. Too much of it is bad, because you will get a game that caters only to a very specific set of people (worst case: the designer only).

Open Source is just a joke in serious development. Getting a bunch of people to do a bunch of work (a lot of it creative), and then saying "hey, well done, here''s your paycheck, and by the way, every Tom Dick and Harry can now leech off your efforts by simply copying the work you have done. So long and thanks for all the fish." It just doesn''t make sense.

" If a person wants to make money developing games, they may copyright maps, models and other creative work"

" Programmers should be paid for their work"

I am a programmer, I think I have a pretty creative job. for the most good games programmers create ways to make some "impossible" things possible.

and if I would create a realtime raytracer, I wouldn''t want to let everybody know how I did it. "it''s creative work"

I do not see a different between the work of a programmer or a leveldesigner. both can be payed just for their work, but the artist says "It''s my creative work, I''ve needed a lot of phantasie to knwo how to create this level" and a programmer can say "It''s my creative work, I''ve needed a lot of efford to find a freaky way to calculate raytracing in realtime"

now someone says: "the code is open-source for the betterment of mankind" and wants to copy the work and rewrite it.
nobody says: "this texture is open-source for the favor of the mankind and I''ll copy your style and your textures"...

why?


I think this is against the human liberty, to make a low to allow to take all intelligently work of programmers and to save the intelligently work of the artist (you might want to call it creative).

I thing nobody should be allowed to ban other from programming something the same way he''s doing it, but if someone wants to save/keep the intelligently things he created, he should be allowed to do it...

rapso->greets();

ps.maybe I''m to much bind to liberty, but I Love my Liberty! and won''t allow anybody to take it away...

Other than the open source part, I think game development has to include elements of the other two. Creating games is a creative process, but people who think they can make a successful game without recognizing the realities of the market are fooling themselves. At the end of the day, game development is a business like any other, and until there are rich patrons willing to fund game projects out of their own pockets just for the sake of the ''art'', games will have to be marketable to get made.

I say this, even though I often wonder how some stuff gets made and/or published.

I''ll be all for the idea of Open Source the minute I get my housing, food, clothing, vacations, and everything else I want or need in life for free.

Come on. This crap Internet mentality of "Everything on the Net should be free" is nothing but b*llsh*t. If you work for something, you should be rewarded for your efforts.

If anyone thinks for a moment that if all source code were Open Source human kind would be better, you are completely off base. Rather, talented progammers would take on a different career path (since they need money to survive) and programming would be nothing more than a side hobby resulting in much slower turnarounds and a stand-still in development.

The bottom line is, everyone (and I mean everyone) wants to improve the quality of their life. Nobody in their right mind would give up a salary just to improve software for mankind. Somebody has been watching a little too much Star Trek.

borngamer

Note that everyone has bashed Open Source. This is why we hate R-software-morally-wants-to-be-free-M-fucking-S. Because we like money; money is good.

Open Source is applicable to utilities (an operating system, for example, is a utility) with low ROI (Windows is an OS exception, but only because users are constantly forced to upgrade). For high-risk investments with potentially high return, Open Source makes zero fiscal sense.

Quote me!

[ GDNet Start Here | GDNet FAQ | MS RTFM | STL | Google ]
Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Time to wade in to defend Freedom!

quote: Original post by borngamer
Come on. This crap Internet mentality of "Everything on the Net should be free" is nothing but b*llsh*t. If you work for something, you should be rewarded for your efforts.

No. You should get rewarded if and when someone else decides it''s worth rewarding you for. You don''t earn the right to have other people''s money just because you put in some effort.

quote: If anyone thinks for a moment that if all source code were Open Source human kind would be better, you are completely off base. Rather, talented progammers would take on a different career path (since they need money to survive) and programming would be nothing more than a side hobby resulting in much slower turnarounds and a stand-still in development.

Open Source is not totally without revenue. People pay for support, documentation, upgrades, hosting, and even just to have the software on a nice CD and so on. And making a game is about more than the programming (much as I hate to admit it sometimes ). The code might be freely available, but you''re not (legally) gonna get the 650Mb of wave files, textures, dialogue and full-motion movies unless you cough up for the boxed set. Result here is that the programming community benefits, but you sell just as many games.

I would also make the point that the vast majority of programming (and hence, programming jobs) is not that of retail software, but of either in-house ''solutions'' or, these days, server-side customisation. Neither of these are affected as the Open Source licenses only apply to distributing your software, not the fact that your program can be used.

As for slower turnarounds and a stand-still in development... your logic seems sound but is simply not backed up in practice. And I have to take evidence over reasoning every time, I''m afraid.

I think Open Source and commercial software can peacefully co-exist. I try to use Open Source wherever I can, though.

But isn''t this getting a bit off-topic for this forum? This is a bit of a flamebait thread, I think. Personally I have a lot of respect for iD Software''s approach: release the source a year or two after you release the game. That way, you lose the benefits of open source development, but you still get the benefits of open source for the community, and you still get to drive to work in a Ferrari.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

quote: Original post by Kylotan
Time to wade in to defend Freedom!

Original post by borngamer
No. You should get rewarded if and when someone else decides it''s worth rewarding you for. You don''t earn the right to have other people''s money just because you put in some effort.

If someone wrote it, and you use it, they should get paid. Simple as that. If the program isn''t worth paying for it isn''t worth using.

quote:
Open Source is not totally without revenue. People pay for support, documentation, upgrades, hosting, and even just to have the software on a nice CD and so on. And making a game is about more than the programming (much as I hate to admit it sometimes ). The code might be freely available, but you''re not (legally) gonna get the 650Mb of wave files, textures, dialogue and full-motion movies unless you cough up for the boxed set. Result here is that the programming community benefits, but you sell just as many games.

So your saying that the musicians and the artists are worth getting paid but the programmers are not?

quote: I would also make the point that the vast majority of programming (and hence, programming jobs) is not that of retail software, but of either in-house ''solutions'' or, these days, server-side customisation. Neither of these are affected as the Open Source licenses only apply to distributing your software, not the fact that your program can be used.

No kidding. I deal with this every day customizing a hospital application. But there is no way the product I use would exist if it were Open Source for a whole slew of reasons I won''t bother going into.

quote: As for slower turnarounds and a stand-still in development… your logic seems sound but is simply not backed up in practice. And I have to take evidence over reasoning every time, I''m afraid.

In everything there is an exception. I''m sure you are referring to Linux or FreeBSD or something like that. But I''ll have to see a hell of a lot more examples of established products that can hold a candle to their commercial counterpart.

quote: I think Open Source and commercial software can peacefully co-exist. I try to use Open Source wherever I can, though.

I think Open Source is fine if you do it as a hobby, but the sense I got from this thread is that some people feel all source should be Open Source. Sorry, but as a professional my time is way too valuable to give away.

Whoa!

I didn''t mean to start a flame war (my final comment was rather ill chosen), nor was I necessarily particularly interested in open source in specific... although it''s a topic worthy of debate, it wasn''t my intent to start that debate here.

Let me rephrase my basic question. To what extent should a game designer have the "buyer" and the "market" in mind? To what extent should he be creating for the gamer, to what extent for the common man, and to what extent for himself? And what balance creates the best (not just best-selling) games? Is financial motivation compatible with creativity and sound design? That''s what I wanted to ask. I''m not staking a claim anywhere on this... I just want to hear some opinions.

---------------------------------------------------
-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".