Games

A game with open source is better than the same game with closed source, basically by definition.

A problem open source games tend to have, is that they often have an overly democratic development process. Art by committee can at best closely resemble another piece of art. It also makes it hard to reject ideas and kick out people who pull in the wrong direction.

The focus also often ends up on the code being presentable rather than the game being engaging. Real games that are made in reasobable time and have the necessary tons of little tweaks and adjustments needed to be fun have HORRENDOUS code as a result. Few developers are willing to settle for that if they know the world will scrutinize their code and judge them for it.

So yeah, go for it! But beware the pitfalls :)

I’m a dev, but not a game dev, and I think that open source games that are popular are more likely to stay around, even if the original dev team stops working on it as it can be forked, which is pretty awesome for longevity. Also other “real” open source games: osu! and Veloren.

Open source is better for the longevity and distribution of games, also for knowing it isn't malware. I wish more games were open-source, the industry likes trade secrets and DRM but that isn't sustainable (most games have been lost over time, and we're probably close to 99% of source material and documentation being extinct).

I think they are a good thing, since in general you get better compatibility with more esotheric hardware, for example i've seen people run godot games on raspberry pi boards, which is pretty nice; also as you mentioned doom and 0 A.D., both of them have prolific modding communities because it's easy to make mods when you have the source of the game, and in the case of doom in particular the fact that it's open source allowed people to build lauchers to make it run on newer computers without needing dosbox and co. To even have a chance to play.

There are several open source games that I love and have played regularly:

• Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart
• Veloren
• Xonotic
• Super Tux Kart

I wish more games were open source.

Whether I find an open source game interesting is whether or not it's good, so my opinion isn't very helpful since what's good is subjective.

Games like Mindustry, SuperTuxKart, Super Tux Advance? Great!

Games like FreeCiv? Don't like (mostly because I can't even figure out how to end a turn or do anything despite looking up how to play).

Having it open source, does not make it good. I think I'd prioritise making it fun, try to.make a profit, and then open sourcing it. I don't think having it open source will help you sell copies... you might sell less. Make your money first, have a feasible business strategy, so you don't go bust. Then try to keep the game alive vis open sourcing it.

I started building games thanks to open source.

It's why I open source all my demos.

So the least it can do is inspire future developers.

The only open source game I know is Pixel Dungeon, and I love that one because it has spawned so many derivatives. So I guess I'd support it if it were more common.

If you actually want to make games for a living, then don't do open source. Have people pay for enjoying your work. If it is a hobby, open source may be beneficial, because you can then team up with other hobbyists.

I don't have any input as a dev but I do enjoy finding, learning about and playing open source games. There is something about it that I find interesting and although most of them are not great I check back every so often on my favourites.

Here is a list for anyone interested

I've only tried open source games once or twice, but I support any open source software, so as a concept I totally think it's a good thing.

I'm a fan. I've been playing a heap of Shattered Pixel Dungeon lately which is a fork of Pixel Dungeon. I think it's really cool that anyone can make their own fork of a base project and tweak it how they like. Especially if the original ever gets abandoned.

I'm a game dev by trade, but more of an artist than a programmer, but I like to work on little hobby projects and being able to look into source code is really helpful and nice.

Yes, but you have to remember that the developer community is absolutely tiny compared to the number of gamers.

It's a neat gimmick, but 98% of the people who could be your audience will get nothing out of the game being open source.

I would really like it if certain specific games were more open source and more moddable, for example stellaris has an annoying formula hard coded that makes combat balancing and weapon modding very difficult. On the other hand, games like openRA exist and I'm not playing that and I'm not doing anything with the source either. That one even has fully functioning multiplayer, but it's so built in that it's hard to reuse for anything else. So you might end up being torn between making the game really good and making the tools and code really good.

I think the biggest appeal of open source games is as a learning resource. Maybe. idk.

Also, may I suggest panda3d, which I'm shilling for at every opportunity that I get, because it's neat, 3d, open source and runs with C or python?

If you look at what Valve does, it may be. With software companies being too big to challenge by themselves alone, with top specialists and budgets, they bet on open source to connect with every little player on the market and probably choose the direction it would evolve in the future as Steam revenue lets them be the bigger fish of that pond. And, for what they did with SD they made open source products accessible.

I feel like the problem here is funding full-time developers, marketing, so to convince moneybags to bankroll you on a product that people can build and modify. That's not easy, but we saw, once again, Valve and others employ and support modders and other volounteers. So probably sticking to some platform or fundraising place may be a must. Passion projects may be endlessly cool but there is only so much you can do on your own and if it's not a hit like Minecraft, the result would have that junky feeling not inviting a regular consumer at all.

One of the greater foes is intellectual property and getting one's name known. There's no way to put together a project with a lot of designs and voice acting for cheap because artists and actors usually want at least a mark in their portfolio and their contribution is not very cheap in commercial works (like IT doesn't). They can do it as an act of charity or just for their name recognition, but it's hard to suspect from top shelf personalities, and unless money are involved, the most probable source of talents is college students. That can hurt their output and quality.

Having said that, my first pick would be educational and casual products done for public funding. They usually don't require overcomplicated mechanics, done in a cartoonish style that's easier to replicate (although by a designer, so it stays tasteful) and are what many would find essential to be free and open source. I think it's not the worst way to collect initial funding for more complicated products.

I think if I really wanted to contribute open source have code, I'd look into working on something longer Godot.

The main issue i see with open source gaming is that most games rely at least as much on things like artwork and level design as they do on coding, but the open source ethos isn't very popular with artists and art-adjacent professionals, so fully open source games usually have to make do with very little art, or amateurish art.

If you contribute to an open source engine, you're writing code that will go into real games without needing non-software people to work for free.

You have Beyond All Reason which has both an active development cycle and player base, because it's basically the best classic RTS available in years.

I'm a gamer and I love it. Without it I wouldn't be able to play my favorite such as Open Transport Tycoon or OpenRA. We need more to make old games better.

@wawe @games
I don't think I would call that a "niche". Otherwise, it would mean players would come to your game only because they're open source, but other than that they're forgettable?

Anyway, yes, I've never encountered a game that didn't benefit from being or becoming open source.

although I've searched for specifically FOSS games in the past it's not really a niche, i would still pick out games in genres i liked.

still as you have said there's a real lack of "good" FOSS games, because most people make games with engines that do not facilitate open sourcing your game, artists unfortunately think copyright is good and you can't open source your game without also giving away your art or making your game free, or the most common case is that devs don't know/care about FOSS.

i think FOSS games are good however i also think games need to be very opinionated pieces of software, so do not delegate your design to other or "also open sourcing your design". the dev should ultimately be in control.

one thing I've seen even non FOSS games do is to use their repo as a public bug tracker, so in addition to that accepting contributions for bugfixes could also work. although i think it goes against the spirit of FOSS software you could also separate your artwork from your source code.

0ad is pretty good imo

I really like GNOME's games. Flightgear is a good project too. But "real games" are usually very large projects that require several thousands of hours of labour so I think open-source is not the way to go for them, unless they choose a paid source code way with the price of a single license set to thousands or even millions of dollars (which is still not a very good way because it can be abused by the original developer)