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I’m curious what game developers have to lose by open sourcing their code. When I imagine a world where games all have their source available (but without textu

I’m curious what game developers have to lose by open sourcing their code. When I imagine a world where games all have their source available (but without textures and models so you still need to pay for it to play), I can’t see financial losses for the people selling the game. And especially for games where modding is encouraged the lack of OS releases is surprising.

geek_at 3y ago
The obvious problems that might occur are: - Hackers finding exploits easier when they have the source and can run a debugger on real variable names - Companies from countries with less respect of copyright can create clones of your game and might outearn you As a developer I'm welcoming this move though
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  The first issue wouldn’t apply to single player games. But the second might be the big one that scares publishers/developers. I really wonder how consequential that would be.
bayindirh 3y ago
A lot of black magic is done in game engines to get that level of performance with that level of quality. Carmack always (ab)used the hardware to the highest level in its code to get that performance/quality ratio and this is why he always kept the latest engine closed. Unreal engine also had tricks up on its sleeve since Unreal Tournament days, however I don’t know the exact details. IIRC, it was about lighting and shadows mostly. I had two friends who wrote their own engines. One built a company around that. Other one did visual simulations. Former one told me about the war stories which he battled against NVIDIA drivers, how driver behave the way it wanted, and how he had to abuse it to get the performance it wants. Also both AMD and NVIDIA drivers sometimes implement alternate paths to fix some engines’ performance and artifacts. He also told how some big studios’ developers abused the driver in a way which can be only defined as “hacking”. I don’t remember the details, but they modified some data in place to bypass the graphics APIs to gain performance. Of course that is pretty brittle. Latter friend told me how he had to optimize calculations, do great yet cheap approximations and abuse the strong parts of a GPU to get the performance he wanted. So, a lot. All of these are considered black art and trade secret. Crytek should have some patents about some of the rendering methods they have developed even. They stopped sharing tech demos to prevent being copied, too.
- dleslie 3y ago
  I've worked on games where a static reference is found in the host libraries, and that's used as an offset to stomp on the unnecessary parts of the library provided by the vendor; and therefore recover slivers of precious console memory space for the game.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    < distant screaming >
    - dleslie 3y ago
      Still a (well-known) old favourite of mine: static uint8_t data[1048576]; /* IMPORTANT: ASK LEAD WHEN FAILING CERT DUE TO MEMORY */
  - corysama 3y ago
    IIRC, Andy Gavin said during the development of Crash Bandicoot, he stomped pages in the Sony system/OS libraries. As long as the game kept running, all good!
- jorvi 3y ago
  > Also both AMD and NVIDIA drivers sometimes implement alternate paths to fix some engines’ performance and artifacts Nvidia moreso than AMD. An interesting artefact of this (or maybe the specific tricks that Nvidia chooses) is that Nvidia's cards need to be paired with a strong CPU, or you can suffer a performance penalty of up to 25%.
  - SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
    How are those two things related?
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      Driver interrupts the engine instructions, applies fixes or other does other processing on the CPU, and renders the modified code. Think as a SQL query optimizer running real time. So, you need a fast CPU to keep data flowing to the GPU at the correct rate, without much hindering.
CamperBob2 3y ago
One reason: third-party libraries and tools that aren't compatible with the FOSS license you want to use. Another reason: you are now much more vulnerable to patent trolls.
qiine 3y ago
Its an interesting question, there are many game dev that just don't even think about it and are too busy to dedicate even a minute to it, and there there is the problem of engine using many midllewares : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186440
- sho_hn 3y ago
  > Its an interesting question, there are many game dev that just don't even think about it and are too busy to dedicate even a minute to it, This has also been my experience. Similarly, even most popular game mod projects don't release source code, even though they are volunteer/community efforts who you would think would act like a FOSS project. But I find that a lot of the people who work on games have more of that artist mindset where they feel a type of ownership over the creation that to them is at odds with just giving it away "for free". This branch of SW just hasn't been socialized the same way.
frou_dh 3y ago
Well a simplistic answer would be that if you have a better codebase than your direct competition then the opportunity to crib large parts of your code might end up making their game attractive enough that some customers end up buying it instead of yours.
- indeyets 3y ago
  Not really. Barely anyone buys game for the engine. The story and game mechanics are much more important.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    In the sim game genre, the two are somewhat intertwined and customers are also more aware of what the engine does. Car and flight enthusiast sim people absolutely do shop for physics, flight model, and so on to some extent. I don't know where on the spectrum from casual to enthusiast sim War Thunder is. I looked at YouTube and the game looks graphically primitive, so the engine would have to do something else that's impressive.
meheleventyone 3y ago
If you’ve made your own engine or significant unique pieces of technology that’s part of your companies IP which is inherently part of the value of the company. Further to that open sourcing software takes effort and the more complex the software the more effort it takes. Game engines are very complex. Then for most companies they are trying to make and ship games which is also pretty hard. So open sourcing seems like a lot of work for little return. That’s often why engines that become open source are general at their end of life from a commercial perspective. Games with modding in mind often do open source relevant bits to make modding easier.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Clones with more marketing budget / scummy promotion behind it. Not supplying the assets isn't a deterrent, because one they can be lifted from your game anyway, and two, there's factories producing assets production line style. While, if you have a successful game, there will undoubtedly be clones, you don't have to make it easy for them.
jowea 3y ago
What's the economic benefit for the company?
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Cheap, dirty clones. You can't even necessarily fight it legally if the clone is "distinct." That being said, I think there's less risk once your game "takes off" like WarThunder. Barotrauma is another good example where a clone is unlikely now.
- KronisLV 3y ago
  > That being said, I think there's less risk once your game "takes off" like WarThunder. I remember a game called Armored Warfare, that was like a mashup of World of Tanks and War Thunder, with modern vehicles, upgrades, multiple factions, more PvE focus and actual story missions (with sci-fi elements and cheesy voice acting). It played well and looked nicely, too, though for whatever reason it never took off. If a game that well put together didn't attract a notable following, I doubt any others will either.
langsoul-com 3y ago
It cost a metric shit ton of time and manpower to create the game engine. What benefit would they have giving it away for free? Game engine creator studios, like unity or unreal, have vastly different objectives than a game company. Releasing and being required to maintain a public game engine costs resources. Where game devs are always crunching. Even then, look at the state of Unity, hardly profitable. Unreal was cruising on Fortnite cash so they don't care too much. More interested in setting themselves up to be the top dog first. This isn't exactly a money making situation.

geek_at 3y ago

The obvious problems that might occur are: - Hackers finding exploits easier when they have the source and can run a debugger on real variable names - Companies from countries with less respect of copyright can create clones of your game and might outearn you As a developer I'm welcoming this move though

teaearlgraycold 3y ago
The first issue wouldn’t apply to single player games. But the second might be the big one that scares publishers/developers. I really wonder how consequential that would be.

bayindirh 3y ago

A lot of black magic is done in game engines to get that level of performance with that level of quality. Carmack always (ab)used the hardware to the highest level in its code to get that performance/quality ratio and this is why he always kept the latest engine closed. Unreal engine also had tricks up on its sleeve since Unreal Tournament days, however I don’t know the exact details. IIRC, it was about lighting and shadows mostly. I had two friends who wrote their own engines. One built a company around that. Other one did visual simulations. Former one told me about the war stories which he battled against NVIDIA drivers, how driver behave the way it wanted, and how he had to abuse it to get the performance it wants. Also both AMD and NVIDIA drivers sometimes implement alternate paths to fix some engines’ performance and artifacts. He also told how some big studios’ developers abused the driver in a way which can be only defined as “hacking”. I don’t remember the details, but they modified some data in place to bypass the graphics APIs to gain performance. Of course that is pretty brittle. Latter friend told me how he had to optimize calculations, do great yet cheap approximations and abuse the strong parts of a GPU to get the performance he wanted. So, a lot. All of these are considered black art and trade secret. Crytek should have some patents about some of the rendering methods they have developed even. They stopped sharing tech demos to prevent being copied, too.

dleslie 3y ago
I've worked on games where a static reference is found in the host libraries, and that's used as an offset to stomp on the unnecessary parts of the library provided by the vendor; and therefore recover slivers of precious console memory space for the game.
- Arrath 3y ago
  < distant screaming >
  - dleslie 3y ago
    Still a (well-known) old favourite of mine: static uint8_t data[1048576]; /* IMPORTANT: ASK LEAD WHEN FAILING CERT DUE TO MEMORY */
- corysama 3y ago
  IIRC, Andy Gavin said during the development of Crash Bandicoot, he stomped pages in the Sony system/OS libraries. As long as the game kept running, all good!
jorvi 3y ago
> Also both AMD and NVIDIA drivers sometimes implement alternate paths to fix some engines’ performance and artifacts Nvidia moreso than AMD. An interesting artefact of this (or maybe the specific tricks that Nvidia chooses) is that Nvidia's cards need to be paired with a strong CPU, or you can suffer a performance penalty of up to 25%.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
  How are those two things related?
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Driver interrupts the engine instructions, applies fixes or other does other processing on the CPU, and renders the modified code. Think as a SQL query optimizer running real time. So, you need a fast CPU to keep data flowing to the GPU at the correct rate, without much hindering.

CamperBob2 3y ago

One reason: third-party libraries and tools that aren't compatible with the FOSS license you want to use. Another reason: you are now much more vulnerable to patent trolls.

qiine 3y ago

Its an interesting question, there are many game dev that just don't even think about it and are too busy to dedicate even a minute to it, and there there is the problem of engine using many midllewares : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186440

sho_hn 3y ago
> Its an interesting question, there are many game dev that just don't even think about it and are too busy to dedicate even a minute to it, This has also been my experience. Similarly, even most popular game mod projects don't release source code, even though they are volunteer/community efforts who you would think would act like a FOSS project. But I find that a lot of the people who work on games have more of that artist mindset where they feel a type of ownership over the creation that to them is at odds with just giving it away "for free". This branch of SW just hasn't been socialized the same way.

frou_dh 3y ago

Well a simplistic answer would be that if you have a better codebase than your direct competition then the opportunity to crib large parts of your code might end up making their game attractive enough that some customers end up buying it instead of yours.

indeyets 3y ago
Not really. Barely anyone buys game for the engine. The story and game mechanics are much more important.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  In the sim game genre, the two are somewhat intertwined and customers are also more aware of what the engine does. Car and flight enthusiast sim people absolutely do shop for physics, flight model, and so on to some extent. I don't know where on the spectrum from casual to enthusiast sim War Thunder is. I looked at YouTube and the game looks graphically primitive, so the engine would have to do something else that's impressive.

meheleventyone 3y ago

If you’ve made your own engine or significant unique pieces of technology that’s part of your companies IP which is inherently part of the value of the company. Further to that open sourcing software takes effort and the more complex the software the more effort it takes. Game engines are very complex. Then for most companies they are trying to make and ship games which is also pretty hard. So open sourcing seems like a lot of work for little return. That’s often why engines that become open source are general at their end of life from a commercial perspective. Games with modding in mind often do open source relevant bits to make modding easier.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

Clones with more marketing budget / scummy promotion behind it. Not supplying the assets isn't a deterrent, because one they can be lifted from your game anyway, and two, there's factories producing assets production line style. While, if you have a successful game, there will undoubtedly be clones, you don't have to make it easy for them.

jowea 3y ago

What's the economic benefit for the company?

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Cheap, dirty clones. You can't even necessarily fight it legally if the clone is "distinct." That being said, I think there's less risk once your game "takes off" like WarThunder. Barotrauma is another good example where a clone is unlikely now.

KronisLV 3y ago
> That being said, I think there's less risk once your game "takes off" like WarThunder. I remember a game called Armored Warfare, that was like a mashup of World of Tanks and War Thunder, with modern vehicles, upgrades, multiple factions, more PvE focus and actual story missions (with sci-fi elements and cheesy voice acting). It played well and looked nicely, too, though for whatever reason it never took off. If a game that well put together didn't attract a notable following, I doubt any others will either.

langsoul-com 3y ago

It cost a metric shit ton of time and manpower to create the game engine. What benefit would they have giving it away for free? Game engine creator studios, like unity or unreal, have vastly different objectives than a game company. Releasing and being required to maintain a public game engine costs resources. Where game devs are always crunching. Even then, look at the state of Unity, hardly profitable. Unreal was cruising on Fortnite cash so they don't care too much. More interested in setting themselves up to be the top dog first. This isn't exactly a money making situation.