4 ms·
Most good games are made by people who are paid to make them. Or people who hope to pay themselves when their game is finished and sold. It's hard to get a lar
by forrestthewoods 14y ago
Most good games are made by people who are paid to make them. Or people who hope to pay themselves when their game is finished and sold.
It's hard to get a large volume of unpaid volunteers to collectively work together on a creative endeavor. If I'm going to spend my free time working on something creative then it's going to follow my vision and not someone else's.
If you want a community driven game nothing is stopping anyone. Quake 3/Doom 3 are GPL'd. Unity is cheap. Plenty of games are incredibly mod friendly. There's been no better time in gaming history than to be indie than today.
- spacelizard 14y agoWhoa - I'm not advocating for people to work unpaid. Don't know where you got that idea. I just don't think anything can really honestly advertise itself as being "mod friendly" or "community friendly" unless it's GPL.
- forrestthewoods 14y agoCommunity driven somewhat implies unpaid. At least it seems so to me? There's no proven business model for games that supports paying a staff and being GPL. Being GPL also means you can't ever release on consoles, handhelds, or mobile. I'm not sure how you could say Source engine isn't mod friendly. Lots of great mods have been made using it. Professional grade engines are also becoming increasingly available at very affordable prices. With Unity there's really nothing stopping anyone from making any game they want.
- ekimekim 14y agoMinor quibble - I'd say "an open licence", not "GPL".
- b0rsuk 14y agoNo, that's not the problem with Open Source games. Open Source developers are more than capable and willing to work on a game. The problem is: they can't agree on anything except most basic game concepts. That's why you get: - Freeciv - Wesnoth (Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics) - Nexuiz, Cube, Warsow, Open Arena, Alien Arena, and the other 68 quake 1 clones There are very few creative Open Source games. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is one example, it's an OS game with no commercial equivalent. Teeworlds is another. OS developers only reach consensus on widely liked game concepts, creativity is very unlikely to be accepted. Instead of working on something exciting, they work on something everyone hates the least. It's a management problem, not technical or motivation problem. Votes become vetoes. http://blog.asmartbear.com/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-crowds.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/ignoring-the-wisdom-of-crowds.htm...