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Let’s make games open source, so future generations can enjoy them (jairajdevadiga.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A lot of old games have become unplayable on modern hardware and operating systems. I wrote an article about how making games open source will keep them playable far into the future.

I also discuss how making games open source could be beneficial to developers and companies.

Feedback and constructive criticism are most welcome, and in keeping with the open source spirit, I will give you credit if I make any edits based on your feedback.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I think it could be viable for a company to release a game with a "5 year FOSS promise" or something similar, but you have to realize that the gaming community would never adequately financially support most development endeavors if the choice was as easy as downloading it from place A vs place B.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Many games are trivially easy to pirate and this has been the case for decades. It’s literally as easy as downloading it from Place B.

People still buy the games.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's not accurate. It's far easier to purchase the game currently than it is to pirate it. You get things like automatic updates, server support, verified software, library management, etc with almost every single point of sale where as with piracy you get none of those and likely a little bit of malware as a treat. If you moved games to a completely open source model, you'd see this paradigm shift dramatically with gray markets spinning up seemingly overnight offering similar features.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ehh if you are on a reputable tracker that has scene releases it’s generally downloading a torrent, copying a crack into the game directory or running some crack software, and play

Realistically most people don’t care about things like automatic updates enough to justify spending money on it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

You and I know very different gamers. I can't even talk people into going pc instead of console/mobile phone. (Which is 90% of the gaming market).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

https://writing.kemitchell.com/2023/12/01/PolyForm-Countdown

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I think it could be viable for a company to release a game with a “5 year FOSS promise” or something similar

Yes, that is one of the options I mention in the article. But there are games that are open source from day one, such as Mindustry, which have seen commercial success.