Open Source vs. Closed Source, A big topic in indie gaming nowadays

So we all know that whether or not a developer releases a source to their game varies largely depending on the developer. Both sides have their pros and cons and I'd like to discuss those with you guys. Look at Valve, they show how successful not hiding your code can be due to a bevy of awesome mods that have come out of their source engine and SDK. But we can also look at the amount of bad knockoff games out here in the fangame universe that come from engines and open source games.

Open Source Pros:

-Allows for interesting mods to be made
-Creates communities and makes indie game developers respect your company or you alot more
-Helps educate more people on coding well and creates more good programmers and thus more sophisticated games.

Open Source Cons:

-Open source in indie gaming or fan gaming is not as good of a thing, since people tend to overuse engines to make crappy game-edits.


Feel free to add to this list and tell me what you think about Open Source in both indie game development and professional game development.

open source con: someone could just edit the names and steal your work and say its theirs

Yeah this is the big problem.

You just can't trust the community that looks at indie games, I mean with pro games like Half Life nobody is going to believe you if you release it as yours due to legal stuff, us little indie gamers don't have that sort of thing so it is very easy to have your stuff stolen.

Nothing wrong with Open Source in general but the overall ******ry of the internet kills the coolness of the idea.

yay


Anyways I support open source to the limit where it allows EXPANDING games, which've been my motto for MechaSource anyways. I've added this little feature that allows you to add files to the original game, just not modify it. Not really any bad sides in this, as if you want to change something in the original files, say the variable for jump height, you can do that with the additional files.

Enough about MS, yes, open source is great, to a limit.

The one sole reason I don't do Open Source.

Well, I'm not so much friendly of open sources since I think it's much more clever to release a standalone of the engine people want. For example, let's say Toad Strikes Back is a closed source fangame, but if people say it is awesome and stuff, the creator could release a small game, with just few rooms of all the engine and codes that's needed (plus leave out things he doesn't want to be public) and make it open source. Just imagine if Cave Story were open source, for example? They would ruin all the game with stupid mods and hacks.
Of course, it's much better when you have one of those free-ish online games, where people tend to make lots of cool and fun mods. Sonic Robo Blast 2, for example, is cool mainly because of all the characters and stages you can download, even if it's not exactly an online game.

tl;dr: It all depends on the creator. If he thinks his game looks more like a professional-looking game like Cave Story, he shouldn't let people in. But if he thinks his game is more like a party game, those FPS or Rhytmn games people usually enjoy playing online with friends, Open-source-ing isn't a bad idea at all.

You don't need to play the crappy mods and edits though.

The one thing I'm scared of.

That's usually very rare. The only such person I've heard of was Michael J. Hardy.

I've heard about it loads of times, though.

Were they GPL'ed or released as free software?

This post has been edited by Hohoo on Jan 1 2009, 07:21 AM

I've though about making UME2.

Can't really decide on it when the subject is games, but if I ever start development on a computer application, most likely a ROM manipulation tool, then I will definitely release a source.
Makes me sick to see people write ROM editors and keep the source closed. Information should always be free, and ROM images nobody's individual property.

GPL?

Anyways I've seen loads of times with open source where a person modifies a source code to not credit the original author, then claiming it is his own. It's kinda like how people take credit for other people's sprites at times, it will happen.

If the ROM editor only uses knowledge that is freely available in public ROM hacking guides, what would be the need to release the source? I can't think of one popular (game-specific) ROM editor that is open-source, anyway.

If the creator hoards research that could be useful to other people in order to make said editor, I can see where you're coming from, but other than that, I don't see why the source would be useful in this case.

Please don't, or if you do at least try making it different than an average SMB3 engine. The last thing MFGG needs is more SMB3 clones.


Anyway, I've been thinking about open-sourcing Super Mario Legacy after I finish it. The only reason I wouldn't open-source anything is to avoid people with no skill taking my engine and creating horrible clones, but it would probably be pretty safe, because it's written in Blitz3D (which isn't free), and because creating and editing a 3D level is much harder than doing so for a 2D level.

Are you doing it to help fangaming or to help your reputation?

In the majority of situations I prefer closed source programs. In the case of fangames I think the only time to release source code is if the game was cancelled by the author (so someone else can finish it). The whole "here's an engine for you" thing has gone a bit too far... back in my day we only had real howtos!

I don't like many projects that rely mainly on open contributions. Unless you've got a dedicated team it'll just be a mess and it's not likely everything will get done. But that's not the case here.

But with "official" engines provided by Valve or Epic or whatever it's a slightly different story. You NEED good minds to manipulate said engines to create a good game. It's not like Hello's stuff where it's just a case of changing graphics and level design.

GNU General Public License.

stealing is stealing no matter what license there is to it

as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with contributing to the open-source community

and chances are, if you're game is good enough people will know when someone tries to distribute your game as their own

This post has been edited by Razz on Jan 2 2009, 12:56 AM