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As a long-time Stardew Valley fan, I never thought I'd find a game that could capture my heart quite the same way. Fields of Mistria has done just that. I'm honestly blown away by how good this game is
note: just a random fan, have nothing to do with this game at all. It kinda saddens me that it hasn't gotten as much attention though, there are so many mediocre games with soooo many reviews.. this game is legit insane. it's gorgeous!!
Edit: Concerned Ape must've seen my post, and now Stardew Valley has a midweek deal for -50% off LMFAO you cannot make this up
closed source, early access, available only through steam. Far from being impressive
Ah yes, closed source, such a dealbreaker, as if 99% of the other games weren't.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against open source games, it's just not a viable monetization strategy for most projects, and people gotta eat. There's reason why most open source games are either passion projects or old games that have been open sourced simply as an act of kindness towards the community since they generate pretty much no revenue.
I think for many content heavy games, an open source engine and copyrighted content could work financially. Someone would still have to buy the game, but the game mechanics and platform support can be enhanced and engine bugs fixed by the community.
I could see that being a thing, but the line between the engine and the game itself is a bit blurry in this context. Copyrighting just the assets and content would often not be enough. There will always be a good chunk of game code which isn't strictly part of the engine but under this model should remain closed source, otherwise people could just bring their own assets.
Frankly I'd be satisfied with companies open sourcing their games after they stop supporting and/or selling them, mostly for preservation and all that. I think that would be a great middle-ground.
Sure, depends on the engine, but very often there is a "scripting" part, be it quests, dialog, etc. and the where those scripting functions/library and language is implemented. The first are part of content, while the latter is part of the engine.
Also games have data tables, where the individual value for each record are part of content and the implementation of what each attribute does is implemented in the engine or some specific scripting.
Engines tent to have a clear split, because different kind of developers have different processes, and engines are often reused for multiple games.
IMO, that means that the whole game would be sources available (for the end user), while the central engine is open source.
This is just somewhat of a wishful thinking, not a requirement or whatever.
And sure, game devs releasing an engine/game as open source after they are done with it, would be great too. But I like to dream big ;)
Just open sourcing the actual engine wouldn't do much. At best, you'd be able to make it work on newer hardware if problems arise, or port it to other OSs. Great stuff, but not enough when it comes to improving the game, preserving multiplayer, and so on.
There's a great amount of scaffolding on top of the base engine that any moderately sized game implements, be it through scripting or native code. That's what I meant by the line between the engine and the game being blurry. If you want to make meaningful changes to the game, you need access to that framework portion, but releasing it would allow for easy reverse engineering of everything else. It's a difficult balance to achieve.
I am thinking of OpenMW for instance. Through reverse engineering, they where able to create an open source engine that runs the game with modern features. You still have to own those games in order to play the original levels/content.
Sure for games, which are game mechanic driven there is difficulty in separating if from the content, but in many content heavy games, it is more about the world, explorations, the story, characters etc, than the just the runtime, rendering, physics etc.
In many games the big chunks of the engine is sort of source available already, because they are written in a scripting or managed language (.Net or Java).
Making the stuff that isn't written in such a language available to the player as well, would be great. Because that would lessen the reverse engineering burden of modders. And the next step would be to open source parts of it.
The reasons for this are the same for many commercial products to use open source lower levels of their software stack and open source their common code as well. Improving your own product by cooperating with others would be great in gaming as well.
You can charge for your software even when the source code is available and you can get away without paying even when the source code is not available.
If you make something just to bring food into the table following market strategies and relying on nasty business models, no offense but allow me to dispute someone claim that your work is some of the most impressive.
Yours is a flawed, extremist view.
How impressive something is has nothing to do with whether or not its source is available. What, if they release it to the public it suddenly becomes impressive?
You can disagree with the method of distribution, but it doesn't affect the quality of the game.
Piracy being a thing isn't a strong argument for open sourcing everything, since the barrier of entry is higher than you may expect for non technical people, a barrier that would definitely be lower if any game was freely available and compilable by anyone. Someone will make a free, one click installer, guaranteed.
Now, can you charge for open source software? Definitely.
Will it generate significant revenue in most circumstances? No.
Open source software relies on two methods for funding:
The former isn't something one can stably rely on, the latter just isn't applicable to games.
Again, that model can work for some high profile projects, but in the vast majority of cases, it won't. Especially not for games.
One can make works of passion and still want to be compensated, that's what artists do and games are a form of art. You clearly never had to put food on the table with the art you make.
Your vision of everything being open source is a utopia. A noble idea, for sure, but reality is much more bleak.
Go back to reddit that's where you belong
Very mature