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I felt a strong need to reply to a recent comment on http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...Games&p=244454 but didn't want to contribute any further to the threadomancy going on there. Cut-n-pasted what I was about to reply with below.
As a further note on this topic, this is all forum-quality brain dumping of course, and not presented in any kind of proper essay format. I'm pointing this out because I'm still collecting feedback on the topic since I'm not sure exactly how on target on I am. I'm positive I'm at least in the ballpark.
I have gotten plenty of feedback face-to-face from real game professionals, but not a whole lot from the FOSS community yet. I've yet to speak to anyone who has worked for years full-time on FOSS projects about gaming; just a few casual FOSS contributors like myself, which means FOSS hasn't had a fair representation in the discussion. 
Not sure if I've brought this up on Phoronix before, either. Know I have on a few other FOSS sites, but got almost no feedback on any of them. :/
never say never!
Never.
I haven't put together the talk I planned, but there are a number of reasons why the Open Source / Bazaar model just does not work for things like AAA video games, Hollywood movies, and so on. The primary reason is that the biggest strength of Open Source is actually a weakness for projects like those: the idea that people can come in, scratch an itch, jump in and join the project any time, and help improve it before release. For a video game or movie, the entire thing is based on an idea of content. Once that content is consumed, the product is no longer interesting. Some games have a lot of replayability with little content (shooters), and others have a ridiculous amount of content to make up for lacking gameplay (Skyrim), but in the end, you're not really super interested in those kinds of things two years after you first start playing with them. Unfortunately, those games also take 2-5 years to make, and that's assuming triple-digit teams working 40-100 hours/week each during that whole time.
Something like GCC, Apache, Firefox, or so on are very different. They aren't based on content. You're not using GCC for "fun" but rather because it's a great tool for transforming source code to executables. Four years from now, GCC will still compile C++, Firefox will still browse the Web, and Apache will still serve HTTP requests. Their primary function remains relevant (even if they no longer improve) because four years from now, you'll have new C++ code to compile, new web sites to visit, and new people to serve content to over HTTP.
The primary function of L.A. Noir does not change. It's a game that is built for a specific story. Its content is built for that story. Most of it is not nearly as reusable as many people might think. Two years from now, you're going to already know that whole story, know all the secrets, know all the tricks, and tinkering with it or playing it again is not going to be particularly entertaining.
The problem then is that making it Open Source means that all its potential fans can play it and tinker with it long before its done. All the plot twists are going to be revealed long before the player hits the proper scene that makes the twist emotionally impactful. All the actors are going to be known, so there's no moment "hey that's Carla Gallo from Bones!") partway through the game. All the secrets and hidden items will be known.
Games (and movies) are an experience. They're absolutely different when you're one of the developers. The experience never happens. The "Big Reveal" is blown. Being a developer on a game is like going to a magic show when you already know how all the tricks work. It's ruined, in a matter of speaking.
Games and movies work best when they're kept under tight wraps and revealed in one big go. There's a reason people get upset over spoilers, after all.
The end result of all this is that being a casual contributor to a FOSS game is not particularly rewarding if you're at all interested in actually _playing_ the game, and the ability for your non-developer end-users to get so involved and see all the magic dust in the game before its ready will destroy any interest they had in the game in the first place. Thousands of people debated every little detail of Skyrim for over a year before its release, but they all got a real first-time experience when 11-11-11 rolled around and they actually got to truly see it and actually play it for the very first time.
There are a few other big reasons why Open Source doesn't work so well for games that a bit less intrinsic to what games are. Things like how artists and musicians are significantly less friendly to the idea of their work being open to modification by anyone. Or how game development requires a dedicated time schedule and release point (the game as to be "done" eventually) while regular software can continue evolving for decades without losing value. Or the relative complexity of a game and the diminished value of casual developers with casual levels of development skill. Or the lack of reuse viability in the code or assets. Or the strict need for a hierarchy of people in charge to ensure that you get an experience and not a mess of disconnected mechanics and sub-plots (granted, that happens sometimes in professional games... *cough*Skyrim*cough*... but that just proves me point of how lacking that oversight hurts the final product).
There's a big caveat: I fully believe that it should be mandatory for the source code for every game to be released within 5-10 years of the game's commercial release. As in written in law that this must happen Or Woe to the Publisher. The data doesn't necessarily need to be Free (copyright expiration handles that anyway, eventually), but the lack of source code for most old games means they'll be lost to future generations.
Games are part of culture. Few people my age didn't grow up with Mario or Sonic the same way that my parents and grandparents grew up with Mickey Mouse (and the copyright terms on that are also hugely screwed up, of course). However, unlike movies or books or music, you can't simply transcribe a copy of Dragon Age from its current medium to some new OS or console 20 years from now when XBox360's are impossible to find and personal computing devices have lost any semblance of WinXP compatibility entirely. This means that the cultural impact of games can and will easily be lost to future generations in ways that haven't happened with movies. You can easily make a digital copy of Charlie Chaplin's first movie and preserve those bytes anywhere and anyway you want and play them back with a simple-ish software algorithm. That doesn't work for Assassin's Creed, which requires not only the digital copy of the data but a software "algorithm" to emulate an entire 2011-era PC or game console from top to bottom.
As has been reported on here on Phoronix, just emulating the NES is a ridiculously complicated task. Emulating the XBox360 and its software stack is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. Emulating Win32 in WINE is still nowhere close to being generally usable, and they're not yet having to worry about emulating the hardware as well. Many games from the NES, SNES, N64, and even Gamecube eras are already lost. A lot of the commercial hits have been ported, and will continue to be ported so long as they remain commercially successful, but a lot of the smaller games are just lost. Some are lost literally, such as some of the early Final Fantasies which had to be rewritten from scratch for re-release (and yes, there's historical value in being able to inspect and play the original, even if just to compare to the remake, as that can for instance help identity cultural shifts in society's understanding, expectations, and desire for various video game design points).
This is all very different than developing a game as Open Source. Developing them as FOSS makes little sense. Releasing them as FOSS after the fact makes too much sense from a societal standpoint. And of course an "Open Source game" is not the same thing as "charity ware" like Quake3/Doom3; a FOSS game is designed as FOSS from the start, while charity ware is just dumped out to the public after the fact. There's lots of value in that charity, but don't ever confuse them with real FOSS games, like Battle for Wesnoth.
As a further note on this topic, this is all forum-quality brain dumping of course, and not presented in any kind of proper essay format. I'm pointing this out because I'm still collecting feedback on the topic since I'm not sure exactly how on target on I am. I'm positive I'm at least in the ballpark.
I have gotten plenty of feedback face-to-face from real game professionals, but not a whole lot from the FOSS community yet. I've yet to speak to anyone who has worked for years full-time on FOSS projects about gaming; just a few casual FOSS contributors like myself, which means FOSS hasn't had a fair representation in the discussion. Not sure if I've brought this up on Phoronix before, either. Know I have on a few other FOSS sites, but got almost no feedback on any of them. :/
Originally posted by MeduZa
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Originally posted by RealNC
never say never!
I haven't put together the talk I planned, but there are a number of reasons why the Open Source / Bazaar model just does not work for things like AAA video games, Hollywood movies, and so on. The primary reason is that the biggest strength of Open Source is actually a weakness for projects like those: the idea that people can come in, scratch an itch, jump in and join the project any time, and help improve it before release. For a video game or movie, the entire thing is based on an idea of content. Once that content is consumed, the product is no longer interesting. Some games have a lot of replayability with little content (shooters), and others have a ridiculous amount of content to make up for lacking gameplay (Skyrim), but in the end, you're not really super interested in those kinds of things two years after you first start playing with them. Unfortunately, those games also take 2-5 years to make, and that's assuming triple-digit teams working 40-100 hours/week each during that whole time.
Something like GCC, Apache, Firefox, or so on are very different. They aren't based on content. You're not using GCC for "fun" but rather because it's a great tool for transforming source code to executables. Four years from now, GCC will still compile C++, Firefox will still browse the Web, and Apache will still serve HTTP requests. Their primary function remains relevant (even if they no longer improve) because four years from now, you'll have new C++ code to compile, new web sites to visit, and new people to serve content to over HTTP.
The primary function of L.A. Noir does not change. It's a game that is built for a specific story. Its content is built for that story. Most of it is not nearly as reusable as many people might think. Two years from now, you're going to already know that whole story, know all the secrets, know all the tricks, and tinkering with it or playing it again is not going to be particularly entertaining.
The problem then is that making it Open Source means that all its potential fans can play it and tinker with it long before its done. All the plot twists are going to be revealed long before the player hits the proper scene that makes the twist emotionally impactful. All the actors are going to be known, so there's no moment "hey that's Carla Gallo from Bones!") partway through the game. All the secrets and hidden items will be known.
Games (and movies) are an experience. They're absolutely different when you're one of the developers. The experience never happens. The "Big Reveal" is blown. Being a developer on a game is like going to a magic show when you already know how all the tricks work. It's ruined, in a matter of speaking.
Games and movies work best when they're kept under tight wraps and revealed in one big go. There's a reason people get upset over spoilers, after all.
The end result of all this is that being a casual contributor to a FOSS game is not particularly rewarding if you're at all interested in actually _playing_ the game, and the ability for your non-developer end-users to get so involved and see all the magic dust in the game before its ready will destroy any interest they had in the game in the first place. Thousands of people debated every little detail of Skyrim for over a year before its release, but they all got a real first-time experience when 11-11-11 rolled around and they actually got to truly see it and actually play it for the very first time.
There are a few other big reasons why Open Source doesn't work so well for games that a bit less intrinsic to what games are. Things like how artists and musicians are significantly less friendly to the idea of their work being open to modification by anyone. Or how game development requires a dedicated time schedule and release point (the game as to be "done" eventually) while regular software can continue evolving for decades without losing value. Or the relative complexity of a game and the diminished value of casual developers with casual levels of development skill. Or the lack of reuse viability in the code or assets. Or the strict need for a hierarchy of people in charge to ensure that you get an experience and not a mess of disconnected mechanics and sub-plots (granted, that happens sometimes in professional games... *cough*Skyrim*cough*... but that just proves me point of how lacking that oversight hurts the final product).
There's a big caveat: I fully believe that it should be mandatory for the source code for every game to be released within 5-10 years of the game's commercial release. As in written in law that this must happen Or Woe to the Publisher. The data doesn't necessarily need to be Free (copyright expiration handles that anyway, eventually), but the lack of source code for most old games means they'll be lost to future generations.
Games are part of culture. Few people my age didn't grow up with Mario or Sonic the same way that my parents and grandparents grew up with Mickey Mouse (and the copyright terms on that are also hugely screwed up, of course). However, unlike movies or books or music, you can't simply transcribe a copy of Dragon Age from its current medium to some new OS or console 20 years from now when XBox360's are impossible to find and personal computing devices have lost any semblance of WinXP compatibility entirely. This means that the cultural impact of games can and will easily be lost to future generations in ways that haven't happened with movies. You can easily make a digital copy of Charlie Chaplin's first movie and preserve those bytes anywhere and anyway you want and play them back with a simple-ish software algorithm. That doesn't work for Assassin's Creed, which requires not only the digital copy of the data but a software "algorithm" to emulate an entire 2011-era PC or game console from top to bottom.
As has been reported on here on Phoronix, just emulating the NES is a ridiculously complicated task. Emulating the XBox360 and its software stack is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. Emulating Win32 in WINE is still nowhere close to being generally usable, and they're not yet having to worry about emulating the hardware as well. Many games from the NES, SNES, N64, and even Gamecube eras are already lost. A lot of the commercial hits have been ported, and will continue to be ported so long as they remain commercially successful, but a lot of the smaller games are just lost. Some are lost literally, such as some of the early Final Fantasies which had to be rewritten from scratch for re-release (and yes, there's historical value in being able to inspect and play the original, even if just to compare to the remake, as that can for instance help identity cultural shifts in society's understanding, expectations, and desire for various video game design points).
This is all very different than developing a game as Open Source. Developing them as FOSS makes little sense. Releasing them as FOSS after the fact makes too much sense from a societal standpoint. And of course an "Open Source game" is not the same thing as "charity ware" like Quake3/Doom3; a FOSS game is designed as FOSS from the start, while charity ware is just dumped out to the public after the fact. There's lots of value in that charity, but don't ever confuse them with real FOSS games, like Battle for Wesnoth.
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