Are Open-Source Games & Community Game Engines Fading Away?

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

Message purged...

[ssokolow]

The entire idea that a game has to be commercial to be high quality is a joke. Anyone with half a brain can look at projects like Skywind and The Crysis Mechwarrior project and see that high quality game experiences can be created by teams working for free driven by their passion for a game/series. The problem stopping a lot of this enthusiasm being directed towards Open Source games remains a distinct lack of tools and resources for modifying open source game engines. Most of the Open Source games do not have editing tools, and unfortunately the FPS games which do have editors (quake/doom) have fallen out of favor with the community for making mods. exitcode0 is doing a fantastic job with Doom3, and there are other projects doing the same. Again it's because the engine has tools available. Where the engines don't have good tools we see project stagnation/death. How many years were the Tux Kart games dead for before there was a concerted effort to upgrade the graphics?

The notion that something has to be made for pay or made for profit to be high quality is completely false... It's kind of funny that Linux users would think that about games when their own platform is the proof of the idea's falsehood... Games aren't some magical unicorn thing to be put on a pedestal. They require certain types of programs to work. It's like Linux itself, in the start there was no GUI and people probably claimed that with no GUI Linux was dying. Linux got a GUI and now it's becoming a legitimate Desktop OS alternative compared to Windows/OSX. Build the tools, the artists will come and the games will be great. There are a ton of people out there wanting to make great open source games. They just don't know howto because they can't program and will never have the aptitude for it. Help them and you'll help your projects.

To be fair, it is at least part of the problem that games are more "disposable" than other types of applications. You can iterate on a browser or an OS kernel or an office suite for a decade as long as it's "sufficiently useful" to keep interest... but, for games, it's a lot harder to maintain that state for long enough to pay off and, since the technology is still advancing more quickly than other areas, you can't easily iterate on the underlying componentry either.

That's why things like ScummVM and DOSBox are the big successes on the open-source gaming side of things. The fact that people want a specific game and not just any play-alike knock-off restores the balance that makes open source's turtle beat proprietary's hare in the race.

[ssokolow]

About the id Tech 4 engine, there is at least one community game that uses the open sourced id Tech 4 engine: The Dark Mod, and this time it's not “Another Quake 3 clone”.

Seconded. I didn't have Doom 3 when TDM announced standalone status, so I was very pleased to see that. (my copy of Thief Gold is still one of my most favoured things on my CD shelf)

Sadly, fate seems to have conspired against me. At the time, I didn't have a good enough GPU and, now that my GPU is better, I can't scrape together long enough contiguous spans of time for it to be satisfying.

[monohouse]

FPS be damned, looks be damned ... Be it wired or wireless

I don't know how you define hardcore gamer, I can tell you for sure that people who buy 800$ video cards will not say FPS and looks be damned, you indicate to me that you are not one of those that do, if you did, you wouldn't be saying sutch things

and if latency is so important to you, you wouldn't be mentioning the word "wireless" in your message

as for networking performance being better in Linux - I did not experience any improvement when I changed from XP to Linux

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

Any game developer who still wants to hold on to Linux now not only has to answer to the question "Why not develop your game for Windows?" but also to the question "Why not make your game run on mobile phones?" ...

To be quite frank, I would answer with a question -- "Why not simply release said title to all platforms?". The sole reason I can think of -- shorter release cycle. But, in my humble opinion, a longer release cycle wouldn't be all that bad, given the vast majority of junk amongst the more modern titles. Again, not being nostalgic, just being critical about what I spend my money on.

[sdack]

It probably is fading away. Desktops and notebooks are no longer the most wanted Christmas items, but mobile phones and tablets are, and for some time now. If a game does not run under Windows, and it is not a game for the PS/XBox console market, then why would one choose Linux as the alternative, independent gaming platform when one can hop onto the mobile market just the same? At least in the mobile market can the small game makers still get attention and make some coin. Any game developer who still wants to hold on to Linux now not only has to answer to the question "Why not develop your game for Windows?" but also to the question "Why not make your game run on mobile phones?" ...

Especially the young game developers, who are still looking to make a career in the gaming industry, will want to stay away from Linux more than before, because it will only add very little to their CVs when others can list Windows programming, console programming and now also mobile programming to their skill sets - each of which will tell a boss that you have the skills needed for a market where there is still a lot of money flowing. Those with Linux skills, should their other skills not be outstanding, will only end up in the server room where they will be giving 24/7-support.

The answer to why one wants to hold on to Linux gaming will eventually look as old and boring as that of someone who still loves to write games for the Commodore C64.

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

I find it rather striking that a mostly innocuous topic such as the state of open source gaming derailed into some sort of debate concerning the validity or dangers of gaming in general. On that subject however, there is far more violence children are confronted with from news reels alone than most children are confronted with through games. The world, sadly, is a far more dire place than the worlds portrayed by most games.

Point being -- If people really want to find the culprit for the sad state of affairs, they should look for a mirror as opposed to blaming it solely and/or squarely on games. We've all contributed to the world being what it is. Do some proper research on how many people have been murdered, executed or simply exterminated for far older concepts than gaming and you'll quickly see that even if certain games are excessively violent, the world is far more so. And you don't even need to dig all that deep into history.

So, could we all just drop this mindless and completely pointless debate about the violence in games?

[Impetus]

It's amazing how people are fighting over open source engines are fading away, whilst they could bond together and create an open source game engine themselves. The whole point of open source is to give developers a choice as to whether an idea can become a reality or not, without the need for financial incentives. Some people on this thread view such projects from a commercial point of view rather than an open-source point of view. It's not really the same environment because open-source projects are not always commercially-driven, but more community-driven. If you think there's a game engine out there that needs your attention, then by all means contribute towards it. If we all resorted to bash-talking on forums then the world of open source would die out pretty much tomorrow.

[unixfan2001]

You just proved that you are part of the problem, accepting these kind of trashy content as something that is good and acceptable, even my self have done so by buying the same trashy FPS games where I don't earn nothing in exchange, just some twisted violent fun. And don't tell me no body has commited suicide because of listening to black heavy metal music... Lets call the bad good and the good bad.



There are thousands of other ways to make money, but hey, the game development industry pays millions (billions?) so lets stop developing more useful stuff because hey, that isn't paying, instead lets develop a cool game where you can smash zombie heads, kids and adults with a child pshychopath mentality will enjoy it.



Maybe a short sighted statement for a blind sighted living being.

Seriously, dude. Seek medical attention!

From your statements, it's pretty clear that if anyone suffers from violent thoughts or is going to commit an atrocity, it's you.
The fact that you even think about stuff like that is pretty telling.

And no. No one has ever committed suicide because of listening to black heavy metal or playing (A)D&D.
The human psyche is far more complicated than that and there usually are far more complex underlying issues leading to a person's suicide.

[Apopas]

2 more still kicking and worth mentioning are:
- SuperTuxKart
- Battle for Wesnoth

as it goes to keeping old games alive, beside OpenMW, we should also mention OpenJK.

These plus Godot engine and Ren'py!