Valve Is Making All Their Games Free To Debian Developers

[blackiwid]

You can sell ice to an eskimo, too, but i don't think i'd describe that as a solid business plan. Everyone trying to make money off gpl software does it by selling services and support, not the software itself.

I am not even talking about selling the software, I am talking about the artwork. Thats a difference. Of course you can sell the service to make a binary and a cd with the stuff too. if somebody wants really a cd ^^.

But your work is not protected then.

Without drm it does not matter if you sell your software+artwork under gpl or proprietary. The only protection you have is the copyright law in both cases.

So because its illegal many people buy the software, look at humble bundle. So of course you could publish your sourcecode on github but every single texture and stuff only sell and sue everybody that host this files.

Its done on some older games.

You could even do that on a major big AAA Title. I am shure they would not sell less copies because of that. If they sell less than because they dont use drm, but drm-free closedsource or opensource doesnt make a difference.

But maybe some people would additionaly buy the game because the source is availible, maybe not. Especialy when the games get older and the companies dont want to support them anymore because they sold the most copies in the past this modell is very good modell.

The only negative point could be that people stick to long to the old version, and dont buy the new version, because the old game gets still updates. But that can also happen with non-free software like Wolfenstein ET.

But because this companies invests often thousends of man-hours onto new games with combining thousends of hours of the engine developers and they have artwork people to create new high quality artwork, users have good reasons to switch to new versions anyway.

[blackiwid]

Here:

"My guess is" thats more like what I said he is not shure if its better or worse.

[pandev92]

Ahahahahahahahaha

stop trolling...

stop trolling and play urban terror.

[V10lator]

Temar and others: I already explained above. DRM-free means ability to install the game without the service. Steam doesn't offer that even when developers don't object. So it's not up to developers, it's Steam's own decision by design.

That's bullshit. See steam as a medium to get the game. With that you say that CD-ROMs/DVDs and the website of a publisher which allows to download the game is DRM, too. So you can't use any software cause all has DRM according to you.

I thought it's obvious. Inability to backup your games installers / packages means that if your account is closed (or the service closes down) you'll lose an ability to install (and in turn play) any of your games. Now imagine that without thinking, you bought hundreds of them there... Money lost. Here goes your "unobtrusive" DRM.

Same goes for any internet download and what if you loose the CD/DVD? And now get that to your "inability to backup":

DRM free means you can use the software without the service and there are games on Steam which allow that. You can even copy them onto another computer that doesn't have Steam installed and they will still run. How much more DRM free do you want?

Again: It's up to the developers to use the Steam DRM... or not.

Now go read what DRM means before you continue to write such stupid comments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

What! No porn? WHY? Valve forces their sex-negative moral views on developers! Valve is discriminating against porn games! Boycott Valve!!!

Buy Rust on the Steam store, start the game and type "censore.nudity false" in the console (or write it into the client.cfg) and you have naked man. The only reason that this variable is true by default is Valve asking the Rust devs nicely to do something against all the naked man pictures flooding the Steam servers and AFAIK it's only a temporary solution, the Rust devs plan to censor such pictures as soon as you upload them to Steam.
So no, Valve isn't forcing any moral view to developers.

[Ardje]

Bah! I am only getting sponsored... :-(

OTOH, i almost have all the games.

[Kivada]

What! No porn? WHY? Valve forces their sex-negative moral views on developers! Valve is discriminating against porn games! Boycott Valve!!!

Try getting your porn game on the shelf at EB Games, Best Buy, Wal-Mart etc. Steam has the same rules about what games they'll carry. So no RapeLay for you uncle creepy.

[Kivada]

You can't make money off GPL, like you expressed it.
But you can sell GPL software.

You write software or even just create binaries, offer them for price. How is that not selling?
Only those who purchase binaries may get source. You can also distribute it for free. Your choice.

Buyers can re-distribute them alright, for price that they see fit. This is no different from torrenting.
If you want source to those binaries, you can ask the upstream and must confirm you received binaries from somewhere. Can't just demand source.

But if you want updates from 1st hand, you can only get them from upstream.
And if you want to support project, you need to work with upstream.

Also, whole support thing is required to be done over upstream, obviously.
So long upstream works on the changes, paying and getting this works.

But the problem it produces is similar to proprietary software - that is you need whole customer verification and with regular people inability to directly contribute to project without purchasing the product. It is also much much better to have software in repository. While "markets", that is repos plus account support, allow both of worlds, the whole account thing is a limitation.

So many projects just drop the sell price and welcome anyone preferring to exist on different use cases - mostly on fixing stuff for money or warranty.
That is, for distribution GPL is perfect. But it does not solve the cumbersomeness of customer/non-customer when applied to free software bazaar like development.

Thus for money making from development process, as in writing code and offering it to people to purchase whilst keeping code base free, this license is not suitable. Is there any?

The last time this happened was Lugaru and we all know what happened: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...garu-Customers

It got cloned and counterfeit copies resold.

[Kivada]

I am not even talking about selling the software, I am talking about the artwork. Thats a difference. Of course you can sell the service to make a binary and a cd with the stuff too. if somebody wants really a cd ^^.

But your work is not protected then.

Without drm it does not matter if you sell your software+artwork under gpl or proprietary. The only protection you have is the copyright law in both cases.

As I stated before you can sell your Steam games if you buy them through http://greenmangaming.com/

[dee.]

Try getting your porn game on the shelf at EB Games, Best Buy, Wal-Mart etc. Steam has the same rules about what games they'll carry. So no RapeLay for you uncle creepy.

I don't go to best buy or walmart either. In fact I've never been in either and I do believe I'd have to travel literally thousands of kilometers before I'd have a chance of seeing either. I don't even know what eb games is, is it some place where your granny shops?

So if steam wants to monopolize game distribution, the least they could do is show some maturity and not push their own limited moral standards on other people. They should at least allow all kinds of games on the market, regardless of their personal tastes or religious views.

It's funny. Apple plays dictator on their app store and censors apps for nudity - evil!!! Internet warriors, assemble!

Steam does the same - cue excuses...

[profoundWHALE]

Don't reply to buttheads, it only encourages them. Just keep walking.