Why are almost all open source games copycats?
Posted: 03 Jul 2017, 14:23
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I wonder why this question is not asked more often, you hardly ever see someone talk about this, even though it is totally obvious.
So why is almost every open source game a clone of some proprietary game?
Let me bring some of the counter arguments usually brought up:
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the big production budgets.
If this is true, then why do open source programs compete very well on the market, not even compete, but win in many areas. There is a clear contradiction there and there is no logic reason why it should be the opposite for games, since programs and games are both software, just different purpose software.
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the big advertisement budgets.
Thats also false, since most successfull proprietary games do not have advertising as well, their own brand name is the best advertising since they build up their brand over time with good products. Even to this day video games are rarely advertised in mainstream media and the mainstream media does not feature them.
Also a big counter argument to this is that many of the most popular games now, started out as user made mods that had no one behind them and no advertising at all, but they are some of the biggest players now and some even outsell products made by the biggest companies that exist.
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the manpower and organisation of big companies.
Manpower does only help you to a limited extend, with more people working on it, you can only increase quantitative production, not qualitative production.
-Open source games cannot compete, because there are no open source game engines and software available.
That may have been true around 5 years ago, but now there are multiple engine and software alternatives available to make games, that can decently compete with the proprietary ones.
So why are open source programs and user made mods so successfull and open source games not?
There is a simple answer: Innovation.
And thats exactly what the open source games scene lacks the most, but innovation is pretty much the only advantage you can have over big companies and if you throw that overboard there is almost no way you can win. Because of this open source games are similar to clickbait ripoff games that you see so often that ride on the latest hypes to make some money, this tactic can work decently, but those ripoff products hardly ever can outshine the thing they copied, since they are just copies and never innovated and therefore can never be better than the original.
I wonder why this question is not asked more often, you hardly ever see someone talk about this, even though it is totally obvious.
So why is almost every open source game a clone of some proprietary game?
Let me bring some of the counter arguments usually brought up:
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the big production budgets.
If this is true, then why do open source programs compete very well on the market, not even compete, but win in many areas. There is a clear contradiction there and there is no logic reason why it should be the opposite for games, since programs and games are both software, just different purpose software.
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the big advertisement budgets.
Thats also false, since most successfull proprietary games do not have advertising as well, their own brand name is the best advertising since they build up their brand over time with good products. Even to this day video games are rarely advertised in mainstream media and the mainstream media does not feature them.
Also a big counter argument to this is that many of the most popular games now, started out as user made mods that had no one behind them and no advertising at all, but they are some of the biggest players now and some even outsell products made by the biggest companies that exist.
-Open source games cannot compete, because they don't have the manpower and organisation of big companies.
Manpower does only help you to a limited extend, with more people working on it, you can only increase quantitative production, not qualitative production.
-Open source games cannot compete, because there are no open source game engines and software available.
That may have been true around 5 years ago, but now there are multiple engine and software alternatives available to make games, that can decently compete with the proprietary ones.
So why are open source programs and user made mods so successfull and open source games not?
There is a simple answer: Innovation.
And thats exactly what the open source games scene lacks the most, but innovation is pretty much the only advantage you can have over big companies and if you throw that overboard there is almost no way you can win. Because of this open source games are similar to clickbait ripoff games that you see so often that ride on the latest hypes to make some money, this tactic can work decently, but those ripoff products hardly ever can outshine the thing they copied, since they are just copies and never innovated and therefore can never be better than the original.