There is nothing special about free software* game development. It's not harder than --let's say-- developing a kernel, or a desktop environment, or a family of compilers. Simply find out how these successful free software projects work and apply the same model to the development of a game. For example:The only problem I can see with current game projects is that they are understaffed. The vast majority are solo projects, or small team projects, and obviously that's hard to sustain if they don't have incentives. But projects with strong communities like OpenMW or 0 a.d. I think they are doing fine. Probably the only thing needed to see more free software* games is more people interested/involved.
- Community oriented
- Code sharing and reuse between projects (avoid DRY, more efficient development, better quality)
- Forking (make a different game by only tunning or modifying a little an existing one)
- Sure there are more
* or open source software, libre software, FOSS, FLOSS, ... what you prefer
Julius {l Wrote}:2. Education-mind set: i.e. many FOSS game projects are started to learn something, thus re-inventing the wheel is done on purpose, code-bases are often full of cruft, and projects are quickly abandoned once that learning goal is reached. It also turns off-potential contributors if it becomes clear that there is no real long-term commitment in the project and that the project lead has different objectives than more result focused contributors. In general this also leads to a lot of new projects started that never get anywhere.
charlie {l Wrote}:@jcantero - what you omit, which is the biggest stumbling block for open source games, is that it is nearly impossible to find a job that pays for making them.
jcantero {l Wrote}:charlie {l Wrote}:@jcantero - what you omit, which is the biggest stumbling block for open source games, is that it is nearly impossible to find a job that pays for making them.
You can replace "games" by another type of software in your statement and remains true.
People also tend to forget that even non-free software (including non-free games) doesn't guarantee to make a living out of it. The successful cases are just a few exceptions rather than the rule.
Julius {l Wrote}:Well, an MMORPG could be open-source for example with no big difference in the business model, many F2P games as well.
It's just a bit easier and more common in the non-games software industry.
jcantero {l Wrote}:People also tend to forget that even non-free software (including non-free games) doesn't guarantee to make a living out of it. The successful cases are just a few exceptions rather than the rule.
charlie {l Wrote}:That's not true though. There are many paid developers on the open source projects of note - Gnome, KDE, Linux, LibreOffice etc.
Duion {l Wrote}:The problem with free and open source games is, that nobody plays them, but games can only develop and grow, when they are played.
Duion {l Wrote}:Yes, sadly marketing is almost everything, some of the worst games are surprisingly also the most popular, mostly because of marketing or some hype that has build up.
But you also need some kind of hook in the game that keeps people addicted, so they come back, even if it is as simple as an achievement system, where people just get medals as reward.
Duion {l Wrote}:What you need is visibility
Andrettin {l Wrote}:Then the question is: how to do marketing (without spending a ton of money)?
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