Katilian on 28 February 2008
Interesting idea. There are just a few points I would like to make/discuss:
1. It is my understanding that the entire client engine (both gameplay and distribution) is the part which becomes open source. I see three initial issues with this:
- It is my understanding that the main way DRM works is through obscurity. Having the client open sourced removes part of the obscurity. I'm not necesarilly referring to directly being able to pirate games, but you need to be able to stop cheating and other exploits too. This isn't an area I'm entirely up to speed on, so perhaps someone can explain if this is actually feasible.
- Having a fully open source client means a 3rd party only needs to develop a server backend to distribute their own content (or they can outright lift the engine and make their own standalone game). While you might not see any problem with this and invite the competition, I can see investors being upset when their money is going towards developing software for the competition.
- If someone can gain access to the original content of another game (since you need a copy locally), what is to stop them connecting to a rogue server with a modified client? This basically stems from the previous two points.
2. You suggest that single player content serves as a free demo. As someone who dislikes online gaming, will this system have anything to benifit me when I'm after a solid single player experience?
3. Is the license GPL or BSD based? I'm assuming GPL as you have mentioned others submitting back to it. How do you deal with the issue of multiple people modifying the same parts to handle things differently?
