@frob

But the problem I have with the commercial titles is that each year very little changes, Isn't it just that they add a few modifications and some new art and assets? With open source would there be a lesser need for resources over time after the initial program builds?


@Tom Sloper

Isn't it okay to use the properties if the game is free? Or even to have creative place holder names? Or even to have the option for users to create their own rosters?

The barriers to entry are lower, and development is a lot easier than it was in the past; high quality tools, engines and middleware are now readily available with very reasonable pricing, or sometimes even for free. Training and educational materials are plentiful and cheaply or freely available. Help and advice is freely available from communities like this one, Stack Overflow, and many others.

There is however a very big difference between development being easier and development being easy, and the process is still difficult and risky.

It's very possible for skilled and dedicated developers to create a good quality game and to attract a following, but competing with AAA games is an entirely different ball game. They have large teams of experienced professional developers, they have huge budgets, and they have existing code-bases from their previous titles. All of those provide a distinct advantage.

Isn't it okay to use the properties if the game is free?

No, it doesn't make any difference if your game is free. You might not be noticed and get away with it, but it isn't really advisable to take that risk and you might land yourself in legal trouble. Even with a free game you're only safe if you have explicit written permission to use the names; and it's extremely unlikely that you'll get that permission given the amounts of money the professional pay to get that permission themselves.

Creative place holder names are usually ok and are pretty commonly used; there is still some legal risk, but it's a lot safer than using the actual names and will probably be ok.

Allowing players to add their own content can still be risky -- the developers of City of Heroes were taken to court because users were able to create copyright/trademark protected characters from comic-books and movies -- if your game got popular you could still land yourself in trouble unless you took the proper legal measures to protect yourself.

@jbadams

So you're saying an open source series of games hasn't been done because it's not easy? Please give a quick summary of the final reason(s)? If it is only because it isn't easy then wouldn't dedication defeat the difficulty factor?

So you're saying an open source series of games hasn't been done because it's not easy?

Not at all, as observed above, there are already lots of open sourced games, and some of them are very popular.

What I'm saying is that it's very very difficult -- not impossible -- for an open-sourced project to compete with large AAA games like the NFL and other sports franchises you mentioned.

Yes, you can overcome the difficulty factor with sufficient dedication, but you need to do a lot of skilled work for a very long time.

Many of the games you're thinking of are developed by teams of 100 or more people, and those people work on the game as a full-time job.

Let's be generous and pretend for example that your project is very popular and you're able to attract 50 skilled people to contribute. Continuing to be generous we'll pretend these 50 people are very dedicated and manage to work on your game for a minimum 4 hours per day, 5 days per week. We'll also assume they're completely dedicated and none of them need any unusual amounts of time off or end up leaving the project before it's completed. With these very generous estimates, you would have half the people, working half as many hours... they're going to take at least 4 times as long to complete the same game!

Because development is so much faster for the AAA team you're competing with you're effectively always playing catch-up -- they can release 4 titles in the time you release 1, and will be making incremental improvements, updating the graphics, etc. while they're doing so. They'll also have a huge marketing budget and professional marketing teams to ensure people know about their game, whilst you'll have to make do with word-of-mouth or any money you can scrape together.

If you can attract skilled developers, or become one yourself, then you can absolutely create a great game, and it could potentially be very popular; it's just very unlikely -- again, not impossible -- to be able to compete with the latest equivalent AAA title. GIMP is a great example of a team that eventually succeeded at becoming a viable and popular alternative to the commercial equivalent (PhotoShop), and even still PhotoShop is probably better known thanks to it's marketing budget and existing user-base. It took a long time for GIMP to get to this point however, and although it always attracted some audience with people who didn't want to pay for PhotoShop it just wasn't anywhere near as good for a long time.

@jbadams

Thank you, I understand. Is open source game development different from other kinds of open source software development? what I mean is is the process more or less the same, what are some of the major significant differences between the two?

@jbadams

Thank you, I understand. Is open source game development different from other kinds of open source software development? what I mean is is the process more or less the same, what are some of the major significant differences between the two?

Games (usually) require a lot of artwork, (models, textures, sprites, music, soundeffects, etc), productivity software does not.

Productivty software is made to solve a specific task so feature requirements tend to be a result of the users needs rather than what the developers believe would be fun.

It is far more difficult to get a lot of skilled developers to help out on an opensource game since everyone has their own idea of fun, most successful opensource games are made by very small teams(sometimes just a single person) who accept usually minor contributions from the community.

With important productivity software things are easier since not only does alot of people have similar needs, there is also quite a lot of money involved as many corporations benefit if the software improves. (Being able to pay developers to work fulltime on a project is a huge advantage)

Games (usually) require a lot of artwork, (models, textures, sprites, music, sound effects, etc.), productivity software does not.

Productivity software is made to solve a specific task so feature requirements tend to be a result of the users needs rather than what the developers believe would be fun.

It is far more difficult to get a lot of skilled developers to help out on an opensource game since everyone has their own idea of fun, most successful opensource games are made by very small teams(sometimes just a single person) who accept usually minor contributions from the community.

Okay thank you.

When I work at the studio I am assigned tasks by my boss. [...]

When I work on open source projects I can work on anything I want, even if I am unskilled in that area. [...]

While the tasks involved to produce the software are similar, the infrastructure around those jobs and the management work behind them is extremely different.

Point taken, it's like 5% technical and 95% psychological?