CrimsonStrife

Not to say it isn't true, and maybe to a bit of an extreme, but have you seen Sam Witwer? lol unless he is making an expression, the man basically suffers from perma-duckface.

Well you should kinda avoid doing that anyway O.o

And now we are talking about going commercial with a new IP and an engine that isn't GPL....Super Meat Boy...which is not what I was referring to. And they almost didn't get it released to begin with. (and if you consider the flash version that was on Newgrounds forever, then they already had fanbase of sorts.) I am saying, creating a brand new game (new IP), and release it on this GPL engine....or any GPL engine, with intent to sell it (commercial-use). It's not that you COULDN'T sell it, but between the actual costs of getting a game onto the market (yea you could just toss it up on a free site, but that would only hurt sales), so marketing, distribution, etc...you are not going to be able to pull a profit.

You are again referencing games or companies with well established followings or fanbases (a huge portion of the library at gog is made up of classics). If you have an established customer base, then you stand a chance at profiting in spite of piracy. The idea is doing so with a brand new IP.

I was assuming in this instance they would likely have used a distributor such as Steam to market the game, in this instance the game has piracy protection on it. The source can't be distributed with this as it is something they only give to approved developers. But the assets would be easy to get to, so just compile that source and use the assets, then poof, anti-piracy avoided.

I've already agreed that you CAN sell it. I am trying to point out that there is no real way for a brand new IP to come out with this type of marketing strategy. Sure by all means keep it modder friendly, builds community, but using an open-source license really doesn't offer your product any protection. You're going to face enough pirates as it is (because pirates will steal basically anything not nailed down) even being such a low profile release. And making it where all someone has to do is get their hands on one copy of your game and then it's free source code, and then poof, kiss any hope of profit out the window. Even these HD re-releases of classics don't see the kinds of profit as original releases do, and they are catering to an existing fanbase, and coming out at reduced prices. Think about what you have to do to compete. And if you try to claim you aren't in it for profit, then doing it commercially is pointless.

Kinda what I was getting at, only thing protecting your game is needing one person to buy it to get the assets. In that sense they are catering towards user's potential desires to have remastered releases of classic games. The source may be available, but anything that went into remastering assets, is not, also you have the releases to modern consoles, which because of the approval processes and costs to get the development kits for consoles, open source isn't likely to have allowed users to create those ports themselves. If you were say, going to market an HD remake of JKA (legal issues with the intellectual property aside)...then reasonably, yes I could see it pulling a profit. People will often pay good money for nostalgia's sake. But here you are talking about marketing something completely new, with no existing fanbase...totally different ball-game.

Well when you're dealing with such a mod-accessible game engine like this, then the assets are right there...all someone needs to do is buy the game, then they could easily repackage it, sure not legally as the assets would be yours assuming you did your licensing right, but when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet.

I was confusing id Tech 3 with 4 then. But ok, let's run on the idea that you create a game for commercial use, using all this GPL licensed code/software. How do you intend to actually market a game, that by it's own terms, is open source? I am not saying it couldn't be done, but if you're going through the trouble of making an entirely new game off this source, I wouldn't plan on doing it commercially, not going to be worth it in the long run.

I don't believe he is saying that it is frowned on by the legal system...more that it is an ethical or moral issue. However, even though they released their source under GPL, the actual id Tech engine (which that was built off) isn't theirs to release, so you really can't just use it without licensing it from id Software. I was referring to using the version of id Tech that Raven created for JK for an unrelated commercial project. If you're going to use id Tech commercially that's fine, you still have to license it from them one way or another, and you have to make your own assets anyway, so why not go with the actual engine. The only thing that is open source here is the code Raven created, anything initially belonging to another company is not, unless they have released it elsewhere as such. Hate to say it, but due to id Tech's engine being what JK was built on, regardless of what you do, you'll be paying royalties to id Software to use it commercially.

The source engine is only free for non-commercial use, as with engines like UDK. This is becoming a standard, with many engines now having "free for non-commercial" models, some limited, some not. In the case of Valve, I would assume they work it much like Epic does with the UDK, there is a fairly affordable license fee (UDK is $100), and you are allowed to make a set amount before any royalties are due (UDK is $50,000) and after that a royalty hits on any other profit (25% to Epic for UDK). Valve requires you to contact them for licensing information, so I don't just know the numbers http://source.valvesoftware.com/licensing.php Selling on Steam is essentially a per item basis, you go through the approval process, and then the terms are based on exactly what is agreed upon for your product. You can check here for the details http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php In the case of this engine, it is a modified one, and so it is less Raven you would need to worry about (especially if you made your own assets) and the original developers, this being based off the Quake engine I am assuming that would be id Software. This Basically... Honestly though, this is a decade old engine, and it was a sort of hack'n'slash modification of an existing one at that. With all of the other available, and surprisingly affordable options for SDKs and Engines, why would you really want/need to? Especially when you consider you would already need to make and code EVERYTHING else in the game.

You should probably move some of that to something other than Yahoo

It's source code, you don't "install" it.

I think he is saying wait until a standalone rework of the game has been done, and port that, then less of the work is actually Raven's. The thing is, what you are suggesting is a grey area. True you may not be including the assets, but the game still needs them to run, ported or not. Meaning people have to copy them from somewhere, whether they do it legally or not. And yes you can claim that what the end-user does is not your responsibility, but from a legal aspect, it would be. You also have to consider that while we have permission to mod and work with the code and assets, the intellectual property is still in the hands of Disney, and we don't know what they think of this type of thing. I can promise you, that you are going to need to rework all the assets into lower resolution anyway, and it is unlikely (I'll admit my programming knowledge is somewhat limited) that reworking the engine is going to be a job done over a few days, you are probably looking at weeks to months, where as once the coders have reworked the game, it will be mostly their own code, and they can likely do the port much easier. So again, better to just hold out for now.

Naturally this happens after I retire from modeling for mods.

I said it seemed unlikely, I didn't say it wouldn't happen lol.

While I am sure at some point LA was hosting some of the servers, pretty much all the servers nowadays are privately hosted by people who also play the game.

While not impossible, realistically, I wouldn't hold my breath. Hell the guys at Disney probably don't even realize the modding community exists.

Not to mention all the IP that wasn't Star Wars that everyone seems to forget...Monkey Island anyone?

Not recently, I think their general consensus was to move to internal development. But even when they did outsource, I am not entirely sure that they were not also working on the project themselves, more like partnerships, or in some cases, partially owned the studio (I think this was the case with Raven, and at one point with Bioware). In this future scenario, the entire development process would be done by a 3rd party.

Here is the actual statement from Disney. Basically...while 1313 and First Assault have been cancelled, it sounds like they may license the property to other companies. So while we may see Star Wars games in the future, they will be from 3rd parties. EDIT Update: according to this article http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2013/04/03/disney-shutting-down-lucasarts-future-of-game-properties-uncertain/ While yes the company is gone, and will be licensing the development to 3rd parties.... The fates of 1313 and First Assault are, for now at least, a bit murky. It is possible the games could still come out, but with development being finished by other companies. However, personally I think this would kill the production value of both games and/or require the developing company to start all over.

Sorry, no such luck. The announcement was made official earlier today. Although the rest of the industry kind of saw it coming back around the time of the purchase.

No one seems sure just yet. They only just made the announcement early this morning.