05.29.07
Open Source Business Model
Lately I’ve been thinking about a possible indie game business model that gives away its source code using an open source license. This is my opinion, so don’t take it too seriously ;-).
First, let me introduce my logic into thinking that keeping your source code “closed” is not always a necessity (but sometimes, perhaps, it’s a must).
Currently, most indie games use registration codes or files to prevent unauthorized copies by the so called pirates. My guess is that if there’s about 1,000 millions of users in Internet chances are that any of them will break your copy protection scheme. So, if you are indie, why waste time into an worthless “feature” instead of putting this effort into making your game better, when there’s such so little chance of not being copied? And that’s more interesting if you take into account that most times copy protection measures are more an annoyance than anything else.
Now lets imagine that I arrive at the conclusion that copy protection is not worth the effort because I can’t avoid piracy and I must learn to live with it. If that is my conclusion then I will give full copies to registered users without any copy protection, which means that anyone could copy it. Is this bad? Perhaps, but I already discarded copy protections because they weren’t effective 100%, so what’s the difference?
So, if I give the game without any copy protection, then why I need to save the source code only for me? I could put the source code under the GNU General Public License and give it to my registered users as well as the binaries for their platform. Why will my users buy the full game when they can fetch the source (or even the binaries) from another place and compile the full game? Well, not everyone understands how to compile from source code, and they don’t care, so they probably will do so to prevent the headaches. But more probably because I’ve given the source code for free (as in free speech) but I didn’t do so for the assets, which are licensed in another more restrictive license. Now if you want to get more levels or pass the point where the asserts are not free (as in free speech and free beer, that is the demo version) then you have to pay and promise to not distribute them, as you did for other games’ binaries ;-).
Someone, when listening to my idea, asked me: “But this means that if someone made the missing assets, they will have the full game!“. And it’s true, but I think that if they have taken enough time to make all the graphics, music, sound effects, levels, etc. necessary to run the full game she deserves it ;-). Seriously. In fact, this happened to other open source games and I don’t see any problem, providing they give the binaries and the source code under the GPL as they must do since the original source code is licensed under such license.
Now, after all this, what are my benefits? I don’t have the resource nor the knowledge to make games (in general, but more specifically) for other platforms than Windows, OS X, and Linux. So if someone likes my game enough to make a port (with their own graphics) to other platforms like PDA’s, then they have the obligation to give out the source under the GPL, so I can also have support for this platform without too much effort for my part. This also happened to other open source games :-D.
OK, this was my thought. Perhaps I’m too naive, but I think it’s doable. Of course you have the right to think otherwise, but I would love to know what you think about my idea.