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Re: Ubuntu Gaming Team

 

Il giorno ven, 24/04/2009 alle 04.33 -0400, Danny Piccirillo ha scritto:

> The Ubuntu Gaming Team will work to address the obstacles hindering
> growth in FOSS gaming such as the need for effective distributed
> content management or significant investment in free content
> development in order to promote FOSS gaming through Ubuntu and Ubuntu
> through FOSS gaming. New ideas are encouraged and appreciated.
> 

[Please put me in CC when replying, I am not on list]

A problem that I always thought of that may be a concurrent cause in
this "lack of many high quality FOSS games" (but there are some very
good ones) is that game production is mostly a creative business, more
than a technical problem.

The extreme proof of this is that you can code space invaders in one
day, but space invaders will last forever :)

When one writes a story, and creates characters, designing the game and
determining its playability, last and so on, at some point there is a
full stop. The game goes for production. And there is no need of the
FOSS philosophy to improve the story or the characters: users need to
enjoy a finalised product, not a constantly evolving one; imagine if the
playability of Doom, or mortal kombat, had changed _in the same version
of the game_. There would have been no myth at all, no person learning
secret skills and becoming a god of the game. 

This problem is in common with novel writing, and with music. For the
former, in fact, we have exactly the same problem: the majority of good
books are not FOSS. 

The problem here is that the FOSS model does not "pay back": you don't
need the work of other people, and it is even better if you work alone;
I rarely saw good novels written by more than one author. 

Therefore, if FOSS is not paying back, somebody else should! For books,
that's a problem.

For music, it is very different. Live exhibitions make room for a new
market, where the recordings are given out for free, but people strives
to see the live artists. IMHO, this is one of the reasons why in the hit
parade of Jamendo you find music which is of _much higher quality_ than
your typical hit parade: people on Jamendo needs music that is good for
live exhibitions, that is, good music.

So, why did I write this e-mail? The question is: suppose we were in an
ideal world where many game engines are FOSS, and you just need to
exploit your creativity and talent to get a game done. And your money
for live captures, graphic artists and so on. I personally think this
time we actually live in the ideal world.

How do you think game writers may be encouraged to spend a lot of time
on creating a professional quality game? How are they going to be
repaid? 

Vincenzo







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