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An open source video game, or simply an open source game, is a video game whose source code is open source. They are often freely distributable and sometimes cross-platform compatible. Many are included in Linux distributions as a result.[1]
Open source games which are free software and contain exclusively free content are called free games. Most free games are open source, but not all open source games are free software; some open source games contain proprietary non-free content.
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Background
In general free games are developed by small groups of people in their free time, without aiming for profit. Some free games are based on formerly proprietary projects, whose source code was released as free and open source software and game data as free and open content.[2] An example is Warzone 2100.[3]
Almost all free games are volunteer run projects, and as such free game developers are principally hobbyists and enthusiasts. The consequence of this is that most games take many years to mature and that means there are only a few complete high quality free games[4].
Examples
A popular example for free games is Freeciv, a clone of the proprietary Civilization. Nexuiz and Tremulous are a few examples of free 3D first person shooters based on id Software's engines.
Arguably the most successful free game project is The Battle for Wesnoth which has a large community contributing to the game.
One example of an open source game is War§ow, which is based on an open source engine (a derivate of id Tech 2) but has non-free content.[5]
Some open source games strive to be free games but lack the manpower to replace media content that is not available under a Free Software license, such as Cube 2.
Other games are simply reimplementations of an old commercial game and require the original commercial game media to play them, such as OpenTyrian, a port of the classic DOS game Tyrian.
Toolsets
One of the challenges to building high quality content for games is it often requires expensive tools like 3D-modeller or a toolset for level design. As open source applications like Blender mature and professional tools like GtkRadiant are published under open licenses, this is becoming less of an issue.
See also
References
External links
- Open source video game at the Open Directory Project
- Playing the Open Source Game, a 1999 article by Shawn Hargreaves
Media
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