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Re: Creative commons

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 2:27 pm
by miumiaou
Don't worry, I've found a way to add bit of the game in my future article: french laws don't include the case of cosplay.

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:11 pm
by ranger_lennier
sunsetbrew wrote:There is no reason the game should made opensource. GPL is a viral plague on software. MIT is a much better license for OpenSource.
"Viral plague" is a pretty harsh description for the license behind such useful programs as Linux, GIMP, and OpenOffice. I suppose it's viral in the sense that projects incorporating GPL'd code must also be released under GPL, but ensuring that people/companies who benefit from GPL code give back to the projects is a major goal of the license. I understand that this won't make sense for every program, and in that case people are free to write their own code or find code with a less restrictive license.

In general, I'd say GPL makes the most sense for utility-type programs rather than more artistic/creative endeavors. For instance, you really only need one word processor, and it will be much easier to find agreement on the needed functionality than it would be for a game. This makes it more likely to succeed by having a large number of contributors working in their spare time. On the other hand, people want a large variety of games, and you'll generally want someone directing the project working full time on it. Eventually opening up the code can help out mods, or make it easier for new games to get off the ground. It's up to the creators which license to use for this purpose.

In general, my thought on open source development is that it's like more traditional forms of volunteer work. It's a good thing to do, but you're certainly not obligated to do it 100% of the time. People do have to make a living, after all.

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:28 pm
by sunsetbrew
I don't feel this is the proper place to have this debate. GPL has good intent, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I develop opensource software on the side and I am more than happy to discuss this offline if you like. I don't want to distract from this fine project with this debate as it can drag on for months. It is just not the place. That said, I suppose it is my fault for even mentioning that GPL is viral. I have a unique POV because I develop opensouce and work at a company with lots of lawyers protecting the company from bad opensource licenses.

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:33 pm
by ranger_lennier
matt wrote:I think the main thing here is game vs. screenshots.

For the screenshots, I'm fine with them being creative commons. Is there something I have to do to make them available via creative commons other than say that?

I get a lot of requests for monetizing video of the game for YouTube, and I'm fine with that as well. Maybe I should put up a page explaining this?
You would at least need to specify which Creative Commons license you want.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

For screenshots, I think Attribution CC BY, the least restrictive license, wouldn't be a problem. And if you're OK with monetizing YouTube videos, as far as I can think that would work fine for video as well.
matt wrote: For the game itself, I don't want everything to be licensed freely. That makes it difficult to sell. I am tempted to open source parts or all of the project, but we'd want the game assets to be copyrighted and licensed by buying the game. That's what id does.

Actually open sourcing the game is a challenge though... I can just dump the code up on the web, but I don't think that's useful to anyone. As well, I'm not sure I want to release the gameplay code because seeing how we do things behind the curtain might ruin some of the allure of the game. Anyway, for the time being, I'm focused on making the game, so I have time before figuring out how to open source things.
Yeah, I don't think it would make sense to initially make the game open source, since you're understandably wanting to make a profit on it. It does look like the engine does some unique things, so releasing that could help some other games get off the ground. Of course you'd have to balance the good deed of helping those projects and the additional exposure it could bring to your own games against the possibility that you might be able to license it commercially if it remained proprietary. I don't know if there will ever be a modding community for Neverending Nightmares, but releasing the game assets could certainly make for more and better mods.

I don't think I follow how releasing code would ruin the allure of the game. Realistically, only a small portion of the audience would even glance at it, and those who did would almost certainly play the game first. After finishing the game, it could be cool to see how the effects and such are done. But I don't think I would look at the code and go, "What! That wasn't really a ghost. It was just a bunch of numbers running on a computer!" :)

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:17 pm
by matt
I don't think we'd be able to license any of our tech just because everyone wants support, and for a small company, we can't compete with the amount of support you get with something like Unity. The problem with open sourcing is that for it to be interesting, we'd have to document it and remove all the dirty hacks, so that people could do something interesting with it.

I like the idea of supporting mods. Depending on how many users we get for the final game, it might be worth releasing our tools. We'd have to document them way better. Right now, we only have to make sure Joe Grabowski (our lead artist) knows how to use them. :)

When I was talking about looking at the code, it might be a little less magic if you looked at the code for the ghost that appears after you pick up the candle and learned when she appears. Or maybe it'd be be more magical to see how much effort I put to making it be random but not too random. :-D

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:02 pm
by Grabthehoopka
matt wrote:When I was talking about looking at the code, it might be a little less magic if you looked at the code for the ghost that appears after you pick up the candle and learned when she appears. Or maybe it'd be be more magical to see how much effort I put to making it be random but not too random. :-D
So it IS random! You crafty son of a bitch...

Re: Creative commons

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:40 pm
by matt
Well, it is kind of random. I don't have the code in front of me, but I think for the initial lighting flash, it has a 50% change of appearing. If it doesn't appear the first time, it appears the second time for sure, just so you don't miss it if you are running through the hallway. After that, it is random with a different probability (I think 33%).

So it's not completely random, but uses elements of randomness to produce the effect I want.