Game Engine Marketing Models Compared 243
death00 writes: "GameDev has an interesting story about the success of Garage Games Torque engine (the engine behind Tribes 2). I especially find it interesting to see the number of developers working on high-quality games based on the Torque engine. The basic premise is that Garage Games gives a full license of the Torque engine to a team for a project for $100 USD per developer. The only caveat is that you must publish any finished works through Garage Games. Perhaps id software might consider doing this with the Quake III engine once the Doom III engine comes out. From my understanding, the Quake III engine currently licenses for significantly ($250,000 USD) more than that. Instead of waiting 2 more years and GPL'ing the full source, why not license it for cheap after Doom III comes out, then GPL later?"
Simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this a good question? It's simple.
why not license it for cheap after Doom III comes out, then GPL later?
Easy, they want to make money from it! If they can charge $250,000 and sell copies of it, there's clearly demand for that product and as a result id gets money (again, this is their goal). It's not like id gets anything from other companies licensing their software OTHER than money.
Re:Simple... (Score:1)
That would become the revenue stream.
jh
Re:Simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bear in mind - You're not paying $250K for a license to use the software. You're paying $250K for a license to redistribute works based on the software. If someone tried to jump the gun, id might find the beans spilled with their new graphics engine, but you can bet that legally, they'll have every right to stop people from publishing anything moneymaking based on it without prior consent (Read: payment)
Re:Simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Another thing is that you're also paying for the expertise, something that id has gathered over the years.
A good 3d game engine which can make use of the latest technology, one that makes hardware designers consider your game as a test subject is something that does not happen everyday.
The primary reason id is where it is because of that expertise, which is what keeps them coming up with better technology & products everytime.
Although an el33t Jack h4x0r kid might be able to get the code and do something worthwhile, just how long would it last?
Forget the legal ramifications, there is a high probability that even before somebody does something worthwhile with it, id would have come up with something much better, guess which would sell better?
Besides, it's not just the 3d engines that count, gameplay does count too. id has a double shot advantage in that area, I feel.
Re:Simple... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Simple... (Score:2)
cachet of leading the industry (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, every successful licensee is an advertisement that increases the reputation of id technology. In fact, id has gone so far as to cultivate this in licensing Quake 3 [idsoftware.com]: "QUAKE III Arena engine licensees are part of an exclusive club that will remain exclusive because we are capping the total number of licensee companies."
Effectively, Raven, Ritual, et al. compete, as well as pay, for the privilege of showing off id's latest engine.
Re:cachet of leading the industry (Score:2)
Not that much (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the price tag puts it out of hobyist's reach, but we all know that, eventually, we'll be allowed to look at the source for free.
Go Id!
Amem, brother (Score:3, Informative)
People are so quick to dismiss money and effort already expended, specially by others. Marketing and technology people, in one of the few issues they fight side by side, also seem to like the sense of power and control a in-house development project gives you. So any defect in a piece of technology is enlarged, all good points forgotten when you want to sell you petty adventure to the board.
One year down the road, when the board is in everybody's necks about ROI and other little corporate details, you can almost believe all that blood and fear will teach people a lesson. But no, in the next project or in the next company you will see the same people adapting their reasons to the new scenario.
Re:Not that much (Score:5, Insightful)
Including the extensible modules? And the network code? And the sound code? And everything else?
And have it be virtually bug free?
Yes, as you said, it's old now. But you also said that it's mature, and that's one thing that can't be replicated in a week. Or a month. Probably not even a year.
Hell, you want to talk about an old codebase? Look at Half-Life. It's still based on Q2, and it's still one of the most popular online games.
Dropping $250k for a stable core is nothing if you're serious about things. Sure, you'll have to extend it to bring it up to current standards, but RtCW did just that and did quite well in the market. So has SoF and SoF2, amongst others.
Yes, the Q3 core is old, and shows it. But I think you drastically underestimate how long it would take to redevelop it from scratch. There's quite a number of open source (under various licenses) game cores out there, and they've taken considerably longer than a month to make and aren't approaching Q3's capabilities yet. Yes, I suppose you could argue that they're not made by "good 3D engine programmers", but that doesn't help the situation for a fledgling company now does it?
Re:Not that much (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree, making a mature engine takes time. I agree, paying money for a stable core and codebase IS worth it.
No, I didn't mention implementing the networking, or sound, or mod system. In fact, I mentioned NOT implementing them.
But, like I said. The tech IS old. The graphics functionality can be written in a week. I did it in a weekend.
It's the rest of the codebase, and the maturity, that makes it worth buying.
Justin Dubs
Re:Not that much (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not that much (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
I didn't play HL much -- I bought it, noted that they had numerous bugs in their network code and felt the inventory system sucked wind, and returned it directly to Sierra.
Bzzzt, wrong. (Score:2)
Half-life was based on the Quake 1 code. Please stop repeating this untruth about Half-life. Half-life came out in 1997, the same year that Quake 2 did. Quake-2 based engines didn't start to show up until 1998/1999 (remember King Pin? Sin?).
How can it be Quake-1 based? Valve did a lot of good work on it:
"An updated version of the Quake engine provides true 16-bit color graphics (the other games use eight-bit textures, even with 3D accelerators). The demo version of the game had rooms that showed off its ability to mix multiple light sources, and though it doesn't necessarily enhance gameplay, it's still impressive. The game uses skeletal mapping to animate the characters, which gives them realistic movement. Their techniques have also allowed them to up the polygon count of each creature (up to 6,000 for a single robot in one location - though it was the only thing moving in the room)."
In the right hands, practically any engine can make a compelling game. As long as you have more plotline than effects
Re:Bzzzt, wrong. (Score:2)
Computer game developers need to take a long look at board games, sports games, and old video games. Those "games" truely are games, while many recent "games" are more movie or simulation than game. Soccer has no plot, yet billions enjoy it!
Now, if you can make a real game and put a story in it, more power to ya. Hey, if you can put a kitchen sink in too, that would be great.
Real World (Score:5, Interesting)
Just getting the features of such an engine approved takes months when you are doing it for a large corporation. Even a small company would require enough paperwork to take up a week or 2. Lets say these programmers make $80,000 a year.
The first month is all in "feel good" meetings and move-ins and proceedures and such.
Lets say that this company is using ISO 9000, ok...
Requirements. The clients (in this case the company) meet and gather the artists/programmers/so forth. They discuss what the game should do, physics, characters, so forth... to the degree that it will affect the engine. They go to buttloads of meetings for a couple of months.
Specifications. The file formats, the colors, the network protocols... This happens AFTER requirements, and since it's a group write, it takes a while too.
Design/Implement. Yeah, this would be quick and easy, but you need documentation for everything. You need to get everything approved by higher ups.
Re-Implement. Artist A needs feature B that wasn't mentioned in the requirements or specs.
Document. Before anybody can use it effectively, you need them to know what it is. This takes a long time.
Just the MEETINGS required to start programming take more than a week if you're going to sell it. Now, if you're in your house and know exactly how you want EVERYTHING before you start, a week is probably more than fair. Profesional programmers in the environments that ID is selling to? You can't write an engine for what they're selling that for.
Re:Real World (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, your figure there puts development of the game engine alone at, what, six months? Now, look at it from the point of view of a company making a game. That's six months where they can't use screenshots to feed a hype machine. That's another six months tacked onto their release date. Another six months for their chosen technology to become obsolete, another six months for someone else to beat them to market.
Don't you think trimming those months off the start of the development cycle is worth $250,000? They apparently do. And that's not even considering the publicity from being able to say "we use the Quake 3 engine!"
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
And what are your license terms?
Re:Not that much (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
I said you could write a 3D engine with a lot of the features of quake 3, namely BSP+PVS, Shaders and quake Maps and Models in a week or two.
And this is still true.
You can put words in my mouth and then tell me they are wrong all you want.
Justin Dubs
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
But, a basic BSP+PVS engine that supports Q3 maps and shaders CAN and HAS been developed in a weekend. I've DONE it.
You don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you can put together a toy quickly that displays Q3 maps. Come back when you have a fully optimized GAMING engine with full collision detection, including all the "details" you left out. And by the way, make it run FAST on lower end hardware.
Yeah, maybe the rest of the industry are just idiots for not being able to throw these things together in "a week".
Gee, you wouldn't be young and inexperienced would you? Nah, you must be an industry veteran.
Re:Not that much (Score:2)
In fact, you agreedf with me. I said you could develop a 3d engine support BSP+PVS and Q3 maps and shaders in a week. You then agreed with me.
Then you said, "but you couldn't do it with features X and Y that you never said you could do it with and therefore you were wrong."
This makes no sense.
The details are, like I said, what make the Q3 engine a good purchase. It's mature and has lots of features. But it's graphics technology is old and can be hacked together in a week.
Justin Dubs
release it then (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure it's 100% bug free of course.
Why not spend ANOTHER weekend and work on the network engine, physics engine, or model support? Whip out an AI over lunch.
Re:release it then (Score:2)
Networking, Physics and Model support are more complicated problems. There is no standard way of implementing Physics and Models. There are many competing ideas for models. Some prefer skeletal animation. Some do keyframe stuff without skeletons. Either way, this stuff is relatively difficult and there is no standard "one way" to do it.
Physics has never been done well in a game. The most I've ever seen is BASIC rigid body dynamics with connection points between various hulls. Full rigid body dynamics takes more time, but, I am working on it. I hope to have a GOOD physics and collision detection implementation is about a year.
BSP+PVS w/ Q3 maps and shaders do have one well-known way to do it. And it's easy. And it can be done in a week.
Justin Dubs
Re:release it then (Score:2)
Yes, it does support all video cards. All video cards that support OpenGL 1.3. Which abstracts away the problem of supported video cards.
Now we KNOW you haven't done anything very complex. :)
Physics has never been done well in a game.
Egad, you're right! No one has EVER thought of doing realistic physics before!
I hope to have a GOOD physics and collision detection implementation is about a year.
So let's contrast those last two statements. No one has ever done realistic physics. I hope to have it done in a year (in my spare time, presumably) in my nonexistent gaming engine.
Look dude, I'm not trying to destroy your dream, but bragging about things that "you're working on" as if they are already done just makes you look like an idiot.
When you've actually done something of significance (beyond a simple geometry viewer that any 3rd year CS student can do), then you can bag on current engine technology. Until then, maybe you should turn down the arrogance and the "know it all"-ness a little bit.
Re:release it then (Score:2)
Most complex games are written in either OpenGL or Direct3D. What, do you think everyone writes there own software renderer?
If you care, I've written a simple textured poly software renderer as well as a simple (no reflections/refractions) ray tracer.
No game HAS done good physics before. Not because they can't. Because they didn't need to. Game companies aren't willing to devote hte time and effort into physics because they don't need it to make money. Physics isn't that important in the final experience.
I AM devoting the time to it. And should have it working well in a year. I say this because i've implemented most of it before in smaller chunks.
I've implemented OBB and ABB trees and done collisions with them. I've done poly/poly collisions.
I've implemented simple rigid body dynamics. Keep track of angular and linear momentum. Accumulate forces. Determine torque and displace components. Take into account intertia tensor.
It's not that bad. It's just that most people don't want to do it.
Justin Dubs
Re:release it then (Score:2)
Most complex games are written in either OpenGL or Direct3D. What, do you think everyone writes there own software renderer?
No, I think each video card has its own bugs and idiosyncracies. You seem to think that every card works exactly identically. Carmack has to do a whole slew of kludges for different types of cards in order to make each one work right.
Saying OpenGL shields you from knowing about what hardware you are running is like saying "I write in standard SQL" or "Java is write once, run anywhere". Great in theory, but the practice is a different matter.
Re:release it then (Score:2)
This test suite includes the core OpenGL api and all of the required extensions ARB_, NV_ and otherwise.
If it can't pass them, it isn't complient.
The engine I have will run on any OpenGL 1.3 complient video card correctly.
I have tested it on TNT2, GeForce2, GeForce3, ATI Radeon 7500, ATI Radeon Mobile.
And on the following OS's:
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris 8, Mac OS X, Win2k, WinXP.
So, not nearly as thoroughly as Quake 3 has been tested, but not bad for a home developer.
Yes, I could probably optimize it more by writing portions of it for each video card separately. Or, I could hand-code chunks of it is assembler for each supported processor.
But, I figure, that's the point of standards. I am standards complient. If the video card is too, it will run correctly.
Justin Dubs
Re:release it then (Score:2)
I am standards complient. If the video card is too, it will run correctly.
Heh. Well, try and not be too disappointed when you find out reality doesn't quite match the theory.
Re:release it then (Score:2)
Two years ago I worked for a company on a project to write an OpenGL 1.2 driver from scratch, for a video card company's chip (I cannot tell you its name, let's just say it has a Voodoo Banshee level performance)
Near the beginning of the development, we wrote VERY simple OpenGL programs to test the driver, rendering at most 10 triangles at a time, triggering features like stencil buffer, texture, etc.
Near the end of the development, we used GLQuake and Quake 2 for testing, as well as the suite from SGI.
Even if your card / driver works with the SGI suite, it might not work with the games - but it DOESN'T mean that the game developers should tailor their games to work with all video cards - yes, even in the real world.
The reason? With standards like OpenGL, the responsibility of keeping things compatible shifts from the game / engine developers to the shoulders of device driver developers.
Did Carmack predict the coming of the almighty Radeon 9700 or the GeForce4 or the crappy SiS video chips or the newest Trident chips when he wrote Quake2? No. Does it work for these chips? Yes, all of them. It's a proof that nowadays, game developers no longer need to ensure compatibility on video cards as long as the game follows a standard. They may still like to study the most popular chips for speed optimizations, but after that the same code base still works for other video cards nonetheless, albeit maybe a little slower.
Someone still have to work hard to ensure compatibility - but these people are no longer the game programmers but driver developers.
Turned out, the flaws exhibited in the games were still bugs in our driver not taking care of multiple states properly - and it was eventually fixed. However, it had absolutely nothing to do with Carmack's code not working with the new chip.
You get the idea
Re:release it then (Score:2)
We just started not that long ago. No real algorithms yet. We aren't satisfied with BSP+PVS. We are doing for octrees w/ occlusion culling. Which isn't implemented yet.
All we have right now is simple Quadtree based terrain. But we have a good framework to build on. And we are abstracted away from the underlying API's relatively well. Still a lot more work to do there.
But, it's up and running. Works on OS X, Win32, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and Linux.
It's under the MIT license and will be made public as soon as we have a bit more functionality and the GL 2.0 renderer up and running.
Should be by Christmas.
Justin Dubs
Re:release it then (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not that much (Score:2, Funny)
It's nothing compare to my perpetual space station that support the life of entire human race I built at lunchtime. I just didn't launch it - I mean launching it to space, not launching it under GPL.
Forget about asking a copy of it. I just built it - i've DONE it, all you've to do is trust me.
GPL now (Score:1)
Re:GPL now (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, how long did it take to develop the Quake III engine? How many people? They're free to recoup their costs as they like.
jh
Not only THAT engine... (Score:1)
But other games used the Wolfenstien Engine, and a couple of games used the Doom engine, and a bunch used the Quake/Quake II engine.
Re:GPL now (Score:3, Insightful)
GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:2, Insightful)
ID software is in business to make money.
Unless of course by "GPL Later" you mean 15 years from now when quake3 will seem like pacman compared to other games.
--me
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:2)
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:2)
Thats how business works.
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:4, Insightful)
They won't. id is not stupid.
But, based off past procedures, you can expect the Q3 source to be GPL'd within 1-2 years of the Doom3 release. They did it with Wolfenstein, they did it with Doom (sans sound code), and they did it with both Q1 and Q2.
But, like I said, they're not stupid. It's released well after its licensing value is near zero and under GPL. Want to make a commercial game using the old Q2 engine? Sure -- pay id Software $10k (a heavily reduced price) and you can have the exact same code as what's under GPL -- except that you're not bound by the GPL.
It's one of the few ways to make the GPL work for companies to make money. Of course, even then, you'll get rabid idiots decrying the fact that it's not GPL from the start, and that you can actually get a non-GPL license in exchange for cash.
Fortunately most people are sane and simply thank id Software for contributing to the public knowledge base in such a manner.
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:2)
Same reason they GPL'd Doom, Quake, Quake 2.
Basically, not only is Carmack one of the best programmers on the face of the planet, he's also a really great guy.
Re:GPL Quake3 ?? Ummm why? (Score:2)
Not id's business (Score:1, Insightful)
So don't expect to get a commercial Q3 source code license for $100 any time soon.
Standard Slashdot Answer (Score:4, Funny)
Next thing you know the RIAA is going to start asking consumers to start paying for music...the bastards!
Looks to be a couple reasons why id doesn't (Score:2)
I don't think id publishes their own games. Doesn't activision do that? So rather than taking a percent on profits that Garage Games seems to be doing, id is taking the lump before, which seems like the better route as your pretty much guaranteed that lump, even if the game tanks.
Re:Looks to be a couple reasons why id doesn't (Score:2, Redundant)
For a single title license, we charge a $250,000 guarantee against a 5% royalty of the wholesale price for the title.
Now, IANAL, but that reads to me as 5% of the wholesale price (i.e. per unit royalties), with a minimum of $250,000 paid up front. So they're gaurenteed the lump and, if your games is a success, they get royalties too.
Of course, you can also license Quake/Q2 for non-GPL projects for a flat fee of $10,000
(Oh, and the link doesn't work properly since
Doom 3 licensing (Score:1)
Re:Doom 3 licensing (Score:2)
Get the Doom III engine fresh from our coder's heads only $250,000.
Now reduced the famous Quake III engine, $125,000.
Act now, supplies are limited.
Do I get the job?
Re:Doom 3 licensing (Score:2)
Re:Doom 3 licensing (Score:2)
Such as the $10,000 non-GPL license for Quake & Quake2? I expect to see the same treatment for Q3 when Carmack & co. deem that to be the right thing to do.
Alternative Licensing Scheme (Score:1)
If anything, opening the source while employing this licensing scheme would be more make the code more useful to the community by allowing for commercial titles to be released using the code (the GPL's requirement that all derivative works be licensed under the GPL makes commercial development unfeasible).
The only worry, from iD's perspective is that licensing older engines would cannibalize the lucrative sales of the most recent engine.
What the fuck? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Shameless plug for Crystal Space (Score:5, Interesting)
However I think that you should at least take a look at it. It is now becoming VERY mature and the API has stabilized about 95%. Several projects are now using it with great success.
Crystal Space is an Open Source and portable 3D Engine licensed under LGPL. It runs on GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOS/X,
Crystal Space has lots of features. In latest release (beta release) we also have support for shaders (bump mapping, per pixel lighting, things like that) and many other new things.
Crystal Space also has a VERY active user community and an IRC room that you can visit (#CrystalSpace on the OpenProjects network).
The url is http://crystal.sf.net
Greetings,
Re:Shameless plug for Crystal Space (Score:2)
Re:Shameless plug for Crystal Space (Score:2)
Also we're busy improving the OpenGL renderer a lot. Using vertex buffers, and OpenGL extensions when available. Expect to see speedups there as well.
Greetings,
Re:Shameless plug for Crystal Space (Score:2)
So instead I released CS Open Source. And since then it kept growing.
Greetings,
Re:Shameless plug for Crystal Space (Score:2)
Success? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they'll make more once some of these games ship, but I doubt it, considering how small of a percentage of games are profitable.
Re:Success? (Score:2)
For good or bad. The downside? It could mean their name gets attached to some really bad games.
If they are smart they will publish those they think aren't very good under a different name.
Makes Sense (Score:2, Insightful)
1. THe value of the Quake III engine will drop dramatically when the Doom III engine comes out.
2. id would get an easy way to increase their market share as a publisher. What better way than to tempt gamers with a free (or nearly free) engine?
3. Would keep the company who made Tribes from doing the above. Which would you rather use - QIII or tribes engine? Which sounds more prestigous on the promo?
4. Would be a great talent "minor-league" - virtually give the engine to anyone and it will encourage new up-and-coming developer teams, who will work with id.
All in all, there would be a number of advantages for id. QIII won't be worth as much in a year or so, why not do it?
Admittedly, I doubt they will. Companies have a kneejerk reaction to giving anything away, especially something they're selling for $250,000 now.
Apples and oranges... (Score:3, Insightful)
So the chose this alternate model. The $100/developer model will probably not work too well for iD, who offer the services of John Carmack for a day to all lisencees, as well as a lot of email support, etc. Would it be worth it for JC to make a trip to teach 4 developers to use the engine, get $400 in return, and then have the game cancelled in developement?
Besides, iD doesn't really do publishing. They publish through GT Interactive as far as I recall, so this revenue stream is not viable at all.
Tribes 2 vs Quake III engine (Score:5, Informative)
The torque engine also has amazing networking code. Even if you hated the Tribes games, they have always had the best networking code out of any multiplayer game out there.
GG have also been contracted out to finish the final Tribes 2 patch. Apparently they are getting something other than money in return for doing the patch. Perhaps rights to use certain code from the Tribes 2 engine (Sierra made them take out some code from Tribes 2).
Rumors are that GG has been contracted out to do the next Tribes PC game as well.
Support (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the price differential buys you one very important thing: support.
Do you think Garage Games is going to help every $100 USD developer out there, much less address any bugs/changes initiated by that developer?
I know developers who licensed the Unreal and Quake engines got direct support from the developers, as well as successive version with bug changes and feature additions.
Support! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been happy as hell with it all - it's worked great, I've definitely gotten more than $100 in value out of it, and both the community support and GG's support has been great.
Other Engines (Score:2)
Destiny3D [destiny3d.com] is in development (suppose to be going to beta in the next few months) but is only $40 and is being written to compete with things like Quake 3 and Doom 3. Of course I'm a bit one sided due to being on the development team.
Translation...... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to license the Quake III engine because it rocks, but I'm too much of a cheap bastard to do so. Maybe if I post that on /. id will magically change their economic model for me.
The really disappointing reality of GPL Quake (Score:5, Insightful)
I had hoped that we would see some really brilliant things come out of the GPL releases of these codebases, and, in reality some very good, cleaned-up clients have been developed. I certainly enjoy the mouselook, higher resolutions, and enhanced levels that have been developed from the DooM engine (see DooMWorld [doomworld.com] to see the kind of stuff that's out there). The improved QuakeWorld client [quakeforge.com] I'm aware of is pretty nice. And Q^2 [icculus.org] has a good Quake 2 client.
But these are just the obvious extensions of what was already done. The community now has (for the most part) all the source and tools that went into making Half-Life, the most successful game to come out of all of these codebases. Yet, to my knowledge, no project has arisen from the community to mold the next such game. How about another story-driven game that people would compare to Deus Ex? Or an all-out action game in the same vein as Soldier of Fortune? Or how about a freaking free software teamplay game that we compare to Counterstrike so that Linux users can play a team-oriented online FPS using free software only and not rely on WINE or WINEX? Or meld two free software projects and connect a Z-machine interpreter with the Quake engine and make a text-command driven story with a 3D view of the action?
These are things that would demonstrate just how momentous and visionary the release of the Quake source under the GPL was. Yet, all the community has managed to come up with is Quake++.
People slam my posts for being negative lately. That I'm ripping on people that have done good work. That's fine, I've got the skin for it. (Try USENET...) I admit that some really find refactoring and coding has gone into redoing the Linux Quake clients. But really, I hear plenty of bitching about how Linux (and other free OS) don't have good games and don't get the attention of the big game companies. Yet, when empowered to do new and exciting things and to make your own games, the group is content to simply recompile Quake for the Zaurus and call it a day. That's good work, for sure, but it's not the kind of work that's going to move free software forward and make it the kind of interesting world that non-free software people take a real interest in.
Again, I'm not making a judgment about the quality of the work that has been done. It's great. But now that you have the best raw materials from John Carmack, can we see real creativity out of the free software gaming world? (FWIW, I think CrystalSpace [sf.net] has done a good job of attracting some interesting new development.)
Re:The really disappointing reality of GPL Quake (Score:2)
How about another story-driven game that people would compare to Deus Ex? Or an all-out action game in the same vein as Soldier of Fortune?
Deus Ex [deusex.com] took professional, full-time game developers 3 years to make with a licensed engine. Solider of Fortune [activision.com] took (I believe) about 1.5 years with a licensed engine.
High-quality single-player content is incredibly time-consuming to produce. I'm not saying good single-player games can't/haven't/won't come from the community, but it may be unreasonable to expect professional-quality, professional-length single-player games from folks who don't have the resources to work on them full-time. (But hey, feel free to prove me wrong!
The developers already moved on (Score:3, Insightful)
What made Quake so great was the ease with which it could be customized. Take Team Fortress for instance. A better multiplayer fps has yet to be released. Team Fortress Classic for Half-Life and even Return to Castle Wolfenstein are commercial releases that do very little innovation on a theme developed by people that didn't get paid a cent.
The point being that Quake 1-3 were so open to gameplay modification that the GPL doesn't entice people who are donating free time to making games any more than the games did on initial release. Heck, Quake 3 even releases the same tools id created to make the games to end users. Why do I need to look at the code to combine z-Machine interpreters when Quake 3 already has the hooks for my customizations?
The same thing's going to happen with Doom 3, I'd imagine. Quite simply, all the "opening/freeing" of the Quake code did was make it possible for hardcore programmers to bring it to other platforms. The gameplay talent already have all the tools they needed to move to the next level and more recent games. That's part of the beauty of the way id programs.
Re:The really disappointing reality of GPL Quake (Score:2)
Re:The really disappointing reality of GPL Quake (Score:3, Informative)
Now, this is not to say that we won't get involved with OSS projects. In fact, I am currently the project lead for the OBOS creative design team. I've developed some ideas for a new GUI for the OS and am currently in the process of coming up with some new methods for working with a computer through a GUI. I'm donating my time and effort, not because I want to give the OSS community graphics they can rip off but because I have skills this project (and many other OSS projects frankly) could use. I also want to test out some ideas I have in GUI design and I can't do that without a project such as this. Since I don't program and none of the programmers can design this is seemingly a win-win situation for this group.
Re:The really disappointing reality of GPL Quake (Score:2)
I never said one way or the other whether it was ok to release code or not. I find that the debate to use an open or closed license ridiculous and to villify one group or company for using a license you disagree with to be even more absurd.
What I did say is many OSS proponents do not fully appreciate what it is I, and others inmy profession, do. I am a graphic designer with experience and knowledge in GUI design and when I tell a programmer, that clearly lacks skill as a UI designer, their application needs to be better designed from a user standpoint I expect them to listen and not aruge.
If the OSS community wants designers to help, they are going to have to make concessions. This is for pratcical reasons as much as respecting what it is designer do. How would you as a programmer feel if someone else mangled your code beyond belief and you were blamed for it? If someone knows I designed a UI and someone else comes along and mangles it for their own purposes, it is very likely that my name will be associated with it in a negative way. I now have to become proactive in defending the original work I did and claiming no relation to the mangled work. Believe me, it's a mess and yes, it has happened to me both on a professional level and on work I have done for myself.
But frankly, its too bad that you are a part of the very small minority of artists/designers that ever heard about OSS and that is willing to contribute one way or another. Maybe you can give a clue to your fellow artists?
I think programmers need as much a clue as designers do. Many don't want to contribute because our advice is often times not heeded and when it is the implementation is half-assed. I would argue that programmers need to grow up and learn that they might know how to code but they don't know everything there is to know about designing an application
My apologies if this sounded argumentative and reporachful, this was not my intent. I'm writing this quickly and have not taken enough time to thoroughly consider my answers. Consider this a rough draft that I would be happy to clear up if you want to take the time to hunt down my e-mail through the OBOS project, perhaps take a peek at the work I have done already.
Dear Mr. Carmack: (Score:5, Funny)
We strongly recommend that you abandon your present business practices and adopt one of these recommendations. The most prevalent recommendation is that you stop charging for your work and give it away. At the very least you should discount the price of your work so that it is in no way profitable. Since this is supposed to be a majority rule society, it is obvious that you must adopt this strategy.
This recommjendation is in spite of the fact that the majority of the recommendations come from people that have no record of success to demonstrate the validity of their recommendations. Indeed, most of these recommendations come from people who have no business experience beyond a high school business class and certainly have never been in the position of running a successful company.
None the less, it must be painfully obvious to a person of your intelligence that you must change your business policy immediately. To continue with your present practice is obviously folly.
Sincerely,
The community.
Re:Dear Mr. Carmack: (Score:2)
You do realize that Bill Gates is not the CEO of Microsoft and he is exactly what you said an Engineer....oh well
$250,000 in perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that the Quake III engine is state of the art, or anywhere near the only choice out there (frankly, it's the only engine that most gamers know about), but in the overall scheme of things, $250,000 isn't that much.
The engine, of course, is only maybe 20% of the work required to make a game. Fanboy-types refuse to believe this, but it's true. Art creation is much more time consuming, for example. And there's lots and lots of coding that has nothing to do with the core engine. I'd estimate that graphics-type code is maybe 10-15% of a typical game. For complex games that are less gameplay-shy than Quake, this could easily be under 5%. The reaction to that is usually "But what else is there besides the graphics?" which is greatly amusing to those of us developing games for a living.
Re:$250,000 in perspective (Score:2)
Besides, this is a capatalism wer are working in here, if the quarter million for the latest Quake engine is too much, well people will stop buying it and Id will have to revise their pricing structure.
Simple answer (Score:2)
Unreal/UT/Unreal II (Score:2)
Technologically the Unreal engines have been superior to the Quake* engines from the start, but they used a different design model (everything is compiled UnrealScript) that makes them a little harder to work with than the old faithful BSP-type engines.
Give it away... I don't understand business... (Score:2)
Id as history of producing cool games, licensing the engine, releasing things to open source and... MAKING MONEY.
They are selling Q3 for 1/4 million dollars a pop. Think of the number of games out there using this, now imagine the customer relations that Id will have if having shelled out all that cash Id release it for free within 6 months, so by the time your game is even halfway through development Joe and Ted are releasing games based on Q3.
Then Id want to license DoomIII's engine, and everyone says "no f-in way we'll just wait a year and you'll Open Source the f-er" and Id suffer problems and Slashdot posts the "Id is dead" post and all the people who wanted the world for free be-moan their passing and wonder if all of the games will now be free.
Business is about money, if Id can shift it for $250,000 then let them, if Tribes could then you bet they would. Also Id aren't a publisher so that model doesn't work anyway.
AAARRRRGGGGGGHHHH sometimes the bone-headedness of the "it must be free" lobby makes me scream.
If you want to be free then work for free and live off dust bunnies. I'd prefer to have a roof over my head.
The registration database has this message: (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like lots of Slashdotters are signing up...I will be as soon as I get the chance!
What a great looking product for such a low price! I agree with GG that this should lead to some real innovation (for a change) and will also let some new game development stars emerge who wouldn't have had the budget otherwise. AWESOME!
Also, Slashfolk, don't miss the fact that this engine uses open technologies (OpenGL/OpenAL), is already available on Windows and Mac, and a Linux client is in the works.
Too cool, I can't wait to get them my $100 so I can start playing... =)
(BTW on the id issue - give it a rest. I suspect id prefers to not have the support hassles this would entail...id is making plenty of money already!)
Re:The registration database has this message: (Score:2)
What are you smoking? I'm working on a Torque project, on Linux, as we speak. The engine has had Linux support pretty much from the start.
Re:The registration database has this message: (Score:2)
I can neither confirm nor deny that I'm smoking anything. ;-)
I'm working on a Torque project, on Linux, as we speak. The engine has had Linux support pretty much from the start.
Er, I read this [garagegames.com], which clearly says "Linux server, Linux client under development". Sorry if I got it wrong, I was just going by the website. Its good to hear that the Linux client is further along than that! :-)
Do the various tools work under Linux as well?
Re:The registration database has this message: (Score:2)
Partly. All the built-in tools (level and gui editor, etc) work just fine, of course.
The external tools (exporters, etc) don't. Then again, it's not much of a loss because they're for windos programs anyway. Most of them should run in wine, though. I know for sure the map2dif one does.
Why would I.D. want to publish games? (Score:2)
Id is a small company, and they are very focused on large, time consuming tasks. They make 1 game at a time. Why would they want to publish a bunch of smaller games from people that have no way to pay them outside of royalties? This is a job for their publisher possibly (Activision), but Id doing it themselves probably wouldent make any sense. It would spread their resources too thin and stray from doing the things that makes them 1) Happy 2) Rich. Sounds like a no-win to me.
The Quake3 engine is still very good technology, used in a lot of up-and-coming games. I dont think they can easily just drop the cost like that. I mean, how would you feel if you paid $250,000 for the Q3 engine last week, and now you can get it for $100? A bit angry?
This is something Activision may consider doing (if they can work it out with Id). For minimal investment on their part, it makes a lot of sense so long as they have the capabilities to manage it.
Re:Why would Id want to publish games? (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2)
If I had code that people were willing to pay $250k for I don't think I'd drop my price any time soon. Especially if it was code that people were going to use to develop a product which will compete with my product.
Bad Editorial (Score:5, Informative)
Either your understanding is incorrect, or you've misrepresented it. Unfortunatly, most of the posters here assumed you were correct. An overview of the license model can be found at id's website [idsoftware.com]. It's actually a $250,000 gaurentee against 5% of wholesales. (You get much more than the license for that of course - you get all of id's developers for a day long Q&A session too). Alternatively, non-GPL projects can license Quake or Quake 2 for a flat fee of $10,000.
Depends on when and where you want your money (Score:2, Insightful)
This is interesting, because it brings to light the differences in business models. I see the guys at ID software with a much better plan. They don't have to sell the product. The problem with Garage Games method is that there is no guarantee of income, and they have to invest their own income to publish the game. They only make money if the game is a commercial success. The better it does, the more money they make. ID, on the other hand, has a guaranteed flat income.
This really comes down to marketing leverage. Garage Games is not as large, or well know. In order to increase their credibility and the proliferation of their technology they have to take risks. The benefits can be very lucrative-- but are in no way guaranteed. I think you'll see Garage Games adopt a different model when they become as sucessfull as ID, because most business men you talk to will take guaranteed income as the cash cow any day. But good luck to their in either case-- I love Tribes.
Success? (Score:3, Informative)
The article/press release states that they have 10,000 people in their community but it doesn't say whether these people all bought licenses. Anyone can visit the site [garagegames.com] and sign up for free, giving them forum access (except to the SDK forums). I have no doubt they've sold thousands of licenses to the Torque engine, but not everyone who's a member of GarageGames has licensed it.
When you get the source you can use the preconfigured projects to build an "example" - a fully working program and some demo levels. It compiles on Linux, Windows, and Mac and for Windows at least you can use Visual C++ 6 (I think Visual C++ .NET/7 also works if you tweak it a bit), CodeWarrior and now MiniGW (which is free). GarageGames for some time now has been saying thet would release a "demo" of the engine, basically the binaries of the example. They've since stated that they want to hold off until Version 1.2, but that hasn't arrived yet (current version is 1.1.2). They do have a demo of Realm Wars, a community project, which pretty much "serves" as the demo.
The reason the demo is significant is because the Torque engine, like Tribes 2, is heavily scripted. A scripting language powers all the "important" stuff, like game code, to a higher degree than say Quake 3. Having access to the scripting language (the compiler is built into the engine) means you can make more or less a completely different game touching no engine code. The downside being that unless you place in controls or distribute compiled scripts only, everyone gets access to your code.
If you buy the engine then you're paying $100 for engine code you may never touch. The demo has all the scripts neccessary to make a new game. Of course the downside is that you can't then legally charge for your game or modification, which depending on your idea may be important. Also, if the engine limits anything then you're stuck unless you bought the engine.
Still, Torque is 1000x better than free engines, cheaper than a non-GPL license for Quake 1 ($10,000 and it's an old engine) and it has lots of neat community features built in (I'd wager a bet that you'd have much more fun with it than trying to talk to Epic about Unreal - GarageGames is more used to newbies - like me).
Still, I do wonder how it is they're calling it a "success" so far. Don't get me wrong - I love the engine and I love the ethic GarageGames has, but they were thinking it was going to be six months before a game was published - here we are one year later and no games have been finished - and only 2-3 I can name off hand I know of are nearly done. I know $100 x however many they sold is a bit but as I understand it a lot of that went to the lawyers that got the funsies with the Tribes 2 licensing done. GarageGames is the place now doing the final fixes to Tribes 2, so they have that revenue coming in (which, since GG consists of former Dynamix employees, makes sense) but other than that I hope people start finishing some games soon, or else they're going to have problems staying afloat.
Still, when Tribes 2 came out, many people's hardware couldn't take it. Now the hardware has surpassed it and so now the engine looks and plays really good - the Torque technology is sound and hopefully people get to experience that soon.
What is meant by "license on the cheap" (Score:3, Informative)
This hostility is clearly based on a misreading of the post.
What the poster appears to be doing is suggesting id delay the GPL release of the engine in order to license it cheaply AFTER they are no longer charging a quarter million for it.
This would mean the GPL version would be a couple of years later, and id's publisher would be licensing the QIII engine for a few hundred to a few thousand well after they would have otherwise released it as GPL.
The idea is to have id squeeze a few more dollars out of the engine, instead of giving it away.
And all the English challenged
The poster is suggesting id charge for something that they would otherwise be giving away.
Not a story - it's a press release (Score:2)
Errr... yes.... but why? (Score:2)
Developer suicide? (Score:2)
$100 is cheap, great. But the main investment in such a project is the developers' time. Lots and lots of time. Now, typically, if you've made a great game you have the option to shop it around to a lot of different publishing companies. Most of them will say no, but you might get lucky if your game is good and your pitch is good (naturally, in the real world you'd generally do this before developing the game, but the point remains the same). Main point, getting published ain't easy.
So is Garage Games going to guarantee that they will publish any game produced with their engine? If so, they have no quality control and a few rotten apples (or a whole lot) will spoil their public image. If not, then any developer who spends all the time developing for this publisher-specific engine stands a very real risk of being screwed. If Garage Games says "no," the developer has no recourse -- they can't shop the game around to other publishers, because of the license.
No developer should be stupid enough to place the fate of their project in such a position, where it can be arbitrarily killed by someone with no involvement in the project (yeah, I know, lots of companies work that way internally, but it's different here).
So maybe I'm missing something. I sure hope so. But I can't see how they could use a scheme like this to publish games in a professional manner without screwing a lot of developers. Not to badmouth them -- I'm sure they're nice guys! But it seems like the only way this business model could survive would be to do that. Someone tell me the flaw in this logic, please.
Re:A better idea... (Score:2)
That isn't what id do. The Q3 license [idsoftware.com] is based on a $250,000 against 5% of royalties. So they take 5% of the game, with a MINIMUM of $250,000. Remember, Carmack has a collection of exotic cars to feed (and more power to him!)