LWN.net Logo

Gaming as a service...

Gaming as a service...

Posted Mar 6, 2008 21:31 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Gaming as a service... by pizza
Parent article: Ryzom returns?

Exactly! Free software with proprietary artwork is perfectly acceptable to many of us; after all this is not a "free culture" advocacy site. Such server and client code liberation would open further possibilities:

  • Free client code with proprietary artwork downloaded from a server.
  • Free server code storing and serving proprietary artwork.
If such a universal, free game engine would ever gain traction, studios might create their own games (or more exactly worlds), and charge for admission. It is a fun concept.


(Log in to post comments)

Gaming as a service...

Posted Mar 6, 2008 21:59 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

>If such a universal, free game engine would ever gain traction, studios might create their
own games (or more exactly worlds), and charge for admission. It is a fun concept.

I'm confused -- isn't this more or less what we have now?  There's already quite a choice of
game engines, even if you restrict yourselves to those that are Free Software.  Anyone can
build anything they want on top of any of those engines, and charge (or not) for admission.

Granted, there's no "grand unified game engine" but I see that as a strength.

Gaming as a service...

Posted Mar 6, 2008 22:21 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I'm confused -- isn't this more or less what we have now?
It is, but only in the client space. And even if you can choose between different free 3D engines, they are not quite state-of-the-art: this field is advancing all the time. I'm not sure a big studio would want to commit itself to any of the free engines.

On the server there seem to be not viable options. So, no massive multiplayer games can be free software.

Granted, there's no "grand unified game engine" but I see that as a strength.
I'm sure that this is a transitional phase. Depicting a more-or-less-physical world is a complex task and we are not getting there yet. It is like color films in the 40s and 50s -- there were many different technologies (Technicolor, Multicolor...) until the industry settled to a single format (Eastman Color).

If ever there is a standard protocol for player-world interactions free software might even become the most popular choice.

Gaming as a service...

Posted Mar 6, 2008 22:44 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> If ever there is a standard protocol for player-world interactions free software might even
become the most popular choice.

That is the key to everything else -- Technology is always advancing; with a standard protocol
(that facilitates inter-world interaction) will come the true advances, and Free Software will
be behind it all.

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds