As platforms evolve, old games become unplayable. Open sourcing them will help us preserve them for future generations.

A lot of old games have become unplayable on modern hardware and operating systems. I wrote an article about how making games open source will keep them playable far into the future.

I also discuss how making games open source could be beneficial to developers and companies.

Feedback and constructive criticism are most welcome, and in keeping with the open source spirit, I will give you credit if I make any edits based on your feedback.

  • Kelly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    For a company that is iterating on its products this is probably fine from a mechanical sense but would be a nightmare for their IPs.

    Consider the early Super Mario series:

    • 1985 - Super Mario Bros
    • 1986 - Super Mario Bros: The lost levels
    • 1988 - Super Mario Bros 2
    • 1988 - Super Mario Bros 3
    • 1990 - Super Mario World
    • 1996 - Super Mario 64

    If in 1990/people could legally make their own “lost levels”-esque remixes with the SMB1 engine that would be paltry competition with SMW.

    Similarly if people started remixing SMW in 1995 it wouldn’t have stopped SM64 from defining the 3d platformer genre and presenting a very strong argument for the analog stick being required for any 3d console.

    But if people could tell their own Mario stories, that might tarnish the brand. If that happened we might not still be getting Mario games today.

    I’m not sure how you open source both engine and assets without losing control of the narrative.