Week 7 Lecture 2/2

Time to run with the topic of open source from the lecture. I used to be heavily into the open source scene but it was a different kind of open source that wasn't discussed in the lecture. I don't even know if it's a true form of open source but it works in a similar way of open source but without letting every jerk go nuts with everything in regard to your work. It's a nice middle ground of propriety software and full open source software.

Let's look at a couple examples, the big one is of course Half-Life. If you've ever bothered with computer games you've probably heard of half-life and its developer Valve Software. Valve took a very unique approach to a fairly underground scene known as 'Modding' in the regards that they completely embraced it and fully endorsed the idea of people taking their game, going nuts with it and making their own creation from it. It still meant you had to physically own a copy of the original software but you were allowed to do whatever you wanted with it, short of distributing it, that is, the original software it self not the modifications you have done to it. It allowed for a whole new breed of developers to roll into the industry. And it was good.

On the other side of the fence, while developers like Valve, ID and GSC were happy to see people making fan works or modifications of their games. Blizzard software is one of the few developers who completely oppose the idea of modifications to their games. While 'mods'(more a hack than anything) such as DOTA are extremely popular, they don't actually change any of the assets of the game and instead reuse assets that are already in it. It leaves developers feeling limited and stunted and not to mention makes Blizzard out to be complete jerks (they are).

Another case of corporate ruining the work of modders is when a mod is made on a completely unrelated game to make a game on another topic. There was a case awhile back of a mod made for EA's Battlefield 1942 where a team of developers had made fully playable Star Wars version. I can't remember the exact details but soon after its release they received a cease and desist from Lucas Arts/Films. While the developers weren't earning any money for their work for some reason Lucas Arts considered them to be enough of a threat to bring out the lawyers, even though the only thing that was used was the name.

In an opposite case, the Icelandic developers CCP, creators of Eve Online, gave a very generous offering to a group of modders who wanted to make an RTS mod set in the Eve universe. It was a quite reasonable set of terms, it allowed them to actually reuse assets from Eve itself but the restriction was they were not allowed to release a 'beta' version to the public and the mod would have to be presented to them before it can be released. Quality assurance etc.

Another developer, GSC did a similar thing except it was the case of "can we use your stuff" "don't really care, go for it, just don't sell it yo" Good example of this is a Men of War mod that is pretty much the entire original game converted over to the Men of War engine and into an RTS format.


It's one of the few cases where the developer decides WHEN they want to claim their rights and how rather than enforcing all of them with an Iron Fist regardless of circumstance like some companies do. Software, games or otherwise, are a evolving thing. When a company limits who and how a consumer uses their product they simply lower the time the software will remain popular. This could be on purpose so you can resell an updated version at a later time or simply out of choice. In regards to games, the ones that were the most modifiable out lived other games that came out a later date, Half-Life is a good example of this(mind you, the newer, second game).