Comment Re:So, What About OSS? (Score 1) 384
The problem with many game related OSS projects is that they are started by people with little industry experience. Often these projects are demos to get into the industry or get a publishing deal. Once inside the industry you have no time to give away to an OSS project. There are notable exceptions: Nebula Device, Quake1&2 engines.
I've followed several OSS game projects (Ogre3D, crystal space engine, stuff on flipcode etc.). Many of these fizzle out within a year. Most are not designed to handle a full scale production. For instance almost no OSS game project focuses on the asset management and export pipeline. This comes from the fact that linux has no workable free 3d editor yet. A workable editor is defined as something that a team of artist would like to spend a year or two working with. Blender does not fall under that category.
Also, games have a very short lifetime. If you're giving away your time (thus money) for free, you at least hope it has a lasting effect, the way a constatly evolving operating system might have.
Howerver if somebody does figure out a good buisness model of how to run an OSS game project, it wont be that difficult to match features of the XNA platform. It seems it took Microsoft 9 generations of DirectX and a seperate team working on XBox to learn how not to screw up game development tools with classic MS cruft.
I've followed several OSS game projects (Ogre3D, crystal space engine, stuff on flipcode etc.). Many of these fizzle out within a year. Most are not designed to handle a full scale production. For instance almost no OSS game project focuses on the asset management and export pipeline. This comes from the fact that linux has no workable free 3d editor yet. A workable editor is defined as something that a team of artist would like to spend a year or two working with. Blender does not fall under that category.
Also, games have a very short lifetime. If you're giving away your time (thus money) for free, you at least hope it has a lasting effect, the way a constatly evolving operating system might have.
Howerver if somebody does figure out a good buisness model of how to run an OSS game project, it wont be that difficult to match features of the XNA platform. It seems it took Microsoft 9 generations of DirectX and a seperate team working on XBox to learn how not to screw up game development tools with classic MS cruft.
