The Future of Open-Source

[P-Star7]

I didn't post this in Game Distribution because it's not really a game, so... If it needs to be moved, I'd be grateful.

Hello, the creator of Hello's Mario Engine, told me that he thinks that now that Game Maker is at the point where there is only a $100 version, he doesn't think that people will want to use his open-source engine anymore, and he also told me that righr now, he wouldn't make another open-source project using GameMaker. He's been using GM for over 10 years, so I trust him to know what he's talking about, and I don't think that his engine should be rendered unappetizing by something that is out of his control after he's been working on it since bfore this decade.

I understand that $100 is a very reasonable price, but I can't decide that for anyone, and neither can Hello. One could say that we should just leave our projects availiable, but rates on people upgrading from free to paid apps are around 5%, so I've heard. What if your audience was cut by 19/20?

So what I'm asking is, is open-source using Game Maker no longer viable? If not, how can it return to how it used to be?

Also, @Mike, I'm sorry for having been a bother over the past couple weeks, but at this point, I'm more concerned for Hello and any other person who wants to make an open-source GameMaker game. Could you please help us out?

 

[kburkhart84]

Despite the price tag on GMS/2, I think that Open Source still has a place. Just because you are paying for a program doesn't mean you wanna spend the time learning all alone with no open source projects... Many of the people that can't/won't upgrade soon are being replaced with Yoyo's new target audience of commercial users(as opposed to hobbyists), and many of those people will be happy to learn from open source projects.

On the other hand...I understand some don't see it that way. There may indeed be less overall users, as there are likely less commercial users than hobbyist(read: free) users. And some of those new users will have more experienced programmers and some of those will not want/need open source projects to get what they want. So indeed, it is a situation that I can see both sides of.

 

[Fern]

As @kburkhart84 has said, there are two sides to it. I don't think Game Maker: Studio 2 would exist if not for the sales of prior iterations. At one point I purchased Parakeet 2 as an alternative IDE to Game Maker: Studio 1 due to the lack of improvement on its own IDE (this random fact will make sense in a second). I've spent hundreds on GM:S 1 compile targets and at least $50 on marketplace assets. Open-source will continue to exist in this environment but in reality a persons work is worth what others value it at. If YoYoGames felt that their engine was worth absolutely nothing, they would distribute it freely but they don't because it's the accumulation of over 15 years of work.

From my perspective the only possible gain from open-sourcing anything is getting free work out of others or marketing yourself. Nobody open-sources their work for any other reason. You could argue "sharing" but how many open-source projects are posted by completely anonymous users with no references to themselves in the code?

I wouldn't deem myself as professional but I do make games for a living and so I'm probably more in that group of people (stating this so you know where this opinion is coming from).

 

[Kuro]

Going to play devil's advocate and state that 100 dollars is dirt cheap, and not a barrier to entry at all. I see no reason why that 100 dollars would stop anyone from deciding to use Gamemaker and using it with assets, yours and your friend's included. As someone who used nothing but Linux for 3 years I can say without a doubt that using free anything instead of just paying the 100 dollars will sooner or later end up costing just as much, if not substantially more than just paying the 100 dollars. (This is true in all instances because time ain't free. Time is the most precious commodity we have.)

 

[P-Star7]

Despite the price tag on GMS/2, I think that Open Source still has a place. Just because you are paying for a program doesn't mean you wanna spend the time learning all alone with no open source projects... Many of the people that can't/won't upgrade soon are being replaced with Yoyo's new target audience of commercial users(as opposed to hobbyists), and many of those people will be happy to learn from open source projects.

On the other hand...I understand some don't see it that way. There may indeed be less overall users, as there are likely less commercial users than hobbyist(read: free) users. And some of those new users will have more experienced programmers and some of those will not want/need open source projects to get what they want. So indeed, it is a situation that I can see both sides of.

I agree. I don't really have anything to add to this other than saying that it's a situation that has both good and bad news.

As @kburkhart84 has said, there are two sides to it. I don't think Game Maker: Studio 2 would exist if not for the sales of prior iterations. At one point I purchased Parakeet 2 as an alternative IDE to Game Maker: Studio 1 due to the lack of improvement on its own IDE (this random fact will make sense in a second). I've spent hundreds on GM:S 1 compile targets and at least $50 on marketplace assets. Open-source will continue to exist in this environment but in reality a persons work is worth what others value it at. If YoYoGames felt that their engine was worth absolutely nothing, they would distribute it freely but they don't because it's the accumulation of over 15 years of work.

From my perspective the only possible gain from open-sourcing anything is getting free work out of others or marketing yourself. Nobody open-sources their work for any other reason. You could argue "sharing" but how many open-source projects are posted by completely anonymous users with no references to themselves in the code?

I wouldn't deem myself as professional but I do make games for a living and so I'm probably more in that group of people (stating this so you know where this opinion is coming from).

I wouldn't really agree with your perspective. I mean, those things do apply, but they don't always. About getting free work out of others, Hello has never asked for help on his engine, but he did accept it once when someone added gamepad support. I did put my fork of Hello Mario Engine on GitHub, but that was to let people see the progress of it, serve as a cloud backup, and it had a wiki page for suggestions (because the point of it was to replace the Mario stuff, I needed help thinking up replacements for the entities). I did post a style guide for the sprites on the site I originally posted it on, but all that was for was to help people who wanted to help. I can't make anyone help and if they liked the idea of the project then this would allow us to both contribute to it (no one did, but that's probably because the Mario fangaming site didn't want to remove the Mario... ) instead of having needless competition.

About the marketing, I don't know if Hello has been using it in his "real" job, but he's never positioned himself as a freelancer for hire or anything. Also, having his name on the engine let me know to send him a message on the forum that he was on to ask for help, which he did a great job of providing, being the almost-sole proprietor of the code.

I do agree about the value thing. If I had more passion for game design I would probably not want to share what I did, but ironically not liking it THAT much beyond a hobby allows me to treat it with the levity that makes it free. I know it may sound weird but not having to compete with companies that keep raising the standards for AAA games (or even indie games) has been a great boon. Then again, I've tried for several years now (even though my project only started a couple months ago) to make a good color palette and shading style, and this project has helped me improve somewhat on designing outlines. So I'm trying to make the best sprites that I can instead of putting in ugly placeholder graphics over the Mario stuff.

Going to play devil's advocate and state that 100 dollars is dirt cheap, and not a barrier to entry at all. I see no reason why that 100 dollars would stop anyone from deciding to use Gamemaker and using it with assets, yours and your friend's included. As someone who used nothing but Linux for 3 years I can say without a doubt that using free anything instead of just paying the 100 dollars will sooner or later end up costing just as much, if not substantially more than just paying the 100 dollars. (This is true in all instances because time ain't free. Time is the most precious commodity we have.)

Sigh... I agree but it's sad because like I said I can't decide whether or not 100 dollars is a fair price for someone else. How am I supposed to convince people of that? I'm not a very good evangelist in the first place. It seems as though the most attractive "marketing" would be being able to use it for free, sadly. How can I even compete. It's not fair to ask any of the GM developers to make it cheaper but it's also not fair to Hello for forces outside his control to make no one from his previous audience want the engine anymore. That's why I asked Mike if he could lend a hand with some advice.

 

[YellowAfterlife]

In case of Hello Engine, a generally better idea would have been to make a specialized editor that would allow to set up levels, objects, and their logic in ways most convenient for those games, but... this is not a good time to make fan-games for Nintendo's properties. It really isn't.

As per the general case, software being paid does not prevent open-source projects from being made with it. Some pieces of software cost much more than GM, and yet have OSS communities. In fact, even open-source software itself may not be freeware - see Symless' Synergy, for example.

 

[Fern]

In case of Hello Engine, a generally better idea would have been to make a specialized editor that would allow to set up levels, objects, and their logic in ways most convenient for those games, but... this is not a good time to make fan-games for Nintendo's properties. It really isn't.

As per the general case, software being paid does not prevent open-source projects from being made with it. Some pieces of software cost much more than GM, and yet have OSS communities. In fact, even open-source software itself may not be freeware - see Symless' Synergy, for example.

I agree with this so much. I feel that the reason we have so many people here requesting a completely free version of Game Maker (I've heard it countless times) is due to the demographics of its users. I think the majority of their users are under the age of 18 and don't often come by $100. I don't mean this in a discriminatory way but it is pretty much fact.

 

[sylvain_l]

I agree with this so much. I feel that the reason we have so many people here requesting a completely free version of Game Maker (I've heard it countless times) is due to the demographics of its users. I think the majority of their users are under the age of 18 and don't often come by $100. I don't mean this in a discriminatory way but it is pretty much fact.

even if the $100 isn't a problem by itself, the age can still be a big problem to buy GMS2, you need mostly a credit card, which means you need to be over 18.(or any other online paiment methods that have the same requirement)

 

[Koohyar]

I personally believe that a bigger community is a lot more important than a small but more professional one. I mean, the great number of users of a software can help make more money. One expensive product isn't going to compete ten cheap ones. The cheaper the product the more people buy it, and hence the income isn't going to change much.

Of course I don't mean $100 is "expensive" for this software package. But if I were the owner of GameMaker I wouldn't act in a way to lose a large audience of users, even if they were kids playing with the software (these kids could be the professional users of future).

So I think YoYoGames had better make a plan so a free version of the software be completely usable for the ones who don't have an option to buy the main package.

 

[P-Star7]

In case of Hello Engine, a generally better idea would have been to make a specialized editor that would allow to set up levels, objects, and their logic in ways most convenient for those games, but... this is not a good time to make fan-games for Nintendo's properties. It really isn't.

As per the general case, software being paid does not prevent open-source projects from being made with it. Some pieces of software cost much more than GM, and yet have OSS communities. In fact, even open-source software itself may not be freeware - see Symless' Synergy, for example.

Well, he did - several times, in fact. But I prefer his engine due to how you can expand it any way you like. I'm also interested in your statement, because that's a perspective that I wasn't sure about.

I agree with this so much. I feel that the reason we have so many people here requesting a completely free version of Game Maker (I've heard it countless times) is due to the demographics of its users. I think the majority of their users are under the age of 18 and don't often come by $100. I don't mean this in a discriminatory way but it is pretty much fact.

even if the $100 isn't a problem by itself, the age can still be a big problem to buy GMS2, you need mostly a credit card, which means you need to be over 18.(or any other online paiment methods that have the same requirement)

I personally believe that a bigger community is a lot more important than a small but more professional one. I mean, the great number of users of a software can help make more money. One expensive product isn't going to compete ten cheap ones. The cheaper the product the more people buy it, and hence the income isn't going to change much.

Of course I don't mean $100 is "expensive" for this software package. But if I were the owner of GameMaker I wouldn't act in a way to lose a large audience of users, even if they were kids playing with the software (these kids could be the professional users of future).

So I think YoYoGames had better make a plan so a free version of the software be completely usable for the ones who don't have an option to buy the main package.

I agree. I understand that adults are more lucrative but a lot of the tradition of Game Maker has been amateur projects such as the Sandbox and many on MFGG.net. In fact I was going to follow in the latter's footsteps until I found out that fangames are illegal. But I really enjoyed the hobbyist spirit so that's why I'm trying to encourage use of Game Maker. I'm worried that that culture is going to go away so I'd really appreciate if someone from YoYoGames could discuss that type of thing with me.

 

[FrostyCat]

Open source will still thrive under a professionalized environment, but the prevailing nature of the works involved will shift from ready-made engines to reusable components.

I do web development for a living, and its professional community is heavily driven by open-source code. But with the exception of blog/general site publishing, special-purpose engines don't have much of a following here. The prevailing notion is that the more design decisions you make for others pre-emptively, the less likely a professional would use it because he/she would likely waste more time circumventing your decisions. This is the exact opposite of amateurs, who would likely want these decisions made for them. They lack the sophistication to make a call on their own, let alone one that involves ripping up a lot of established ground.

 

[P-Star7]

Open source will still thrive under a professionalized environment, but the prevailing nature of the works involved will shift from ready-made engines to reusable components.

I do web development for a living, and its professional community is heavily driven by open-source code. But with the exception of blog/general site publishing, special-purpose engines don't have much of a following here. The prevailing notion is that the more design decisions you make for others pre-emptively, the less likely a professional would use it because he/she would likely waste more time circumventing your decisions. This is the exact opposite of amateurs, who would likely want these decisions made for them. They lack the sophistication to make a call on their own, let alone one that involves ripping up a lot of established ground.

Well, yeah. I like amateurs and I want to cater to them because I remember the feeling of being one and being in awe at what people were making. I have to admit I'm still rather an amateur in fact. I don't really want to focus on the career market but rather the hobbyist market. Is Game Maker the wrong tool to use to do that? It used to be hobbyist-focused but now it seems like it is setting its sights higher. Not that that's bad but I don't want it to be at the cost of the community that made me fall in love with this tool in the first place.

 

[Fern]

Well, yeah. I like amateurs and I want to cater to them because I remember the feeling of being one and being in awe at what people were making. I have to admit I'm still rather an amateur in fact. I don't really want to focus on the career market but rather the hobbyist market. Is Game Maker the wrong tool to use to do that? It used to be hobbyist-focused but now it seems like it is setting its sights higher. Not that that's bad but I don't want it to be at the cost of the community that made me fall in love with this tool in the first place.

The community here has had tons of hobbyists (as you've said) since early on, I highly doubt that will change. Raising what the engine/software is capable of achieving shouldn't affect that.

 

[P-Star7]

The community here has had tons of hobbyists (as you've said) since early on, I highly doubt that will change. Raising what the engine/software is capable of achieving shouldn't affect that.

Yeah, I know, but it kind of bothers me that something like SMBX or Super Mario Unimaker will get used more to make Mario type games just because they are free to use. Even though everything that Hello did for Hello Mario Engine is free to use, it's locked behind a $100 barrier, so it will probably be less popular. Since I want to support Hello Mario Engine by replacing the assets so that people don't have to copyright-infringe, this affects me too. I made this topic because I really want to find a way to get past that.

Edit: What I'm saying is, I really want my Hello Tux Engine project to be a public service. But I really fear that that' not viable or true.

 

[sylvain_l]

Edit: What I'm saying is, I really want my Hello Tux Engine project to be a public service. But I really fear that that' not viable or true.

what is viable for you ? (on long term any open source viability for me count more on the dev team then the "users", but if for you viability = number of users, that's something else)

just win 10 isn't really a free OS, that don't prevent many open source program to target that OS. (ok, win 10 market is much larger)

if you want specifically to target the market of kids that want to learn 2D game coding for free with your Hello Tux Engine (or the poorest; don't want to be mean; just that $100 can be some amount in lowest wages countries/or for unemployed), effectively, GMS2 isn't best choice nowday as YYG changed their pricing strategy.

 

[P-Star7]

what is viable for you ? (on long term any open source viability for me count more on the dev team then the "users", but if for you viability = number of users, that's something else)

just win 10 isn't really a free OS, that don't prevent many open source program to target that OS. (ok, win 10 market is much larger)

if you want specifically to target the market of kids that want to learn 2D game coding for free with your Hello Tux Engine (or the poorest; don't want to be mean; just that $100 can be some amount in lowest wages countries/or for unemployed), effectively, GMS2 isn't best choice nowday as YYG changed their pricing strategy.

Thanks for your input. What is Hello (and me by extension) supposed to do? He's devoted over 10 years of his spare time to learn Game Maker (and around 7-8 of those for Hello Mario Engine), and now he's saying that he would never make another GM open-source project again. Shouldn't something be done about this?

 

[FrostyCat]

Thanks for your input. What is Hello (and me by extension) supposed to do? He's devoted over 10 years of his spare time to learn Game Maker (and around 7-8 of those for Hello Mario Engine), and now he's saying that he would never make another GM open-source project again. Shouldn't something be done about this?

No, what you should be doing instead is to stop falling for sunken cost fallacies.

Much of this topic is little more than nostalgia-driven affectation and wallowing in sunken costs. Where the Hello project heads to should not be dictated by how much time was spent on the old course. The old course has stopped working and that's your cue to reconsider your allegiance. The captain of your ship knows it and so should you.

If explicitly targeting low-tier amateurs is his thing, he could have jumped ship when GMS 1.x changed the pricing for the first time. There were clear signs back then that YoYo intended to cease catering to the casual fare of legacy GM. Had he done so, by now he would have had almost 5 years of experience in whatever he switched to. This is what difference a decisive call would have made. His call came late, but it's better than never. It's not your place to make his calls for him or to make it come even later.

Change the graphics to keep DMCAs out and announce the change in course. Then learn a new environment that caters better to your audience. Besides, if you have trouble learning the new ropes, it's likely just as difficult for your amateur audience to acquire it as well.

Nobody said it's going to be easy, but times change and so should you.

 

[Guest]

Shouldn't something be done about this?

No.

Edit: I've only been back here for a month and these GM-isn't-free threads bug the heck out of me. YYG said the old plan was not viable. End of discussion.

If I walk into your house every day for a year, and eat your food, and you let me, but then you start locking your door, do I really get to complain about that?

 

[Kuro]

Shouldn't something be done about this?

No.

Edit: I've only been back here for a month and these GM-isn't-free threads bug the heck out of me. YYG said the old plan was not viable. End of discussion.

If I walk into your house every day for a year, and eat your food, and you let me, but then you start locking your door, do I really get to complain about that?

Couldn't agree more. The idea that something needs done about someone being slightly inconvenienced by Gamemaker not being free any more is absurd.

It's nice that YYG tried the free thing, it's a shame that they found it to not be viable, but that's life. YYG aren't beholden to their past choices any more than any of the rest of us; why do people feel the need to act like they should be?