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Concept
Open-source video game
Summary
An open-source video game, or simply an open-source game, is a video game whose source code is open-source. They are often freely distributable and sometimes cross-platform compatible.
Not all open-source games are free software; some open-source games contain proprietary non-free content. Open-source games that are free software and contain exclusively free content conform to DFSG, free culture, and open content and are sometimes called free games. Many Linux distributions require for inclusion that the game content is freely redistributable, freeware or commercial restriction clauses are prohibited.
List of commercial video games with available source code
In general, open-source games are developed by relatively small groups of people in their free time, with profit not being the main focus. Many open-source games are volunteer-run projects, and as such, developers of free games are often hobbyists and enthusiasts. The consequence of this is that open-source games often take longer to mature, are less common and often lack the production value of commercial titles. In the 1900s a challenge to build high-quality content for games was the missing availability or the excessive price for tools like 3D modeller or toolsets for level design.
In recent years, this changed and availability of open-source tools like Blender, game engines and libraries drove open source and independent video gaming. FLOSS game engines, like the Godot game engine, as well as libraries, like SDL, are increasingly common in game development, even proprietary ones. Given that game art is not considered software, there is debate about the philosophical or ethical obstacles in selling a game where its art is proprietary but the entire source code is free software.
Some of the open-source game projects are based on formerly proprietary games, whose source code was released as open-source software, while the game content (such as graphics, audio and levels) may or may not be under a free license.
Official source
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