Comment by pjmlp
5 years ago
Well, I ended up reading the post about gaming as well.
https://puri.sm/posts/gaming-that-respects-you/
> The Librem 5 features high quality, free games that respect you. Play 2D and 3D games without ads, without in-app purchases, and without tracking.
Don't expect much uptake from game studios, when the selling point of the platform is not to pay for games.
I'm a libre software advocate but I see little reason why games should be libre. They're not tools - you don't use them to create things or to do your job. They're more akin to movies - compiled and packaged 'experiences' that are by design read-only. When you buy a DVD, you don't expect hundreds of hours of unedited footage to come along with the film so you can cut together your own version. The same is true of games.
> When you buy a DVD, you don't expect hundreds of hours of unedited footage to come along with the film so you can cut together your own version.
instead of accepting this as a fact of life, it should definitely be discussed and debated. What are good reasons for not having this right by default ?
For instance, Star Wars fans have made the despecialized edition from footage from the various movie - the result is pretty good. People remix music all the time; there have been plenty of initiatives over the years to provide songs as separated tracks to allow for more advanced remixes. etc etc...
> What are good reasons for not having this right by default ?
The good reason is that someone or some company paid for creating all those hundreds of hours of footage, so they get the first and final say over who gets to view and/or use it.
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It depends on whether you think the creators of something do or do not have the right to sell or not sell it if they choose. If they do, then surely they can choose to include or not include any parts of their creation. Why should anyone have a right to cut footage the owner has chosen not to sell?
This is where there needs to be some careful thinking about terminology, since we don't have any right to other people's stuff by default.
The people who made the movie have all the rights to it and then they make some DVDs and sell them. They only sold what's on the DVDs. They didn't sell the other stuff, so people don't have a right to that stuff.
Now, that is not to say that the products couldn't be different in the future. It might turn out that movies which include a footage "parts kit" do better in the market place, so much more so that it becomes the normal way of doing business and is what is the ordinary and expected product at the ordinary price. But there's no reason to expect we have any particular rights to stuff other people did, or that they can't carefully parcel out the rights at prices that they set.
> What are good reasons for not having this right by default?
Getting tired of such free use of the word “right”. [EDIT: see bottom of this post!]
I will assume you’re not from the US, or are using hyperbole when you use the term “right”. Here in the USA our rights are clearly defined in the Constitution & Bill of Rights and they have a special quality: Our military and politicians literally swear not to defend King or country, but the Constitution, which represents a set of rights no human is allowed to abridge.
Rights are things we send our sons and daughters to die for in war.
So maybe you mean something a bit less dramatic?
EDIT: After my bloviating I reversed my position based on something the parent posted regarding government subsidies. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25506982
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Source available games (don't even need to be "Open Source" or "Free and Open Source") benefit greatly from modding, keeping games alive much longer and making them better even in the very short run.
I dabble in game design and the plan is making the game code open/libre (not the assets or trademarks though) after some time passes (years or maybe even decades, depending on the success) so others can learn from it, extend it and maybe even sell it is quite a draw for me.
> I dabble in game design and the plan is making the game code open/libre (not the assets or trademarks though) after some time passes (years or maybe even decades, depending on the success) so others can learn from it, extend it and maybe even sell it is quite a draw for me.
Some assets are code (procedural content, for example) though, how do you feel about those?
Also, one thing I've noticed is that for many ostensibly open source game code releases where assets are withheld, often no placeholder assets are provided either, without which the code sometimes can't be built, or if built can't be run or tested, which can present a significant barrier to the use or reuse of the code. All the more so when the original assets are in some idiosyncratic, non-standard, and possibly even undocumented, format.
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Video games can largely be described as simulations, and ways to interact with it. This applies to both extensive simulations like dwarf fortress, to incredibly simple simulations like mega man. Combined with the fact they’re software, and thus generally available to be shared and modified without cost, they’re uniquely qualified to be a communal artistic medium — one in which others can modify, enhance, and extend the simulation capabilities.
There’s a reason games have (popular) modding cultures, where other mediums do not, and that same reason is why it is viable/reasonable for games to be libre.
That most games are treated and developed like movies, rather than like simulations, is a result of a fundamental misunderstanding by the game designers/developers.
> incredibly simple simulations like mega man.
Ok, now I'm offended.
Except that games are executing code on your general purpose computer. They are also connected to the internet these days.
When I buy a DVD, I can view it with my own software or on a dedicated device that is not a general purpose computer or connected to the internet.
I suspect that most people who try to carve out an exception for games are just rationalizing. They prefer free software, but don't want to give up their games. Then they often poo-poo someone for not wanting to give up $OtherPropreitaryApp.
The idea that you couldn't hide some kind of code execution exploit in a dvd-playing software and that anyone ever audits their video decoding hardware-software chain in a rigorous manner is also a rationalization.
I don't really play games so that's not my rationale.
Look at Doom, Quake, etc for the benefits: fixing bugs, keeping the game playable in new drivers/systems/OSes, making better mods, etc.
The game content doesn't need to be libre, but the game engine benefits from it.
None of them adopted by Id or Bethesda, and representative of possible lost sales.
If it wasn't for Carmack it wouldn't ever have happened.
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I see what you mean, but the existence of thriving mod communities proves otherwise. People do want to fiddle with games and make their own derivative works.
Also, concerns about tracking and privacy.
The days games where complete packaged single player experiences are long gone (unless you're Nintendo). Games are tools: kids see each other in a game of Fortnite and visit concerts together. That makes Fortnite a communication/messenger tool and a browser too. Same for other community-based stuff like Roblox or Minecraft.
Stadia, GeForce Now, XBox Game Streaming and Amazon Luna just entered the bar.
Nethack, DCSS, Cataclysm: dark days ahead and co. show that FOSS games can do very well.
"Do very well" in a community and business sense are two very, very different things.
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So what is their current business revenue?
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I like that they have a vision for the ecosystem they are building, which includes gaming. If I understand correctly up-front payments for games should be possible? "Not paying for games" does not seem to be a selling point for PureOS.
You have ads in your games?
I pay tons of money on games, on many platforms. But ads/tracking/in-app purchases? That sounds like an awful mess.
Well, bad news, you are a minority. Phones have changed (destroyed) the landscape.
Did you know that King with their Candy Crush and other saga games almost double the operating income of Blizzard with all their legendary lineup? [1].
1. https://www.investopedia.com/how-activision-blizzard-makes-m...
I think that since they are discussing the FSF, they just mean that the source of the games will be freely available and redistributable to people who are paying for the software. I don't think this is materially different from models like Humble Bundle, which feature vastly discounted prices for games.
Addendum: People looking at "free" and thinking "you don't have to pay for them!" makes me feel both old and pessimistic.
Is the "free as in speech, not as in beer" thing just a byline at this point? I remember reading about it and being pretty excited by the concept ~15 years ago, and it seems that it was pretty common in the software industry to understand the distinction; especially in the context of the FSF.
> without ads, without in-app purchases, and without tracking
I don't see where they are discouraging paying for games?
I do see them discouraging insidious tracking, advertisements masquerading as gameplay, and lottery systems designed to enrich the game developer at the expense of the actual gamer.
I think it's the "free games" part. I think they mean free as in freedom, but is it also free as in beer too?
"Free" is such an unfortunate word, because in other languages it only means "gratis". "Libre", as in LibreOffice, is better.
From the previous sentence:
> The Librem 5 features high quality, free games that respect you.
Free as in freedom, not price: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software.
I agree, when you take a few words completely out of their original context then the statement makes no sense.
>without in-app purchases
Is that so bad?
There are certainly a lot of loot box patterns that are unseemly, but I'm not sure I understand a wholesale prohibition of in-app purchases entirely.
I won't touch pay to win crap like loot boxes and coins, but IAP for additional content like maps and levels and such is absolutely fine.
You can always sell those as an expansion pack. It reduces nickel and diming and encourages game developers to create high quality content that they can actually sell as a proper expansion, as opposed to little bits that the user has to pay while in the middle of their game, often in order to achieve something that may barely be possible without spending that in app money in addition to what they've already spent.
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They mean 'free' as in freedom, not 'free' as in beer. There's a (huge) difference.
I love how serious they are with Tux Kart. That was the prime example they could cherrypick.
SupertuxKart today is hugely improved graphically, on par on WiiU graphics (not bad for a childish racer), and with netplay support.
Also, Minetest with the Dreamworld MOD lacks nothing from Minecraft.
WiiU graphics is a low bar given its hardware graphical capabilities are on par with DX 10, a 14 year old API.
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I've semi-recently gotten into Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. I think a lot of roguelikes are opensource.
Being opensource and easy to extend gives it an enormous developer base.
I am always so excited to see this game mentioned outside of its Reddit forum. I haven’t played it since 0.C, but I poured countless hours in and cherish many memories of hapless heroes and their ignoble deaths.
Love roguelikes. Ever played IVAN?