Releasing a game's source code allows it to be read, forked, and modded. It increases enthusiasm for the game/franchise.<p>What do games studios gain by <i>not</i> making source code for old games (when available) public?<p>The example I had in mind was Westwood who haven't released Red Alert 2 source code. (but the same question applies to any game studio / game).<p>Doom's source code was released and it had an vast impact on modding and enthusiasm for the game and its creators.<p>Why isn't it more common for studios to release source code for old games?
As others have said, there are multiple reasons:<p>1) they may not even have it. The source code for lots of classic games have been lost. By some estimates at much as 90% of pre-2000 source code is gone. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/01/saving-video-gamings-source-code-treasures-before-its-too-late/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/01/saving-video-gamings-...</a><p>2) the game may use code from other companies or libraries or something that they don't own.<p>3) it might even be unclear who actually owns the source code now.<p>4) it isn't worth the time to get things straightened out. Nightdive studios tried to rerelease No One Lives Forever and the companies that might possibly own the game hadn't digitized the contracts and either weren't interested in the hassle or wanted Nightdive to pay them to take the time to look and promised to refund them if they didn't. <a href="https://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-cant-come-back-1688358811" rel="nofollow">https://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-...</a>
It usually eventually gets ownership transferred to some big company and they just stuff the IP in a drawer and forget about it.<p>I was at a game company that got acquired, there were various game IPs that were part of that. The acquirer was interested in only a few of them, but they would get all as part of the deal. I inquired as to whether they would be interested in letting me buy one of the IPs that they didn't care about, and was told unless I made a 6 figure offer it wasn't even worth it for them to get the lawyers involved to consider it. Needless to say I didn't do that and the IP involved (and the related source code) is now locked away forever, not even sure who owns it now.
There's no incentive to do so.
It takes time and money to ensure you're not releasing proprietary code you don't own. It likely stops you from ever re-releasing it, even if that's very unlikely.
I would imagine that for some games there is still a lot of money to be made making the most out of 95-year copyright lengths, and while open sourcing games per se is definitely not a relinquishment of copyright, it could affect the profitability of further monetizing those games by relinquishing some control. For example, Nintendo has re-released its retro games in various ways; I have a Super Nintendo Classic I purchased in Japan in 2017 with about 20 retro Nintendo games, and Nintendo made classic Pokémon games available on the Nintendo 3DS for some time before closing the online store for that platform.<p>Now, granted, there is a huge online community that does ROM hacks and disassembly, but Nintendo has been known to aggressively defend its IP (see the shutdown of the Yuzu project, for example). As a big fan of classic Pokémon games it would be cool to see a sanctioned source code release of these games, but I just don’t see it happening; there is too much money to be made re-selling classic Pokémon games in a “Disney vault” or subscription (Disney+) fashion until the copyright expires.
> The example I had in mind was Westwood who haven't released Red Alert 2 source code. (but the same question applies to any game studio / game).<p>EA continues to sell C&C RA 2 (and C&C, C&C RA were recently remastered, using the original engine with updated graphics).
One aspect I've not seen mentioned is there may well be things such as comments & labels in the source which haven't aged well.<p>Not only profanities, but they could be littered with labels indicating different attitudes to race, gender, religion, politics etc etc which would be unpalatable now. In the early days with more solo and isolated developers I'd expect there is quite a scope for this to have happened.<p>The company releasing it and also the author could well come in for a hard time. There have been a few high profile instances where a Tweet/BBS post from 10-20 years ago has come back to haunt people. Sometimes it's best playing it safe and keeping it locked away, if it still even exists.
A game is not only just source code, but also art design, sound, music, movie, etc,. These materials may be produced by some other companies, their contracts may not allow them to be published in public.
For the archive and LLM future overlords, Open Source I want for games that are not earning revenue anymore:<p>Black and White.
Creatures.<p>That's all thank you.
> What do games studios gain by not making source code for old games (when available) public?<p>You have got that the wrong way around. What do games studios gain by releasing source code for old games? Unfortunately, very little. Some good will, maybe a bit of free advertising.<p>Meanwhile releasing the source is never free. At the very least they will need to pay someone to go over the source and check if they actually own all of it and remove anything that they cannot release.
One answer I haven't seen yet is that the makers and the owners of the game are often different people.<p>The makers of the game might have creative sympathy or want to inspire future creators.<p>The owners of the game want to protect and defend their property.
I'll provide another armchair answer here: there is no financial incentive to do so. Video game companies do not care about preservation unless they can profit from it.
ID Software released the source code of their classic games up to "Doom 3: BFG Edition"[1] but it is unlikely that they will release the code for any of their newer games. I think that the reason is using a closed-source middleware owned by other companies in their newer titles.<p>Any modern AAA game even with its own engine uses one or more third-party middleware which hinders its release as an open source.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG">https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG</a>
It's a bunch of work, often involving lawyers who bill by the very expensive hour, for basically no payoff. On top of that there's a secret in the industry though: there's a lot of maybe not entirely legal code copying going on. Hiring someone who's made a similar game in the past can mean that they come with source code that could be copied to shortcut the time to write code for the new game. Releasing source would expose this teensy little problem.
On a similar note, I really hope that the AI companies that don't make it, but have invested a lot in curating and annotating high quality datasets, would release them to the public. Autonomous car and robotics companies in particular since that kind of data doesn't exist on the internet as abundantly as, say, natural language text.
It is an asset and in their minds worth something. Think old people and fine china dinner plates. They are convinced that they are valuable and refuse to throw it out
Would then get requests, why does it not compile.<p>Simple 3 component apps don't even have CICD. Games? Mike built that binary and scp'd it on the box. I know we need it to build the map editor to build the next level, Don't ask him for a new build he's been in a bad mood his linux jamed, he may rebuild it, wait for Xmas.
Software patents also come into view here. Doom 3 open-source version needed to have a <i>change</i> implemented so Carmack’s reverse algorithm was replaced by a different algorithm because the algorithm is patented by Creative.
Given a choice between money or control, expect executives to pick control.<p>It's a relatively small portion of game studios that are welcoming of mods. Often that is a legacy of the company being small and developer led.
Those who care about preservation and community development do. Others don't care or their bosses don't even understand the idea and don't let them. They might think spending on lawyers to ensure opening the code up is handled correctly is an unnecessary expense because they only understand expenses for profit.<p>TL;DR: it's a non profit endeavor, and most of these companies don't grok the concept.
IP. To some extent liability. But really IP. It is an asset. Releasing source is giving away the asset. That's it. That is the reason.<p>Doom's code was released because Carmack had a materially different view of IP.<p>If you look at "open source/open core" threads for enterprise/non-game software, you can see the mindset.