Re: Open source

From: outis02 <uly_at_...>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:19:34 -0000

> The private publisher Paradox Games (from Sweden) did something a little
> different; they took the source code of one of their older games (Europa
> Universalis II) and licensed it to small numbers of fans who were interested
> in developing it themselves in some way. They had to sign an NDA and provide
> a proposal; I'm not sure if money was involved or not. Finished fan-made
> versions would then be sold, and a portion (all?) of the proceeds would go to
> Paradox.

I don't think Paradox's experiment was very successful, and for good reason. Due to its closed-source nature, prospective developers wouldn't have a very clear idea of what they may be getting, and consequently it would require someone very, very determined to get a project going. IMO they should have just gone ahead and opened up the source. Of course the NDA would be nonsense, but they could still charge for commercial license. Alternatively, they could keep the engine core closed, thus requiring a player to already have EU2 to run any new game on the same codebase.