> Speaking as an open-source developer (and hobby games programmer), my
> answer is: he probably won't.
>
> Sure, the initial buzz might drive a few people to purchase the game,
> but it takes serious out of the box thinking to make money on an
> open-source game. There is no doubt some genius business model somewhere
> for making money on open-sourcing a game, but I've never heard of any
> projects doing so successfully.
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.
All this said, I'm not sure if it could be considered a success. So far only a handful of fan groups have secured the source code, and none have released anything for sale. I imagine that to many, this would be a daunting task, but it's one alternative to a completely free source code.
I'm also a fan of KoDP who'd never played Runequest or Heroquest before getting the game.
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