11mo ago

Kovarex Is Thinking About Open-Sourcing Factorio | Factorio Interview: Michal Kovařík

cross-posted from: https://biglemmowski.win/post/2418820

For me, the most interesting point was the short mention of open sourcing Factorio (around 2:40). Kovarex seems to be very much open to the idea, he mentions that (as an approximation) maybe two years after the DLC after things calm down ...

(Hope this is not much of a titlegore)

Games @sh.itjust.works

nanoUFO @sh.itjust.works

11mo ago

Factorio Interview: Michal Kovařík (Kovarex) - Czech with English Subtitles

26 comments

I'm feelin' the love. Opening the game to modding to the degree they already have has lengthened the life span of this game for ~~weeks~~ months of additional play time. Making it open source would make it immortal.
- Months? You clearly haven't tried Pyanodons.
  Jokes aside, yeah, it would be a killer.
Fucking legends if they do
This would be amazing!
Notch said the same thing about Minecraft. I'll believe it when I see it.
- True. Though I don't think we would be in a hurry for this one, both Mindustry and Shapez have similar concepts and are already open source and quite good.
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the source code of the Java version open for modding?
  
  Not really. There is de-obfusication headers which They officially provide which can make decompiled source readable for the purpose of making mods, You're not allowed to redistribute any of the code.
  
  I'm not sure if the source is available or not. I remember some talk about it a few years back, but I don't know what happened. Either way, just because source code is available does not mean it is open source. When I say open source I mean libre.
There's a model that id used for open sourcing their engines. The source code is open, but the assets (textures, models, sounds, etc.) are still copyrighted and you still have to buy the game to get them legally. This means the company still sells copies on Steam or wherever, and games that replace all the assets can still sell them without any licensing costs, too.
I'm a little surprised this model never caught on. Even id only ever published the engine to the previous game--Quake 3 was open sourced a little after Doom 3 was released--and the practice seems to have stopped when John Carmack left.
Possibly because nobody has tested it in court, or some other subtle legal issue?
- Games got a lot more complicated and many use so many 3rd party add-ins that just sorting through what you have rights to release can be a pretty big task and not worth it if what you can release ends up unusable with all of them removed.
Is anyone even still buying Factorio? I was under the impression anybody who could possibly be interested in it already owns it. It's also quite cheap.
- It looks like they are still selling almost 7000 copies per week !
  https://gamalytic.com/game/427520
- The DLC launches next month, so it has seen a surge of renewed interest. And once the DLC lands, it’ll likely get a surge of new players from being on the store page again.
Perhaps some components of the game can be open-sourced, especially regarding modding APIs and whatnot. Still allows them to keep some things closed for a while, but could expand the mods and optimization even further.
Won't this kill mindustry (at least on PC)?
- Very different games
Its a video game
- Breaking news ground here Capernicus
  
  Its context for other readers. You're welcome
- It is a work of art!

26 comments