Open Source Civilization III?

[JonahRowley]

It's clear that the sales of Civ3 will drop dramatically now that Civ4 has been released. After the first expansion for Civ4, will there be any Civ3 sales at all? What happens to Civ3 development, modders and players? Firaxis can have the best of both worlds; Civ4 and Civ3 sales. How can they do this? Release the Civ3 source code.

I'm not talking about releasing Civ3 as freeware. I'm also not talking about abandoning the Civ3 intellectual property to public domain. To everyone who makes money from Civ3, keeping Civ3 alive is in your best interest. To everyone who plays Civ3, keeping it alive is in your best interest. Releasing the source code is good for everyone. People would still need to buy the game to play it; the data, the Civilization trademark and the reputation of Firaxis games would remain the same.

What actual benefits would the players get from the Civ3 source code? Ports would be the first obvious result. Civ3 on Linux (without wine) would be played, opening a whole new market for Civ3 sales. Small enhancements would keep the game alive; the UI needs improvement, this could be done.

What benefits would Firaxis get from this? Civ3 sales, as discussed above, for no major development work. Hardcore Civ players will work on the code, people will continue to play it. True, some might not buy Civ4 because of this, but the majority of these people will probably be people unable to play Civ4 either because they don't use Windows, or would need to upgrade their computer.

OK, so let's cover some issues. What about piracy? Someone could easily recompile the Civ3 code with the CD check removed. Doing this would take only slightly more effort than reverse engineering the Civ3 binary and removing the CD check there (sometimes altering as little as a single byte). The license would be up the Firaxis. They could go either way; either licensing the source code (for free or cheap) to interested developers all the way to the other end of the spectrum and releasing under modified BSD or GPL license. The license could include a clause to prevent people from distributing modified source or binary without a CD check, from using the Civilization trademark or claiming any affiliation with Firaxis.

This has worked with other games before. The Doom and Quake games come to mind (from iD software). Multiple Doom and Quake ports exist now, including some pretty cool Quake and Quake 2 engine modifications. Doom is now playable on virtually every platform, including phones. The Homeworld (from Sierra) source was release, and a Linux port was promptly underway.

When to release the source code is also an issue worth discussing. iD released the Quake 3 source code not long ago, after Doom 3 was release, and not far before Quake 4. In a series of games where you rely on fans of the series to buy new versions, releasing source of an older game in the series too soon may affect sales of the new version too much. Releasing the source too late might have too little effect, and be little more than a novelty.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? A lot of work goes into these games, and the fans of them know this. It seems a shame to have a "we're done with this, let's toss it" attitude toward the source code and the game itself. At the very least, Civ2 can still be saved. How about a PDA port? I know plenty of people who'd love to see that.

 

[Turner]

Well, the problem being is that there's a petition going around online for Firaxis (or whomever holds the copyright for it) to release the Civ2 source code. And that hasn't happened yet. Probably the same would happen with Civ3.

That's not to say this isn't a good idea....it just probably won't happen.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

They're not going to release the source code for civ3. Ever. They've never even released the source for civ1. Forget about it.

 

[Padma]

Aspyre has acquired a license to port Civ3-Complete and Civ4 to the Mac (Mac users had only Vanilla Civ3 until now). If a Linux-porting company could get the rights to port it, I would be thrilled. The code doesn't need to be open-sourced, at least as long as Firaxis can make money from it.

 

[JonahRowley]

Aspyre has acquired a license to port Civ3-Complete and Civ4 to the Mac (Mac users had only Vanilla Civ3 until now). If a Linux-porting company could get the rights to port it, I would be thrilled. The code doesn't need to be open-sourced, at least as long as Firaxis can make money from it.

There are more benefits to releasing the source than ports.

As for the Civ2 source code, I can't think of a reason they shouldn't release it. They have nothing to lose, and much to gain. After all, more people playing Civilization means more people buying Civ4 and future releases. Anyone have any argument against releasing the Civ2 source code? Because I can't think of any at all.

 

[Beamup]

Most obviously the fact that they are still making money off of it. Copies of Civ2 are still sold - not in any great numbers, to be sure, but they are. Occasionally.

Many developers are also unwilling to release their source code because they have their own special libraries and tricks that nobody else does - but if it was released, it could be readily duplicated. That's less common in games than certain other sorts of software, I understand, but it does come up.

There are a lot more reasons, too, but those are the ones I can recall at the moment. According to the developers I know, open sourcing even obsolete projects is generally a very bad idea from a business standpoint... I'll see if I can't get more of the details of why from them.

 

[JonahRowley]

Most obviously the fact that they are still making money off of it. Copies of Civ2 are still sold - not in any great numbers, to be sure, but they are. Occasionally.

Ports and improvments will help sell more copies of Civ2, not less. People have no incentive to buy Civ2 now, save nostalgia. A modern port with network play (and a metaserver), some newer graphics, etc would sell copies of Civ2. It may seem small potatos compared to the Civ4 sales, but it would require no effort on the part of Firaxis. Free money for them, happy fans and more people introduced to the Civilization series. What could go wrong? At the very least, nothing would come of it, and Firaxis would lose nothing.

Many developers are also unwilling to release their source code because they have their own special libraries and tricks that nobody else does - but if it was released, it could be readily duplicated. That's less common in games than certain other sorts of software, I understand, but it does come up.

I don't think this is an issue for Civ2. Any libraries used are probably not very useful for modern programs. For Civ3, it may be an issue.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Another related issue to releasing source code is making sure that *all* of it
can be released. Various tools, development libraries, or other IP might
have been licensed by MicroProse (for Civ2) or Firaxis (for Civ3)
for the purposes of development, and the terms of those licenses probably
covered the distribution of executables or run-time environments.
The licenses, as executed at that time, probably did not include
redistribution as source code. Which means that someone from the
successor organizations, who currently is responsible for the licenses,
has to find the original license grantors, if they are still in business,
to negotiate the release. It's doable, but it requires a non-trivial amount
of time, and perhaps even some incremental spending.
As I understand it, all the intellectual property stakeholders need to agree
on the release, and that they have been adequately compensated for
their IP. Tracking them all down for Civ2 is probably harder than for Civ3.

 

[Beamup]

Ports and improvments will help sell more copies of Civ2, not less. People have no incentive to buy Civ2 now, save nostalgia. A modern port with network play (and a metaserver), some newer graphics, etc would sell copies of Civ2. It may seem small potatos compared to the Civ4 sales, but it would require no effort on the part of Firaxis. Free money for them, happy fans and more people introduced to the Civilization series. What could go wrong? At the very least, nothing would come of it, and Firaxis would lose nothing.

Except for the fact that open sourcing something makes it a lot more difficult to actually sell it.

I don't think this is an issue for Civ2. Any libraries used are probably not very useful for modern programs. For Civ3, it may be an issue.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Frequently a lot of stuff gets reused - and libraries don't go obsolete in general. It's a distinct possiblity, and nobody who isn't familiar with the code base can make any sort of evaluation.

 

[warpstorm]

Why do you think that Firaxis has the right to do this? Typically, the publisher owns the rights to distribute the source code, not the developer.

FWIW, Civ2 was not developed by Firaxis at all (by people who worked at Firaxis later in their lives, yes, but not by the corporate entity of Firaxis), but rather by the defunct Microprose (all of their IP is pretty much owned by Atari these days, IIRC).

 

[warpstorm]

Frequently a lot of stuff gets reused - and libraries don't go obsolete in general. It's a distinct possiblity, and nobody who isn't familiar with the code base can make any sort of evaluation.

I can. There's a reason why Civ4 didn't use the old code base at all.

 

[Beamup]

I can. There's a reason why Civ4 didn't use the old code base at all.

Trouble is that "the old code base" is not a terribly precise term. It's entirely possible (and common) for an application to use some of the same libraries as an older application, but that those libraries are not specific to that particular app. (i.e. using general-purpose libraries used for many apps but nothing specifically written for the older app).

And I can say from personal experience that quite a few people do refer to that as "not using the old code base at all."