A common reaction to the idea of an open source city streets game is "But how would you pay for the hosting costs?"
This is not a major concern for me. First, we're a long, long way from needing to worry about it :)
But even if we had some code ready to start playing with, it won't be a serious problem, and it probably won't be the developers problem.
Consider popular open source projects such as Apache or Postfix. This software is used to run millions of web sites and email servers. Some of them are for-profit, some are not. It's not the developers concern.
By creating an open source city streets game, we similarly provide software that can be used to run a server. Any one is welcome to grab a copy and see what they can do with it. Perhaps some will use donations or banner ads to fund the game, others will run a small game with friends on their personal server, others will attempt to provide a subscription or fee based site. There are even examples in other open projects that allow volunteers to mesh their servers to create a single virtual world. It doesn't matter. If the game is fun and works well, someone will provide it to people who want to play, and anyone will be free to run their own game if they don't like the offerings of others.
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What is Open City Streets?
This blog was the first step in a community effort to create an open source game similar to Monopoly City Streets. We have now moved discussion to our forums at http://opencitystreets.com
If you'd like to join us as a developer, please make a post to the "Introductions" thread in the Developer / Other section.
We're also gathering ideas about how the game will work, so please join in if you have suggestions. If you have any questions you can also reach me at opencitystreets@gmail.com
Hello aaron,
ReplyDeleteIf you could use some help with this open street idea, I am here to help (for free, of course).
I'm fluent in PHP, MySQL, Javascript and AJAX.
You can contact me at shadow_shooter--at]--hotmail.co.uk
So you do not plan to host a single public instance?
ReplyDeleteMeh...
How the game will be hosted is not defined at this time. It may well be that a single popular public instance becomes the place where most people play, this seems like a natural things to happen. However, given that the code will be open source of course other instances would always be allowed and encouraged. If you don't like how provider X is running their game, you can play with provider Y or even start your own game.
ReplyDeleteOffering a server package for people to download to run their own servers would be a great way to promote person servers. Packages such as XAMPP or WAMP, which mix Apache, MySQL and PHP all into one easy to install package. Offering Apache, MySQL, PHP (And other server technologies needed to run the server) plus the source code all set up and ready to go, people download and can automatically setup a server using their home computer, it would allow many more people to run smaller servers.
ReplyDelete