I fully support the idea of a less market/more freedom oriented, non profit content providing organization (even though Humble/GoG/... are not bad). Actually I think this (not only for games, but also music, videos, books, etc.) is one of the bigger challenges of the 21st century, some kind of continuation of what the FSF and Wikimedia are doing in fields that are becoming increasingly relevant today. I totally hated X-Box live the one time I looked at it for being absolutely user unfriendly. I wouldn't give my children access (they haven't asked yet). It is not important that content is gratis (at least most of it, I think it is different for some basic items like news and knowledge), but treating your customers like thiefs and/or cash cows while burdening them with all contractual responsibility will IMO just hinder progress in the medium to long term. I don't have time to help, but I would donate regularly to such an organization (if setup by someone I can trust like sswam or ED).
Thanks. Yeah... doing something similar for other media would be be good. However I think that would be best handled by "sister organizations". We could cooperate with them but I'd rather it's under a different banner, without any "big boss" organization. I don't want to be too ambitious all at once, and I think it's better to be focused.
Humble Bundle gets a lot of flack for "why this shit e-books bundle I want games give me games!!". I don't agree with those sentiments, but if the books were under a different URL and a different company it would be all sweet. They could link to each-other. I'm on about going back to the "roots" of what made the first few humble bundles really awesome for me. They have kind of lost track of that, by diversifying not only the products they sell but the methods they use and the rules they follow. i.e. they are no longer strictly indie, no longer games, no longer require a DRM free version for all deals, no longer "pay what you feel" for the whole bundle, no longer pushing to open source games, no longer just monthly bundles with plenty of space so almost anyone can afford to "collect them all"... No doubt they are making much more money by diversifying, but somehow I don't feel so good about them any more.
Do you really have evidence you can trust me? I have reasonably good intentions but I think I'd be considerably worse than Craig at managing a project. Craig has actually completed projects, such as his games. I've started hundreds of programming projects, and completed few if any (except for stuff at work where I'll get my ass kicked if I don't). I definitely need some help on the management side of things. I'm one of very few people I expect who would actually want to pay someone to be their manager / boss! because I know how unreliable I am without someone kicking my ass every second day to keep working. Anyway, giving me money or allowing me to manage an organization would probably not be a good idea!
I changed my screen name on the forums back to DREDD again, I oscillate. Nearly had to resort to writing ocelot instead of oscillate couldn't remember how to spell it. Thank goodness for look(1).
I didnt read all. but i would want only FOSS games, and soundtrack always available in flac.
The whole storyline available in txt files for blind people, and every game translated/translatable.
Also, with the tip/donation profits, to use some of it for funding development of new games like that.
With a program to have successful gamedevs help out newcomers.
Also available packets for debian, suse, fedora, ubuntu, etc.
After a year or so the games could make a new splash by going gratis, on the regular repos, or custom one, as donationware.
Also make it possible to crowdfund towards getting something on the top donator list.
Maybe compos, where the community tries to make for example a moba, an educative gardening game, or new boardgame.
Some really good ideas there kingu, thank-you!
I think we could ask the developers to release their source code as FOSS after the sale. Very very few commercial developers would be willing to release their art assets as FOSS.
If we only include games that are already FOSS (including assets), hardly anyone will pay for the bundle since they can get them for free with apt-get install or whatever. I could be wrong but yeah.
Soundtracks available in flac, that's good. It would also be awesome to have "source code" for the soundtracks, so can load into whatever music editing program and see how it's done, or print out a score to play on piano or guitar, or (as I want to do) adjust the tuning of the notes and render it to flac again. I'm not sure what would be a suitable (textual) file format for electronic music, musicians surely use many different programs and I suppose very few of them export to a sensible file format. Maybe a text version of MIDI with some extra features and "format bugs" fixed. FOSS music, that would be good.
Good idea to have the storyline in plain text. Even better if the game is playable by blind people but that's very difficult to achieve, unless the game is designed for blind people in the first place. It might be possible to convert existing games with support for blind people, but that's very difficult and would have to be a separate project. I know somone who has develops games for blind people.
Great idea that the game should support "translation mods", that comes with open file formats and open source. The "open source" helps with porting, and the "open data formats" (i.e. text files) helps with translation and modding. Maybe also require support for asset mods, i.e. the assets have to be in plain format not encrypted in some proprietary archive, or in the executable. Again, open source makes this possible automatically, but if the games are built in an open way it's even easier.
Like I said I doubt game developers will release their assets as free software until they have finished making money from it. It's asking a lot even to release the source code. It would be good however if they agree to allow 3rd party "asset mods" such as translation, which will be freely available to licensed users of the game, or could be sold by the original and mod developers together.
These requirements would prevent us from selling many existing games. Or the games would have to be fixed up to comply. I guess that's okay.
Funding new games... that could be good, but how to choose what games to fund? And what happens if a game "takes the money and run" or fails to deliver, like happens sometimes on kickstarter? Perhaps could make interest-free loans to game developers, somewhat like Kiva, where they are expected to pay it back if possible but wouldn't drag them to hell if they can't do it. I'm kind of ashamed to make a comparison to Kiva, which helps people who are in desperate need, but game developers need work too.
I think maybe with packages for Debian, SUSE, Fedora etc, that could be done by third parties (i.e. the distro developers). Or, have a single Linux download, with a script that can generate the appropriate package. Don't want to be hosting 5 different versions of a large game, even if it's distributed by bittorrent. It's probably best to stick with "tgz" but with some more client-side support to install as a package if desired. Or maybe we can use ~PND format
so the game files are in one place on the disk and will load faster (seriously). Maybe we could promote some cross-distro package system, if it's possible.
I'd like to have a client to manage the DRM-free games. The humble bundle DRM-free option is unappealing to me because no auto upgrade, no desktop icons, no proper installation, etc. If it worked better I probably wouldn't use Steam so much. I haven't used the GOG or Desura clients very much.
I agree ideally a game will go gratis after a while, however that might discourage a lot of people from buying the bundle, especially if it's stated in advance that the game will go gratis.
"I'll just wait a year and get it for free" We could have some agreement of reduced copyright like 5 years or 10 years instead of 75 years, after which it's gratis, but I think 1 or 2 years is too short.
Not sure what you mean by donationware. Not sure what you mean by "crowdfund towards ... the donation list".
Having compos where the best games go into the bundle (maybe even all the games as an optional extra), that's a great idea too.
Thanks very much for sharing all your ideas. I really appreciate it.
Sorry for writing too much, don't have time to make it short, etc...
