Linux: Game Development.

[timtom59]

Hi all,

I was wondering if I could develop games for linux to make a living. I am budding entreprenuer and would love to create open-source games to sell. Now if I am correct it is possible to sell your open-source software as long as you provide source code.

I am a Python programmer and will certainly be using Blender to create a couple of games. I am thinking of creating a different game for each genre, and they are as follows:

- A first person shooter (Like Combat Arms for windows.)
- A racing game.
- A Role Playing Game.
- A Real Time Strategy.
- And finally a Indie Game.

I plan to have all these games multi-player, I know this will be difficult to code with python but I think I'm up for a challenge! :D

Anyways the reason I have posted this is to get your opinion on what I'm doing! So please leave suggestions and if anyone would like to help leave a PM. :)

[phibxr]

Hi all,

I was wondering if I could develop games for linux to make a living. I am budding entreprenuer and would love to create open-source games to sell. Now if I am correct it is possible to sell your open-source software as long as you provide source code.

I am a Python programmer and will certainly be using Blender to create a couple of games. I am thinking of creating a different game for each genre, and they are as follows:

- A first person shooter (Like Combat Arms for windows.)
- A racing game.
- A Role Playing Game.
- A Real Time Strategy.
- And finally a Indie Game.

I plan to have all these games multi-player, I know this will be difficult to code with python but I think I'm up for a challenge! :D

Anyways the reason I have posted this is to get your opinion on what I'm doing! So please leave suggestions and if anyone would like to help leave a PM. :)

Well, the definition for 'making a living' is selling something for a profit, and being able to pay your bills from the earnings.

As long as you will be able to create, market and sell enough products to make up for the time spent developing them, and for your bills, then, yes, you will be making a living. :P

If you are going to be using Python and Blender, there wouldn't really be a need to just narrowing it down to one platform. Multi-platform would give you a bigger market.

[hakermania]

Hey, I think you'll have a difficult time creating the characters in blender and so you'll maybe need some help there, but if you are talented enough to that as well, then, good luck!

[dyltman]

Right since you're a single developer I would stick with the game being 2d, or you could try to have some neat art style that is also easy to create (like minecraft).

Also indie isn't really a genre your game is automaticly an indie game since you're a single person not working for a company and stuff making it.

[amauk]

If you're planning to do this for a living, you need to think long and hard about your business plan.
Actually making the games is the easy part - the hard part is getting enough financial support to make it viable

I've had a similar idea for a while now, but never really followed up on it

Below is a list of things to consider:

Developing the game in private, and only release it when it's ready
Vs.
Open development, accepting contributions from the community

Developing the game with no initial financial support and hope to recoup the cost (and make a profit) through selling the game
Vs.
Using the "pledge" or "Crowd funding" systems, where you ask people to pledge a certain amount of money prior to development, and how much money you get influences how much time / resources you can devote to the game. You then release the game free of charge, as you've got the money up-front.

Completely open source (code, art-work and other assets)
Vs.
Open code and restricted art-work and other assets

Each of these has pros and cons and various caveats

Eg.
Using the pledge / crowd funding system means you're unlikely to make any loss, as you get paid before development begins
But people will likely not pledge any money as you are not known, so you probably can't to the pledge system for the first couple of games
Get known as "The guy that created that really cool racing game last year, and the brilliant RTS before that", and people will be infinitely more willing to pledge money towards your future projects

An open source multi-player game may be susceptible to cheating
If you can open up a source file and change
PLAYER_HEALTH=100
to
PLAYER_HEALTH=200
then play against other people with double health, the multi-player aspects of the game aren't going to be very popular
Exactly how you overcome this is going to be tricky...

[timtom59]

Thanks for all the feedback, you've made me think that I need to get a name for myself before I go for the open-source pledge way of getting funding. I am going to keep all the art work as restricted. I plan to stop players hacking the game by having two sets of source code (identical but one will be on the server which therefore stops players changing the health or gaining a advantage). Also I have quit my existing job, to fully focus on this, I have enough savings to live off for the next three years. Im going to set up a website to get a name for myself and hopefully release a game by April next year.

:)

[hakermania]

Thanks for all the feedback, you've made me think that I need to get a name for myself before I go for the open-source pledge way of getting funding. I am going to keep all the art work as restricted. I plan to stop players hacking the game by having two sets of source code (identical but one will be on the server which therefore stops players changing the health or gaining a advantage). Also I have quit my existing job, to fully focus on this, I have enough savings to live off for the next three years. Im going to set up a website to get a name for myself and hopefully release a game by April next year.

:)

Good Luck, really.

[Gremlinzzz]

Hi all,

I was wondering if I could develop games for linux to make a living. I am budding entreprenuer and would love to create open-source games to sell. Now if I am correct it is possible to sell your open-source software as long as you provide source code.

I am a Python programmer and will certainly be using Blender to create a couple of games. I am thinking of creating a different game for each genre, and they are as follows:

- A first person shooter (Like Combat Arms for windows.)
- A racing game.
- A Role Playing Game.
- A Real Time Strategy.
- And finally a Indie Game.

I plan to have all these games multi-player, I know this will be difficult to code with python but I think I'm up for a challenge! :D

Anyways the reason I have posted this is to get your opinion on what I'm doing! So please leave suggestions and if anyone would like to help leave a PM. :)

I say go for it i like role playing games with some action,like Zelda.
if you like what your doing you will succeed:popcorn:

[Frogs Hair]

Here are some game engine projects .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=game+engines

[Thewhistlingwind]

No.

BUT (And this is a HUGE but...) you CAN write your games code so as to be platform agnostic and sell to Windows, OS X, and Linux.

[madjr]

if you are into linux or indie games dev, this should help you get an idea:

http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2011/10/linux-game-preview-airmech-new.html

You can use open source tools to dev your games and ubuntuvibes is very good blog covering almost all of them.

Also you want to aim (after your initial trial and error games) that your other games could be part of indie conventions and even the Indie humble bundle (http://www.humblebundle.com/) in a few years :)

exciting times for indies right now.

note: there is a humble bundle in progress right now, so you can get an idea