Games
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Authorized Regular Threads
Related communities
PM a mod to add your own
Video games
Generic
- !gaming@Lemmy.world: Our sister community, focused on PC and console gaming. Meme are allowed.
- !photomode@feddit.uk: For all your screenshots needs, to share your love for games graphics.
- !vgmusic@lemmy.world: A community to share your love for video games music
Help and suggestions
By platform
By type
- !AutomationGames@lemmy.zip
- !Incremental_Games@incremental.social
- !LifeSimulation@lemmy.world
- !CityBuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !CozyGames@Lemmy.world
- !CRPG@lemmy.world
- !horror_games@piefed.world
- !OtomeGames@ani.social
- !Shmups@lemmus.org
- !space_games@piefed.world
- !strategy_games@piefed.world
- !turnbasedstrategy@piefed.world
- !tycoon@lemmy.world
- !VisualNovels@ani.social
By games
- !Baldurs_Gate_3@lemmy.world
- !Cities_Skylines@lemmy.world
- !CassetteBeasts@Lemmy.world
- !Fallout@lemmy.world
- !FinalFantasyXIV@lemmy.world
- !Minecraft@Lemmy.world
- !NoMansSky@lemmy.world
- !Palia@Lemmy.world
- !Pokemon@lemm.ee
- !Silksong@indie-ver.se
- !Skyrim@lemmy.world
- !StardewValley@lemm.ee
- !Subnautica2@Lemmy.world
- !WorkersAndResources@lemmy.world
Language specific
- !JeuxVideo@jlai.lu: French
view the rest of the comments
Sure, but the engine. My understanding is that even the game companies often license something like unreal engine or what not. Those cost money. How long berfore modders create their own engines for the various common game mechanics that are very mod friendly?
Engines cost money for a reason. It means you get the tools while someone else spends the significant resources to develop and maintain it. There are FOSS engines available, but those aren't as developed or widespread.
Exactly, but that is what I am pondering. How long until those engines get easy enough to maintain that they really take off. Software coding tools are starting to take off. If constrainable by verification test, those tools can do a lot. I don't know what it takes to maintain a FOSS engine from experience, but I can imageing that a lot of the effort goes into supporting different hardware and OS changes. That is the kind of thing that software coding tools should be able to greatly reduce the effort of. Usually such engines have large quantities of tests for both functionality and performance verification. So you can set the tool to add support for a new peice of hardware, and instruct it to test both that and others, than iterate u til it gets it right. Right now, I think the costs for that are still too high. But the day is probably coming when those costs get low enough, and the coding tools good enough to greatly reduce the maintenance aspect of engines. Since that is the boring part of FOSS, that could drive an explosion in that area.
There are free engines available, and many of the paid ones have cheap or free tiers available for smaller projects. Also, if you want to actually publish your mod, there are likely to be a bunch of costs, like buying licences to use copyrighted characters, settings, ect. Even more so if you want to publish your mod as a standalone product, where you need to buy a licence to resell the entire original game.
That said, prehaps it would help to think of the game engine as a foundation, and the games as a completed house. If you want to make something, you can look at existing houses and imagine putting an extention on, or a new coat of paint. If the house is particularly well contructed, maybe its even easy to do. Still, at a certain point, theres no more you can add or change without it being easier to tear everything down and start from the foundation, or entirely from scratch. Its not a limitation of the design of the house, its just an intrinsic fact when you're working by building off someone else's completed work.
Now, if we start from the foundation (engine) instead we have less to start with, meaning its going to be a lot more work than doing minor changes, but the hardest part is still already done for us. This is what most people do when making games. Its far more flexable than modding, esspecially because you have a selection of engines available at different prices, with different strengths, weaknesses and specializations. GameMaker for simple 2D games, RPGMaker for making jrpgs, Unreal for 3D action games, ect.
Finally, you could skip both these options, and design and build everything from scatch. Its the option that gives you most freedom by far, but its generally not worth it unless you're making something thats very small, that is so unique that nothing else will work, or that you're dedicated and what a perfect fit for.
I think you are still thinking from a perspective of making money. I am thinking more like opensource software. A free engine or engines that handle generic stuff. Then some plugins for common features on top. After that, opensource licensced graphics for tons of things like lights, tables chairs... with associated sounds for moving or breaking. A total noob, could use AI to slap together a concept. Then they or others could tune it if the concept seems fun.
And of course at any point someone can fork it and go in their own direction. Essentially community, not "developer" driven games.
So, basically you're describing open source, public domain game development (rather than just an open source engine like Godot) by the sound of it. This does happen, games like Luanti or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but very rarely. Unlike mods, which tend to be small, quick-and-dirty projects, game development is usually much larger in scope and more difficult. It's normal for the process to take years of work from a collective of skilled developers and artists. That amount of work is usually just too much for someone to willingly give away for free.