Hey Bianca, Global Game Jam looks like a great resource. Is there any way to find out which of the games are Creative Commons licensed and which are not?
Cheers, *Chris Sakkas **Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki <http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/> and the Living Libre blog <http://www.livinglibre.com> and Twitter feed<https://twitter.com/#%21/living_libre> .* On 11 November 2012 14:00, Bianca Gibson <[email protected]>wrote: > Years of archives of some good (though small) creative commons licensed > games can be found at http://globalgamejam.org/. My own is at > http://archive.globalgamejam.org/2012/whirlstrom. > > Although AAA games have huge budgets, they are often managed extremely > poorly and have high staff turnover. Someone high up in a big publisher (I > think activision?) said that their strategy for improving employee > retention was to scare them in to staying, saying they wouldn't be able to > get another job or the new job would be even worse, and they were trying to > take the fun out of making games. Often the staff will get mistreated, and > have to work ridiculous hours, I know someone that worked 120 hour weeks. > They may not even get credited for a game that they worked on for years > and left a few months before release (LA Noire). > Sometimes 24+ hour marathon shifts. Keeping a sleeping bag under your > desk. > Managers will often be promoted from within - when a big publisher took > over an acquaintances old work they promoted the lead programmer to CEO. He > was not a good CEO, and now that studio has shut down. > > Not really creativity fostering environments, or well managed. I don't > think they money is spent efficiently in a lot of circumstances, and I've > seen some really smart developers leave the games industry because of that > treatment. These people that leave because of the mistreatment might still > like to do hobby project games, and maybe could be tapped to create Free > Software games if we can connect with a sizeable proportion of them. > > A lot of people think that a lack of creativity is the weakness of AAA > games. Rather than go for exactly the same thing, I think we'd be better > off excelling where they don't, making indie games instead of AAA style > games. Indie games have much smaller budgets and teams, so would be an > easier starting point. Rather than trying to make the next skyrim, go for > the next fruit ninja. > > I do think that steam for gnu/linux is a good thing. I have on multiple > occasions almost talked people in to running mostly free software, but the > games have kept them on windows. It will also make some people that > currently dual boot for games spend more time in a free software OS, maybe > even all their time. Although running proprietary software at all is not > ideal, it can reduce people's use of a proprietary OS. > > What we can do if we want to take the approach I'm suggesting (go for > indie games): > - Use steam for GNU/Linux to encourage gamers to start using a Free > Software OS, or spend more time in a Free Software OS > - Engage with the indie games community and learn from them - more free > software people at events like the global game jam, and local meetups > - Make games :) > > > As for why steam is considered good: > Gamers hate DRM. They like playing games, DRM makes it hard. Restrictions > on steam aren't so much considered good as less bad. You can play it on as > many computers as you want (just need your account), it has an offline mode > (though people hate that you have to sign in online then go offline). > > Comparison: > Some DRM requires a constant internet connection for single player games. > If you have dial up (only thing available in some areas), they constantly > loose the connection and crash. > Some games install root kits for DRM. > Some games install software that has in the license agreement that they > can pull whatever they want from the computer and send it off to the > publisher. > > Obviously steam is less bad than some other DRM. > > > On 11 November 2012 02:15, Michael Mehrazar <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 11/10/2012 09:54 AM, Alexey Eromenko wrote: >> > Actually Google Chrome has an offspring, a Free Software version called >> > Chromium browser. >> > >> > It has few differences vs >> > Chrome : no flash, no built in PDF reader, and no auto-updates, but it >> > works great on my Debian machines. >> > Chromium is great, and I can recommend it. >> > >> > -Technologov >> > >> >> I'm well aware of Chromium. In fact, you got it mixed up, Google Chrome >> is based off of the free software project Chromium. (Both are developed >> by Google however) >> >> However my point is not that Firefox is the only acceptable free >> software browser to use, obviously there are many such acceptable >> browsers. My point is that it's very important that free software >> remains easy to use, otherwise, non-technical users will not be able to >> use free software. And Chromium, unlike Firefox or Google Chrome, is >> fairly difficult to download and update, unless it's part of your >> distributions package manager. (Which is not the case for Windows or Mac >> OS, which is where the majority of our target audience still lies) >> >> >
