FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

For the longest time, I thought Minetest was the greatest game of all time. That changed when I started playing Garry's Mod. What make's Garry's Mod better than all the rest is also what makes Minetest (and Minecraft) great. It isn't the game itself that is fun, it is the vastness of the Mods that pretty much allow you to do anything in the game. The thing is that Garry's Mod has many more mods, and the quality of these Mods far surpass what is in Minetest. There is a simple reason why this is true. Steam workshop. Steam makes it easy for millions of people to see your game. Steam workshop makes it easy for millions of people to contribute and use mods for your game. If Minetest were on steam, it would have a huge leg up on Minecraft. Millions of people would download it and start contributing Mods and ideas on a scale that Minetest will never see if it doesn't go on steam. I argue that Minetest would grow to something far greater than Minecraft *if* it goes to steam. There aren't a ton of free games on steam, but those that are on there are extremely popular. It cost's $100 to get on steam greenlight (although I heard that is going away). I'd contribute $30 of that to see Minetest on Steam.

If Minetest were on steam, it would have a huge leg up on Minecraft. Millions of people would download it and start contributing Mods and ideas on a scale that Minetest will never see if it doesn't go on steam.

You're too optimistic. In the real world, very few if any projects attract "millions" of contributors, and Steam isn't responsible for it if and when it does happen. Even hundreds or thousands of new contributors suddenly showing up because of putting Minetest on Steam is overly optimistic.

This level of optimism is like saying that someone should obviously buy a lottery ticket because someone won 10 million dollars in the last drawing. It completely ignores the incredibly unfavorable odds.

onpon4 wrote:You're too optimistic. In the real world, very few if any projects attract "millions" of contributors, and Steam isn't responsible for it if and when it does happen. Even hundreds or thousands of new contributors suddenly showing up because of putting Minetest on Steam is overly optimistic.

This level of optimism is like saying that someone should obviously buy a lottery ticket because someone won 10 million dollars in the last drawing. It completely ignores the incredibly unfavorable odds.

You're right in that getting on Steam Workshop would not attract millions of modders to Minetest. But suppose it only gave us as many modders as there are for Garry's Mod. That would take Minetest to incredible new possibilities. The chances of that are not lottery ticket chances, the chances of Steam Workshop taking Minetest to the next level are guaranteed, even if it doesn't achieve Garry's Mod numbers of modders.

@neuromancer Why do you never reply to my messages on Steam? Am I THAT annoying?

Ok, I do understand the community hostility towards steam as a platform. But do understand that steam has been digging into open source lately (even though its business practice is of a restrictive nature) with their SteamOS.

TBH, I did my homework on getting Minetest greenlighted too. When I saw the $100 tag, I wasn't taken back. I am ready to contribute some amount of money towards greenlighting too, and I know that the community will contribute some money too. However, the kink I see is not that, but with the Steam API. Do we have enough development resources to integrate a proper working Steam API inside our source code?

onpon4, neuro is not wrong when he states that development on the modding side will increase with steam integration. When games that seem like they can't get mods, like CS:GO, has an active modding community, and all they do is MAKE GUN SKINS, what feedback can you get from them with a game where everything is open?

Lastly, Most f2p games on steam are shitty MMOs. With Minetest in the mix, steamers will RUSH to play a free to play game that isn't total shit =P

EDIT: Found this GPLv3 game trying to get greenlighted onto Steam

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =158648177

hoodedice wrote:@neuromancer Why do you never reply to my messages on Steam? Am I THAT annoying?

Ok, I do understand the community hostility towards steam as a platform. But do understand that steam has been digging into open source lately (even though its business practice is of a restrictive nature) with their SteamOS.

TBH, I did my homework on getting Minetest greenlighted too. When I saw the $100 tag, I wasn't taken back. I am ready to contribute some amount of money towards greenlighting too, and I know that the community will contribute some money too. However, the kink I see is not that, but with the Steam API. Do we have enough development resources to integrate a proper working Steam API inside our source code?

onpon4, neuro is not wrong when he states that development on the modding side will increase with steam integration. When games that seem like they can't get mods, like CS:GO, has an active modding community, and all they do is MAKE GUN SKINS, what feedback can you get from them with a game where everything is open?

Lastly, Most f2p games on steam are shitty MMOs. With Minetest in the mix, steamers will RUSH to play a free to play game that isn't total shit =P

I would like to inform you I can easily produce the money right up front. I generate money for doing nothing.

hoodedice wrote:@neuromancer Why do you never reply to my messages on Steam? Am I THAT annoying?

Sorry about that. I find myself never responding to chat requests with anyone. Mostly I think I feel guilty for not spending enough time with my kids, and while I can sneak a few minutes for forum posts, chatting would chew up a lot of time for me if I started doing that.

hoodedice wrote:However, the kink I see is not that, but with the Steam API. Do we have enough development resources to integrate a proper working Steam API inside our source code?

I agree completely. Although Steam API integration is supposed to be a piece of cake compared to other development tasks. They claim you can leave this to the last minute as it shouldn't affect your architecture.

hoodedice wrote:Lastly, Most f2p games on steam are shitty MMOs. With Minetest in the mix, steamers will RUSH to play a free to play game that isn't total shit =P

I have the same feeling. I think we will be pleasantly surprised. Sure it won't be all roses, and every game has haters, but I'm optimistic because Minetest really is a wonderful game.

You're right in that getting on Steam Workshop would not attract millions of modders to Minetest. But suppose it only gave us as many modders as there are for Garry's Mod.

Why should we suppose that?

"You're right that buying a lottery ticket will not get you 1 billion dollars. But suppose it only gave you as much money as the last lottery winner."

hoodedice wrote:onpon4, neuro is not wrong when he states that development on the modding side will increase with steam integration. When games that seem like they can't get mods, like CS:GO, has an active modding community, and all they do is MAKE GUN SKINS, what feedback can you get from them with a game where everything is open?

Lastly, Most f2p games on steam are shitty MMOs. With Minetest in the mix, steamers will RUSH to play a free to play game that isn't total shit =P

Ahem...

You know, Naev is on Steam Greenlight. It has not had a bunch of new contributors rushing in. Now, I think Naev is less popular than Minetest, but if Steam is such a great place to get new contributors, it should work just as well for a lesser-known project, no?

And for the record, Naev is a wonderful game. I think it is, anyway.

onpon4 wrote:You know, Naev is on Steam Greenlight. It has not had a bunch of new contributors rushing in. Now, I think Naev is less popular than Minetest, but if Steam is such a great place to get new contributors, it should work just as well for a lesser-known project, no?
And for the record, Naev is a wonderful game. I think it is, anyway.

From my understanding the core developers have mostly abandoned new development on Naev. That is not the case for Minetest. Also what is the state of the Naev modding community?

Neuromancer wrote:From my understanding the core developers have mostly abandoned new development on Naev. That is not the case for Minetest. Also what is the state of the Naev modding community?

It's a wrong understanding, but how can this matter? It doesn't follow that an existing modding community would cause a completely unrelated, theoretical new modding community to grow more.

Naev isn't typically modded, but a contribution is a contribution. I can't think of any reason for there to be less of an influx of people writing missions for Naev than people writing mods for Minetest.

Valve doesn't deserve these $ 100.

How about looking at Warsow's epic fail? It's greenlighted since 2013, but the player base is of the same size now (just as small).

Fun fact: one of the splashes in Minecraft says “Not on steam!” (sic).

Is there anything legally preventing a developer or a group of developers from implementing the Steam API on their own and getting Minetest greenlit without the support of the core developers?

Calinou wrote:Valve doesn't deserve these $ 100.

How about looking at Warsow's epic fail? It's greenlighted since 2013, but the player base is of the same size now (just as small).

Fun fact: one of the splashes in Minecraft says “Not on steam!” (sic).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/219820/
All proceeds from this fee (minus taxes) will be donated directly to Child’s Play, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of children in over 70 hospitals worldwide.

I don’t get it.
Garry’s Mod does not prove anything.

I actually don’t get it why so many people are so crazy about Steam either. I remember Steam as the application you were forced to have installed in order to play Valve’s games (Half Life etc.)—unless you have a “no steam” crack. So I hated Steam from the beginning. And personally, I haven’t seen any real benefit of the program Steam. For me, Steam just got in the way. I understand it is mainly intended to manage games and stuff. But I was smart enough to know how to install and update my software myself! So back then, Steam was pretty needless to me. Some users actively sought ways to get rid of Steam, there are even some tutorials about that, lol.

Since I am on a GNU/Linux machine today, Steam has become completely superflous to me. I don’t need Steam because my system has a real software package manager. :P

And yeah, Steam is also non-free software. Trying to get “greenlit” has moral implications which I don’t like.

All proceeds from this fee (minus taxes) will be donated directly to Child’s Play

Not an argument for Steam. One might as well donate directly to this organization.

I won't reply to anything on this thread for now, but I went ahead and researched a bit more. Also discussed this with a good friend of mine and I have learnt the following:

1. Steam is indeed a bad place to put up minetest, for reasons more than 1. Firstly, the $100 fee is not the first thing you pay for. Highly needed features like the steam Workshop and things like auto-server login require fees to be paid for their use. In the end, Steam is pretty hostile for free games that want deep integration.

2. After scouting steam discussions for hosting free games, I came across this post that mentioned desura. Desura is a more open game distribution platform than Steam. Heck, it even has a GPLv3 compliant client. ( https://github.com/desura/Desurium )

3. Desura is owned by Linden Labs, the company behind Mod DB and Second Life. Both of these projects, as well as Desura have an active modding community.

4. Desura manages a lot of multi-platform games and a lot of open sourced games too ( http://www.desura.com/games/openttd )


In the light of all of the above, I think that desura is a better platform for Minetest. I will continue researching on the kinks required to put Minetest on it and tell you if something makes it wrong to host MT on that

@hoodedice: Thanks for investigating this. That stinks that Steam is not friendly to free games. But Desura does seem hopeful. It looks like it is free to submit a game to Desura, and there are quite a few decent free and open source games on there already. They do have a section for Mods, but it looks like the Modders would have to submit their mods themselves to Desura. That wouldn't be optimal, but at least it's an option.

Can you not delete this post? It is relevant to this thread and not talking about tutorials at all. Thanks.

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I think that Minetest needs more optimising before it is ready to go on steam. More polish. Once this happens, it will be ready, in my eyes.

But is the success of Gary's mod down to the modability, or is it actually just because it is a physics sand box based off a popular engine?

Polish is:
Game play balance
Crashes are rare, and glitches are small.
Immersion (ambient sounds, game play, low lag, little bugs).
See celeron55's comment on game play - every thing should make sense with everything else, indirectly

Neuromancer wrote:Is there anything legally preventing a developer or a group of developers from implementing the Steam API on their own and getting Minetest greenlit without the support of the core developers?

No. But they would have to use a different name unless this community approves it. Minetest is for all intents and purposes an unregistered trademark of me and this community.

hoodedice wrote:In the light of all of the above, I think that desura is a better platform for Minetest. I will continue researching on the kinks required to put Minetest on it and tell you if something makes it wrong to host MT on that

I've been mulling this over. I have a bunch of games on Steam and Desura. I never play any of my games on Desura, but spend all of my time on Steam. When you go to steam you see around 4million users currently playing. When you go on to Desura you see 4000 concurrent users. Also I don't think that Desura's mod area would work for Minetest mods the way Steam workshop would. I think it makes more sense to investigate exactly how much Steam charges for Steam Workshop. I'm not sure we would need anything more than that. Deep integration with steam would be a nice to have. Steam Workshop is a must have. That being said, why not charge 25 cents or 99 cents, whatever for Minetest on Steam to break even but pay for the cost of steam workshop. I often pay more for games just to get them on Steam because it is so convenient to not have to mess around with moving the games around to different machines and backing them up. Plus subscribing to mods and getting updates is so much easier. The downloads can be paused and resumed and Steams download engine is the best I have ever seen. Give people the choice, they can get the free version and do the work, or get the Steam Version and have easy managability. Time is money, and most folks would sooner spend 25 cents than spend their time unzipping and copying files around.

rubenwardy wrote:I think that Minetest needs more optimising before it is ready to go on steam. More polish. Once this happens, it will be ready, in my eyes.

It could use a little more polish. I'd say mobs and survival mode needs to be more challenging and less laggy. But too be honest I have a ton of games on steam but I spend most of my time playing Minetest because it is fun. At the end of the day that is all that matters, and by that standard Minetest was better than most of the stuff on Steam a long time ago.

rubenwardy wrote:But is the success of Gary's mod down to the modability, or is it actually just because it is a physics sand box based off a popular engine?

How can you say that? Sure as a physics sandbox GMod is nice. But I was bored after a half an hour. It wasn't until I started loading all the Mods that I really started loving GMod. There are infinite combinations and possibilities with the Mods and the community built content. The same thing with Minetest. Without any Mods Minetest would be boring after the first half hour. With them it is one of the best games ever.

rubenwardy wrote:Polish is:
Game play balance
Crashes are rare, and glitches are small.
Immersion (ambient sounds, game play, low lag, little bugs).
See celeron55's comment on game play - every thing should make sense with everything else, indirectly

I agree, Minetest could use all of these things. But it is still already better than most of what is on Steam. It's like we as a community have some inferiority complex or perfectionism when it comes to Minetest. It is ready to be on Steam. It has been for a long while.

hoodedice wrote:1. Steam is indeed a bad place to put up minetest, for reasons more than 1. Firstly, the $100 fee is not the first thing you pay for. Highly needed features like the steam Workshop and things like auto-server login require fees to be paid for their use. In the end, Steam is pretty hostile for free games that want deep integration.

Steam Workshop is part of Steamworks. Steam says steamworks is free:
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/
Can you point me to links that mention fees for these things?