Has there been any completed for profit glest projects?

[Ishmaru]

If you browse older posts, you see that there has been quite a few  glest based games with the plan to sell them, does anyone know if any for profit glest projects were completed? I'm just curious to see what has been done.

[Omega]

If you browse older posts, you see that there has been quite a few  glest based games with the plan to sell them, does anyone know if any for profit glest projects were completed? I'm just curious to see what has been done.

As far as I know, nobody has ever had any success with that business model. It's very difficult to sell a product when a completely free alternative of comparable (or better) quality is available. Glest wasn't big enough when you could get so much more if you wanted to pay.

[MoLAoS]

I recall that a lot of people who wanted to do for profit Glest projects were modders rather than programmers, so they were simply incapable of realizing their ideas due to engine limitations. Also the art quality of Glest is simply not comparable to a commercial game.

RTS games are considered one of the most difficult kinds to create as an indie by game developers even if you already have a working engine.

Glest derivatives also lack any sort of quality tool. No unit creator, the map creator is not at all comparable to most commercial map creators, the graphics pipeline is not the greatest and so forth.

Steam doesn't even allow games written with anything open source on their platform, and no publisher means no access to brick and mortar stores. There is pretty much no market for a Glest based game.

Spring and Wesnoth are similarly not profitable either for themselves or for people building projects off them. Hell 0AD couldn't even break 50k on their crowdfunding campaign. Of course they ran it on IndieGoGo which was dumb.

[Ishmaru]

Well that's a shame,
I think people would buy a great quality Glest based game, if priced right.

[MoLAoS]

Well that's a shame,
I think people would buy a great quality Glest based game, if priced right.

Well, its technically possible to sell a game using an open source engine by using commercially licensed art. But I'm still pretty sure you can't sell it on most distribution channels and you have to send out the source or make it easily available to anyone who buys your game. Mainly the fact that you can't use Steam or Impulse will cripple sales.

I think maybe Desura can sell open source based products?

[Ishmaru]

Well, its technically possible to sell a game using an open source engine by using commercially licensed art. But I'm still pretty sure you can't sell it on most distribution channels and you have to send out the source or make it easily available to anyone who buys your game. Mainly the fact that you can't use Steam or Impulse will cripple sales.

I think maybe Desura can sell open source based products?

Yea Desura is open source friendly. It will pretty much be the best way for distributing a for profit Glest game, other than selling physical copies.

Thinking of porting next version of Annex on Desura as well, and hopefully MG will also have its own Desura release too.

[wyvern]

Steam might also be willing to greenlight a game like Glest/glest mod. But i think that as mentioned, the biggest issue is the extremely restrictive game engine and the fact that the up to date upgrades, GAE and MG use a different copyright from the old glest(iirc)

[MoLAoS]

Pretty sure all Glest derivatives are licensed under the GPL.

[softcoder]

Megaglest is GPL3 and all data content is CC by SA, all very liberal.

[Ishmaru]

The problem is not that steam allows or doesn't allow open source games, it's that their DRM (which is required to work with steam) is not open source and thus incompatible with gpl code.

[Omega]

The problem is not that steam allows or doesn't allow open source games, it's that their DRM (which is required to work with steam) is not open source and thus incompatible with gpl code.

Not true. The Steamworks DRM is not Steam! The DRM is optional. Steam is the distribution network. For example, Gish is GPL licensed and available on Steam. Steam is hardly anti-open source. The upcoming Steam OS, for example, is open source, Linux based OS.

However, Steam Greenlight costs money. A one time $100 cost, to be exact. The submission fee is supposed to keep non-serious entries out. Once in Greenlight, gamers essentially vote whether or not the game belongs in Steam. If approved, the game is moved into the standard Steam library.

Presence in Steam does not stop the game from being distributed elsewhere. Nor does it change the license requirements. Steam can simply provide an alternative method of distribution, including easy setup. The downside is extra work in distribution (for new releases, anyway) and the $100 submission fee.

It is also unclear how pricing would work. While free products exist on Steam, Valve only says:

3. Who sets the price for my game on Steam?
Pricing is very title specific, and we've got a lot of data and experience to help you decide on what the best price is for your title. We'll work with you to figure out pricing.

It is unclear if it is possible to explicitly choose making the game free. Not that the game has to be free, given that there's a submission fee for Greenlight. A fee would help recuperate costs, and could even be used towards MG development. Since submission to steam does not require a change in licensing, the game remains GPL. It can and should be distributed freely from other sites. A separate Steam version would make the game visible to a very large audience of gamers (Steam has more than half of the digital gaming market). It's also an easy way to donate to MG, since it allows players to pay with their Steam wallet and any payment method that Steam accepts.

So the only real downside in my opinion is that submission fee. And that's actually kind of a big one. $100 is a lot for a small, free game. It's up to debate if Steam would even have a noticeable impact on MG.