Creative Assembly....missing a trick?

[Skullheadhq]

I don't think that CA or Sega will release the source code anytime soon, here's why:

Reason 1: It will cost them money (time is money) and will give them no direct profits

Reason 2: Cracks, keygens etc will be much easier to make, and especially SEGA will not be pleased by this.

Reason 3: It will give valuable information to the rivals, and could possibly spark a series of commercially developed clones which will be sold based on the information they 'stole' from CA's engine and coding style.

Reason 4: There is no broad demand from their mainstream customers, except for some 'geeks' and 'nerds' there is no need for it, the mainstream just enjoyed it for a couple of days, liked the Roman ninjas and bought a new game which then pleased them for a few days before moving on to the next

Reason 5: The developers don't want people to play and buy R:TW (since they don't really make a profit with the €5 it costs nowadays) and want people to move on to newer games, like Empire: Total War, I believe someone from Activision said something comparable recently, I know Activision is not Sega, but it shows us what these companies think of their consumers.

Reason 6: Downloadable content where you have to pay for is the new trend in the gaming industry, releasing the source code and let people make what they want could potentially show their customers that downloadable content is absolutely rubbish since you can make it yourself, or even better, download a mod which has way more content than your downloadable content, and is absolutely free! This is something the devs don't want either.

I know a few examples of developers who released their source code, like id Software did with Doom, but unlike id, CA and SEGA don't really have the reputation about actually caring about the wishes of their customers, the best example I know is what they did to the EB teams requests for barbarian factions before R:TW was released. So, even if they'll release it (which I don't expect will ever happen) it will not be this year, or the next, but when it is outdated for years and years.