Make Shogun Open Source

[Marcus Caelius]

I don't see that the sales would be a big problem. Just because it's open source doesn't mean that people wouldn't buy it. Look at its price now anyway. It's under ten bucks.

Linux is opensource, but people still buy it. They could sell the CD with the source code included, and just about everybody here, modders and modder wannabes like me, would rush to buy it. Well, maybe that wouldn't happen, but anyway. Certainly there are whole generations of people who came to the TW series long after STW and have no reason to buy STW unless it gives them something extra, as this idea would.

Anyway, it's not without precedent, is it? I believe Half Life sold the source code openly, at no noticeable loss to themselves. In fact, it reinforces the links between the product creator and the user community, with one assumes, improved sales of new products in the future.

I think that CA would stand to gain a great deal if the AI, diplomacy, unit sizes, number of units and armies on the battlefield etc. were opened up to tinkering, and they'd be able to pinch the good ideas and develop them for future products just as much as anyone else can. Let's not forget, their group will always remain far at the top of the tree and will continue to create the benchmark new products, but this way they can keep a closer eye on how their beast evolves in the hands of the long-term users, and what features could be incorporated in future.

The MTW issue mentioned above shouldn't make much difference, but they could make that open source too later. The RTW engine claims to be a total reworking, so it doesn't make any difference if the public who are still buying MTW (which was bundled free with M2TW recently) do know some of the inner secrets. They are not likely to decide to go back to the STW engine ever again. If they decide the RTW engine has reached it's limits, they are more likely to go for a completely new 3G engine.

So in short, I think it makes good sense for them to do that. Given that the biggest complaint by long-termers against CA is the diminishing returns on the creative vision, what CA, or Sega, would be doing, is essentially cost-free outsourcing of a part of their creativity research onto the TW community. Which leads to future profits.

[naut]

Omanes, I'm not sure if that would be the main reason not too, I think mightilyoats hit the nail on the head with the "intellectual property" issues. As making STW open-source would give rivals insight into the algorithms required to make a game such as Total War.

[drone]

It would be nice, if a couple years down the line they put the source to STW/MTW in the public domain. A port to linux would be nice, the base code could be updated for newer MS OSs and driver problems, and the potential for modding would be excellent. And since there is all this upside, it's not going to happen.

Who actually owns the rights to the source? Is it solely CA/Sega, or do EA and Activision have their hands in it as well?

[sapi]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was between CA and EA (as iirc they were the publishers at that time)

Realistically, it's never going to happen.

@Marcus - you're confusing modding with open source code in your example of hl - that was a completely different circumstance