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Are there any examples of an "abandoned" game's fans successfully getting the game to be open-sourced? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by turtle@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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And if so, what tactics did they use? Pester the devs? Crowdfunding to buy the rights to the game from the devs? Something else?

Edit: I'm more looking for instances of the actual original game being open-sourced through fan efforts or outright purchase, like how Blender was originally open-sourced as a result of a crowdfunding campaign. The open-source rewrites of games are awesome, but I don't have the skills to build a relatively elaborate game on my own. It's also not a popular game, more niche, really, so I'm just wondering what are the possibilities.

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[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not quite the same, but Total Annihilation and Beyond All Reason. It wasn't abandonware, but more like after Total Annihilation hit success, rights were sold and resold and Atari as the final owner squandered every opportunity to do more with the engine and the franchise.

The tactics were essentially receating a better engine with Spring, as the sort of newly open source upgraded version of the engine the same people built 10 years earlier. Taylor Swift did the same thing.

[–] turtle@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thanks! That sounds more like a rewriting of the engine though?

[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It is, but that's the workaround they went for, and it worked just fine in a legal sense. It was probably faster and less expensive than trying to engage in anything thats going to even risk involving a copyright attorney.

[–] turtle@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago

Makes sense, thanks.