What do you guys think about giving code away? I've been asked for code of mine and have so far not given much out (just given a few snippets as examples). To me it seems a large draw of this community is that people are willing to share ideas and even some code to help people out. Thus all the libraries, demos, tutorials, ect. that people donate.
The main restraint I have about giving away code for entire games that I've made is that I don't want what happened to some of the DBZ games to happen to me. Meaning, someone slightly modifies it then puts out there own virtually identical game and you end up with 100 games on the hub that are rips of your game. I'm not saying my games would be that popular but still it's a scary thought.
Do you guys think we should give out code like that? Am I being too stingy with my code?
ID:179334
 Jan 19 2002, 9:39 am
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Ok, thanks for the input. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being...well...an ass by not giving other people my entire game code.
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Of course you don't have to give away your entire game code. If your game code is small enough to be easily given away, it's probably not worth it for you or them.
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Lord of Water wrote:
Of course you don't have to give away your entire game code. If your game code is small enough to be easily given away, it's probably not worth it for you or them. Any game code is easily given away. | |
When done properly it makes you a saint, when done carelessly it helps drive a stake into the heart of BYOND...
I think your instincts are basically right. Unless you wrote a game to be a comprehensive example (like the Checkers game I nibble at once in a while), giving away the entire code is probably just going to encourage a zillion copies by people who don't bother to learn for themselves.
Giving away demo code, snippets, libraries...things that help people make their game but don't substitute for them having a brain, those are all great.