Should Cyberpunk 2077 go open source?

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Hey all,

I wanted to make a new suggestion thread though I wasn't allowed to, so figured I'd post here.

I just heard the news about the hack, and it believe it might be a blessing in disguise.

Cyberpunk definitely needs a lot more work put into it to create the game everyone hoped it to be.

What I'd really like to see is for CD Project Red to make the game open source. In the past they've already embraced modding for example in the Witcher.

I believe making the game open source would definitely lead to lots of fans jumping in and helping to improve the game by submitting pull requests.

This isn't something completely new to the industry either, for example game developer Frictional Games has released their source code for SOMA.

Now this does not make the game free to play of course, as all the assets, textures, sounds etc. still fall under copyright and are required to play the game.

I hope CD Project Red developers find this idea as interesting as I do. I'd love to see you guys on Github

Greets from the Netherlands,
Wyn
 
The value of the data is in it's derivative. A competitor or someone seeking to build a REDEngine competitor now presumably has full access to the code and working notes. A clone would be difficult to patent, but if CDPR solved a problem that the buyer had been struggling with, well, now they know how, and that might even lead them to incrementally improve or transform that solution.

There are many ways to monetize on that. I'll stop here as we're now well in Verboten land.
 
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Also, @GVArcian 's post above is exactly correct. Making a game "open source" is a perfectly safe thing for a creator to do, legally. It will often come along with terms that other studios or developers need to adhere to if they're intending to make a product for sale with an open-source engine (normally in the form of purchasing a certain license and/or paying royalties to the original creator if they want to utilize the engine in a for-profit way.)

Is it "dangerous" to make an engine open-source? Not really. It depends mostly on the plans a studio has for their engine in the future. I'd say the greatest "risk" of making something open source is having another developer come up with a more successful game! On the whole, though, open-sourcing and engine will normally result in a lot of additional work being done to improve and expand upon it. Things like the Unreal and Unity engines are great examples.
 
What does open source exactly mean? We're talking about the engine being open source, not the entire game, right?
 
What does open source exactly mean? We're talking about the engine being open source, not the entire game, right?
A game that is open source has its entire code made public for use by anyone, who can then use, modify and redistribute that code as they please without having to worry about copyright infringement.
 
A game that is open source has its entire code made public for use by anyone, who can then use, modify and redistribute that code as they please without having to worry about copyright infringement.
ok thanks. If that's the definition, as a musician I would definitely not be willing to work on music for a game developer that doesn't care about copyright's, so I assume that there's zero chance that CP2077 is going to be open source.
Edit: As long as "code" includes sound and music files".
 
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Two months after release CP2077 stands at 7.1/10 PC rating on metacritic, a rating for a best in genre for years to come, a rating CDPR is very proud of. If patch 1.2 is on par with the others, open source is one of few options left to get CP2077 to 9/10 or better. Most likely won't happen because of consoles and greed.
 
ok thanks. If that's the definition, as a musician I would definitely not be willing to work on music for a game developer that doesn't care about copyright's, so I assume that there's zero chance that CP2077 is going to be open source.
Edit: As long as "code" includes sound and music files".
The best faithful example I can think off where a studio went open source with a game was Eidos Studios with the Warzone 2100 game.
The game went open source so a community development team was able to revive the game after Eidos pulled all plugs and completely abandonned it via support (maybe the responsible party even seized to exist) it expanded the longevity of that game after being dead (to most audience) from what I know. Btw. Mind you, I'm talking a game 35 years old.
Cyperpunk 2077 and CDPR are not even close to any such need to go open source.
 
Not at this time since it would cause too much fragmentation. I would have CDPR Patch & expand the game for the next couple of years and then, maybe a year or two after the last DLC/Expansion from CDPR open source it like Microsoft did with MC2.
 
Sorry if im going to sound harsh, but this one of the most absurd ideas i have read about CP2077.
You have a studio, that started planning this game 8 years ago right? They come with the most extraordinary thing ever seen in the genre and now they going to drop their intellectual property, time, money for everyone to do whatever they want, at their own pace, with absolutely no guarantees anything will ever come remotely close to what CDPR done so far.
 
Not really because if they release a multiplayer the hackers will have infinite knowledge
From what we hear, the hackers already have infinite knowledge. :(
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The value of the data is in it's derivative. A competitor or someone seeking to build a REDEngine competitor now presumably has full access to the code and working notes. A clone would be difficult to patent, but if CDPR solved a problem that the buyer had been struggling with, well, now they know how, and that might even lead them to incrementally improve or transform that solution.

There are many ways to monetize on that. I'll stop here as we're now well in Verboten land.
REDEngine (as a whole) is not patented; very little software is. It is protected by copyright, but that's a separate issue
 
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