Can Open Source Games Compete?: Evaluation of FOSS Video Games in Comparison to their Commercial Counterparts

The topic of copyrights is a crucial component in understanding today's media landscape. The purpose of having a copyright system as outlined in the U.S. Constitution is to provide content creators with incentives to create. Copyrights allows revenue to be generated through sales of copies of works; allowing works to be created which otherwise would not be created. Yet it is possible that not all creative projects require the same legal framework. The so called ¿copyleft¿ movement offers an alternative to the industrial mode of cultural production. ¿Copylefted¿ works can be divided into two broad categories: artistic/creative works(which are often protected by ¿Creative Commons¿ licenses), and Free/Open Source Software. This thesis evaluates how open source video games compare to their commercial counterparts and discusses the reasons for any difference in overall quality. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine whether high quality video games can be created without strong copyright protection. In term of technical merit, FOSS games vary widely. The most sophisticated of these games seem to be only a few years behind their commercial counterparts.

Jesse Clark earned both his BA and MA in Media Studies at Penn State. He is currently beginning work on his PhD in Mass Communications. His research interests include intellectual property, open source software, and telecommunications law and policy.