
Dear Microsoft, let's open source Age of Empires II - arcticfox
https://medium.com/p/dear-microsoft-lets-open-source-age-of-empires-ii-e660c741ec11
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vortico
I'm actually not sure why the source code of 15+ year old games aren't
released every day. When the CD manufacturing stops and the company shuts
down, etc, no one brings up the possibility of releasing the source to the
community. It's possibly the only way to preserve the art history of video
games besides making comparability platforms and sharing modified binaries in
a legal gray area.

~~~
facorreia
There are often licensing issues (e.g. with third-party libraries) that make
it more trouble than it's worth for those companies.

Not to mention proprietary tools required for building, pipeline, etc. -- that
is, IF they still can locate the source and IF it's even possible to build it
other than in the special "build machine" they used to use.

~~~
Iv
They could at least issue a statement saying reverse engineering is ok from
their point of view.

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jonbaer
I would actually like to see more people embrace 0ad ...
[https://play0ad.com](https://play0ad.com) ... especially the AI portion of it
...

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oliwarner
They could, but why? There's no money it in.

Open sourcing .NET means they get contributions and users who would never
touch a closed source core. They also make money from things around .NET and
from cross-selling products that tightly integrate with .NET.

They don't currently make any money from AoE2. Being as old as it is, it's not
for sale new so when it does change hands, it's used or illegitimate. Open
sourcing the engine helps the people who already handed over money but it's
not going to draw in any more legitimate sales for the assets (which are
usually non-free in something like this).

And there are licensing issues. If they licensed used some audio middleware or
video playback stuff ( _very_ common in games) they almost certainly don't
have a license to redistribute that in source form. That means either paying
more or changing it out. Either way that's money they have to spend on this
thing that isn't making them any money.

Not to mention there are already things like openage and 0ad which replicate
or replace the engine with a ground-up free implementation.

Rather than do any of that that, Microsoft commissioned a new engine (and
assets) to release AoE2HD. They're getting a £15 for everybody who wants to
play their old game on new operating systems. That's just the way you make
money from old games these days.

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jalami
I'd be happy if they just released it DRMfree on GOG or something. It existed
long before tying your game to Steam's API was ever a thing. I'd buy it again,
especially if it was the original version (before they killed LAN
multiplayer).

I mean, have we really learned nothing from tying our multiplayer to GameSpy?

Open source would be best, but I'm sure they want to re-release it on every
DRM cloud platform to pop up for the next 20 years. Also, legal, etc.

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Zekio
Open Sourcing old games, sounds like a great way for people to learn and see
how games were done when there was less hardware resources available :)

~~~
arcticfox
Absolutely! All of the devs from that era had their own bag of tricks, and the
Age of Empires team had some cool ones.

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addicted
MS's biggest risk with open sourcing AoE is that it will open them up to a
bunch of lawsuits. They will almost certainly be hit by Patent Vultures trying
to siphon off some of the large amounts of money MS has earned.

Which is why I think this is almost certainly not gonna happen.

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ManlyBread
Not gonna happen, at best you'll get an another "remake" that addresses none
of the old problems and introduces new ones, similarly to how Heroes of Might
and Magic III HD was released.

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Joof
They still sell it, so its unlikely, but it would be nice.

~~~
foldr
They could open source the code without open sourcing the assets. Really, it's
so easy to pirate old PC Games that anyone who's paying is already doing so
largely for ethical reasons.

~~~
arcticfox
Yep, exactly!

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joeld42
You're entirely right, but it's not gonna happen.

