selling the source code for Old football Managers

selling the source code for Old football Managers,

Could this be possible ??

or even the current version

and have Content downloads approved by SI,

could even have that if the Content is worth it, have system like Apple do where You charge for the download, and SI take a cut,

I imagine it would be possible and I like to think that SI would give it away for free but I dont think it will ever happen because there isnt much else you can do which you cant already do you can customise the look of the game and the database apart from the match engine what else is there? Apart if your supposing to make entirely new and different games?

Never in a million years do I see SI releasing source code for any FM. That would make no business sense at all to give away, or even sell, your "secret recipe".

Never in a million years do I see SI releasing source code for any FM. That would make no business sense at all to give away, or even sell, your "secret recipe".

True - I imagine all the SI brainstrust who know the 'secret recipe' must never fly on the same jet, like the KFC people.

Never in a million years do I see SI releasing source code for any FM. That would make no business sense at all to give away, or even sell, your "secret recipe".

You'd be surprised! If a legacy version of Football Manager didn't sell many copies any more, SI could release the source code under an open source license the encourage the modification of the game. Modification of the game may encourage people to create signification mods for the games giving SI further ideas on how to expand the game and its coding feasibility. Modification of the game could spread the word about Football Manager leading to Football Manager being more popular and hence having an indirect benefit on sales. SI may even find budding programmers who modify the game to the extent they are employable - like how one of Counter-Strike's main developers was hired by Valve themselves to sell Counter-Strike commercially.

The only real disadvantage is an unwillingness to reveal trade secrets in the open - something competitors would dearly love to look at I'd imagine, like Football Manager's match engine. On the other hand, if it's legacy enough it should not really matter. Alternatively, SI could choose not to release that part of the code, but leaving a "stubbed" or bare-bones class in place of the match engine, which is extremely basic but serves as a pure basis for developers to work on.

How could you modify the game? Off the top of my head I can think of loads of ways. Football Chairman games for example, often-requested. Modders could create even better AI. Someone could mod the game to bring arrows back. Someone could optimise the game for devices. Someone could mod the game so you can manage the game but also play it like PES or FIFA. Someone could give the entire thing an overhaul (new attributes, for example) while retaining a similar interface. Someone could mod the game to include a lot of Football Manager 2011's features in, so you get dynamic league reputations with an older game.

So no, it doesn't always make business sense but if the code is truly legacy code then it could be in your own interest to release it. There will always be a modding community willing to play around with a game like Football Manager, and SI may indirectly benefit from it. Never say never.

Quick example: The best one I can think of is when Activision released the source code for Civilization: Call to Power II (the released source code dropped the "Civilization" part in its name though as it was trademarked). Activision released the source code under a license preventing any commercial usage of derivations of the software meaning nobody could profit from it. In doing so, Activision spread its brand for free. If they had the license for the rest of the games (and not settled out-of-court with MicroProse), they could have driven people to buy future Civilization games as Civilization games are very mod-friendly.

Another example is Quake III Arena - the developers released the source code for the Quake engine (but not things like textures - meaning you still needed to buy a copy of the game to mod over), allowing people to mod and tinker with the game. They were disadvantaged by releasing trade secrets, but gained a huge mod following and continued to sell the game. And Quake III Arena was not legacy code at all - nowhere near legacy code!

You'd be surprised! If a legacy version of Football Manager didn't sell many copies any more, SI could release the source code under an open source license the encourage the modification of the game. Modification of the game may encourage people to create signification mods for the games giving SI further ideas on how to expand the game and its coding feasibility. Modification of the game could spread the word about Football Manager leading to Football Manager being more popular and hence having an indirect benefit on sales. SI may even find budding programmers who modify the game to the extent they are employable - like how one of Counter-Strike's main developers was hired by Valve themselves to sell Counter-Strike commercially.

The only real disadvantage is an unwillingness to reveal trade secrets in the open - something competitors would dearly love to look at I'd imagine, like Football Manager's match engine. On the other hand, if it's legacy enough it should not really matter. Alternatively, SI could choose not to release that part of the code, but leaving a "stubbed" or bare-bones class in place of the match engine, which is extremely basic but serves as a pure basis for developers to work on.

What you're saying is certainly very true. But on the other hand, what if that employable programmer decides he's better than SI (fat chance that he's right, but still...), and would rather employ himself? Now SI has basically donated their code, ideas, and methodology to a budding competitor. And worse yet, he chooses to keep his new game an open source project, open to thousands of programmers with much spare time. That's far greater man-power/brain-power than SI can afford commercially. Plus "openFM" is no cost to the end user, while SI is charging for theirs.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. I can't think of any case where this has actually happened, and given your examples, you're probably right that it could be great to have such a modding community... but the worst-case is still something that has to be considered.

What you're saying is certainly very true. But on the other hand, what if that employable programmer decides he's better than SI (fat chance that he's right, but still...), and would rather employ himself? Now SI has basically donated their code, ideas, and methodology to a budding competitor. And worse yet, he chooses to keep his new game an open source project, open to thousands of programmers with much spare time. That's far greater man-power/brain-power than SI can afford commercially. Plus "openFM" is no cost to the end user, while SI is charging for theirs.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. I can't think of any case where this has actually happened, and given your examples, you're probably right that it could be great to have such a modding community... but the worst-case is still something that has to be considered.

If businesses dealt in worse-case scenarios, we would not set up businesses at all, as the worst-case scenario is an infinite loss!

In reality this never happens. The SI "brand" is a powerful one and if the software is released under an open-source non-commercial license it further reduces the possibility of this happening, while expanding the SI brand.

Civilization has its own open-source variant - developed-from-scratch FreeCiv (Google it). Yet Firaxis will sell the upcoming Civilization V and it will break Civilization IV records quite easily - why? Because of the Firaxis brand and the quality of their games.

If there are thousands of willing developers of an open-source football management game then SI should easily be able to lure hundreds of these over, as will EA and any other competitor. It's a capitalist world - people work for money, and non-commercial open-source can take ages to make a profit from. So I think your scenario is simply invalid - the market doesn't work like that. If SI lose out to voluntary developers then it's their fault. It will force SI to develop better software which in turn benefits them - this is competition - it benefits SI, competitors and the end-user.

It's a capitalist world - people work for money, and non-commercial open-source can take ages to make a profit from. So I think your scenario is simply invalid - the market doesn't work like that.

Non-commercial open source isn't done for profit (hence "non"-commercial). It's done by communities of hobbyists working for free out of pure enjoyment. So in a way, yes it can work like that.

But like I said previously, I know there's no instance of open source destroying a commercial counterpart (Adult entertainment sites would be an exception). As one who uses Linux and open source exclusively, I'm pretty familiar with current open source projects and their threat levels. "openFM" would be awesome. But regardless, "business secrets" are still a huge deal with most companies - keep things internal, and you avoid giving anyone any ground on you.

- this is competition - it benefits SI, competitors and the end-user.

This I definitely disagree with. Competition benefits SI in no way. It's great for us, the customers, because it keeps them on their toes. But the companies themselves: I'm sure they'd do away with all competition if they could, and take all the customers/profits for themselves.

But what could actually be done with the source code of, say, Championship Manager 2 or 3 or even 4... (assuming SI wouldn't give away anything newer, surely nothing post CM/FM-split anyway)

Besides tons of databases and mods (with different rules etc), the game engine can't really be altered much, can't it?

CM1 / CM2 - source code lost

Can you elaborate on this? how can you jst lose a complete source code? Please say its a funny story...

Someone in the UK is sitting on an old HDD that is priceless or some numpty just deleted the files to make space for his iTunes collection.

CM4 -> FM -> Still the active codebase for FM

Surely it's time for an overhaul, nearly a decade old & still trying to get it right.

after the CM4 start, it wouldnt surprise me if the plan is to never to a complete overhaul again

But the question does remain, what happened to the CM1 / 2 source ? (although I can try and forget about the spoken commentary in CM2)

Non-commercial open source isn't done for profit (hence "non"-commercial). It's done by communities of hobbyists working for free out of pure enjoyment. So in a way, yes it can work like that.

I believe the non-commercial usage only refers to the software itself - I can offer paid services around it legally (IANAL), and that is how you make money from open source. For example, I could charge John Doe a fee to fix his "openFM" and that would be legal. However, I can't sell him a fixed "openFM". So yes, you can make a profit out of non-commercial software.

But like I said previously, I know there's no instance of open source destroying a commercial counterpart (Adult entertainment sites would be an exception). As one who uses Linux and open source exclusively, I'm pretty familiar with current open source projects and their threat levels. "openFM" would be awesome. But regardless, "business secrets" are still a huge deal with most companies - keep things internal, and you avoid giving anyone any ground on you.

I agree, but in some cases it's worth giving out. It made business sense for id Software to give out the source code for Quake III Arena - for a reason.

This I definitely disagree with. Competition benefits SI in no way. It's great for us, the customers, because it keeps them on their toes. But the companies themselves: I'm sure they'd do away with all competition if they could, and take all the customers/profits for themselves.

It depends on the degree of competition, surely? The more competitors in a market, the more efficiently resources are allocated and the greater the market reach as each competitor will seek to grow the market in different ways. Two SIs competing against each other is certainly detrimental but I believe that in some ways a little competition is good in the long-term even for themselves, just indirectly.