Make It A Trend Part 2: EA (!!!) Releases Source Code For Four ‘Command & Conquer’ Games
In our recent discussion about Valve releasing the source code for Team Fortress 2, you should have noticed that that post was headlined as a Part 1." This post is Part 2 and is arguably way more impressive and important for a couple of reasons we'll get into. But as a reminder, the entire reason we're having this discussion about gaming companies releasing the source code for their games, even if that takes more time than we'd like, is that it goes a long, long way to solving the preservation question. The bargain that is copyright law in America is perhaps uniquely broken when it comes to the video game space. That is because many, many games rely on storefronts to keep them available, updates so that these games can run on modern hardware, and sometimes backend infrastructure to keep them either running at all, or capable of providing the full original experience. If any of those requirements go unaddressed, you have a preservation problem, especially when those same games are not legitimately available elsewhere.
Valve is a big company, sure, but it's revenue is not derived mainly from producing games, but selling them. What we really need to start seeing, if this trend is going to be fruitful for preservation purposes, is major developers and publishers, whose revenue chiefly comes from selling games, getting on board. And to that end, it's quite significant to see that Electronic Arts, a company that only occasionally receives praise on our pages, has released the source code for four Command & Conquer games.
You may, as someone possibly young enough to have been untroubled by theCommand & Conquergames in their heyday, see this as a relatively minor act. It's really,reallynot. And if we're going to be fiercely critical of EA when it does horrible things, it's also crucial that we celebrate when the publisher does something this important.
Any game being made publicly available for free (as in: yours to keep, copy, share forever) is to be celebrated, in an industry that usually so spitefully clings on to long-dead IPs that it refuses to sell, but still employs lawyers to prevent being accessible. But releasing a game's source code is next level. This is not the game itself, as in a thing to boot up and play, but rather the flesh and bones that makes the game exist. It'sall the secrets. It offers developers the ability to see exactly how a game was put together, read all the hilariously botched bits of code the devs strung together in desperation to get a game out the door, and learn how the best in the business constructed their games.
This is actually bigger than just releasing the source code, as Kotaku goes on to note. Valve's release was done under an SDK license, specifically limiting any new output using the code to free projects, rather than commercial projects. EA, however, went way further. The company released the source code for these games under a GNU General Public License, also referred to as a copyleft license. There are still some restrictions put on anyone who makes new content using the code in terms of ensuring that buyers receive the same freedoms the content-maker has, but it does not restrict selling that content. In other words, this is EA saying, Hey, here's how we made these games. Here's the code. Use it if you want. Sell what you make of it, or give it away for free."
That E-freaking-A is doing this is big.
What makes thisCommand & Conquermove quite so striking is that it's EA doing it. They're not exactly a company known for, let's say, loving acts of kindness. In more recent years, the publisher has become synonymous with the lowest aspects of video gaming, from forcing its games to be played with an internet connection before the era of widely-available broadband, to gacha awfulness with its gambling-adjacent loot boxes. In fact, theC&Cname itself was run into the ground until it was all but worthless after EA forced in always-on DRM to hastily made sequels and released terrible free-to-play mobile versions.
But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? Is this a crack in their tough, outer veneer? A sign of a future EA that is interested in games preservation, and the open and free sharing of intellectual property from which it no longer has a means to meaningfully profit? Because dear God, I hope so.
Again, that EA is doing this is important for two primary reasons. The most obvious is that it's a milestone of sorts to see a AAA game publisher be willing to bypass its copyrights on its own work this way. I'm not sure if there is a good comp for this in between today and id Software doing something similar with the Doom franchise (prior to Microsoft gobbling up the rights to later games and not following id Software's lead, of course). EA has a reputation well earned as an IP protectionist, after all, so this move is fairly striking for the company.
But perhaps just as important is that its stature within the industry is such that perhaps other AAA publishers, and others, will pay attention to the move and duplicate it.
And I hope other publishers sit up and take notice about how we're all now making cooing noises and scratching EA under its chin, rather than simply scowling at it. This should be normal! It's essentially free to a publisher-you just stick the source code on Github and eat your lumps. Somehow one of the most controversial things I ever wrote was suggesting thatgames should go into the public domain a full 20 years after their first release, despite this seeming like the most sensible, industry-boosting action possible, at a point when publishers are no longer making real money from the original versions. OK, so in the case of most the games being made available here, we're talking closer to 30 years. But I'll take it!
Turning the industry away from longstanding practices is a bit like steering the Titanic, of course, so I'm not sure at what velocity we'll see this trend expand. But the gaming industry is also one that can pivot quickly, so perhaps I'll be surprised. Regardless, however fast or not this goes, the trend is a good one and should be encouraged, if for no other reason than for the preservation of games as cultural output.