a radical approach to making games
I've been chewing on an idea for a few months. It's a bit of a scary idea. Somewhat experimental. Slightly radical. What if everything I make gets released free, open source, and under a permissive license? My games, my videos, my writing, my educational resources, my comics, everything. Just put it out there in the open and see what happens.
The idea scares me a little because it goes against the grain. But is it possible to make a living giving everything one makes away?
I know it happens for visual artists, musicians, and podcasters with platforms like Patreon. So yeah, it's possible! But for projects that take months or years to produce like games, I wonder if it could work.
Why would I want to do this? Well, I want to make my work as accessible as possible. I want it to be available for people to use, enjoy, and learn from. There's a rich history of game developers making and releasing freeware. While one could argue that releasing their work for free devalues it, I've been wondering if it instead allows the work to be more easily shared and thus gets played by more people.
I also love the idea of creating worlds, characters, and stories that other people can use for their own creations (even commercially). This happens all of the time with fan works, and then corporations jump in and shut those projects down or put constraints on what fans can and can't do. But is there a higher compliment as a creator than to have someone enjoy your world and characters enough to be inspired to make their own art with them?
Here's my plan: for the rest of 2023 and all of 2024, I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to release all of my existing and new work for free and with Creative Commons licenses. I can't commit to my work always being free, but I'd like to see how it goes for a bit to validate if it's a viable option.
I've set up a Patreon. If you're able to support me on my creative journey making games and sharing what I learn along the way, it would mean so much to me. Over the past week, I've been sharing my educational game development videos in early access on my Patreon. I'll be using Patreon to share works in progress for future projects. It's also a great way to get more frequent updates from me.
Thank you for following along and your support. I appreciate you!