Paying for Torque Engine Mods (Overly Idealistic ;-)

(Go ahead and read the fluff - I'm throwing down the gauntlet and challenging people at the bottom of this entry, so don't get bored and leave ;-)

Ya know, I've been thinking deeply about something recently. I'm using a LOT of stuff from different people here in the community - Melv's toys, some work from Matt W., Joshua Ritter just came up with a cool new day / night sequencing system, DOT3 Bumpmapping is said to be released sometime this month, and all sorts of other cool TGE mods.

Of course, I've only submitted ONE resource for the engine - a client-end particle reduction system. (One of these days I'll finish my terrain deformation system, and submit it. But that's got to wait a bit now, because once DOT 3 bumpmapping is in there, then I've got to worry about a whole new level of complexity on the terrain! ;-)

Needless to say, there's not a whole lotta ballance there. I'm planning on knocking on some publisher's doors when I'm done with Trajectory Zone (And brought a veteran onboard to help with that!) to try and maximize the number of titles sold.

I gotta admit - I'm starting to feel a little pang of guilt from that ;-) Not a huge one - people did submit these patches without a licensing requirement (or else they just say to mention them in the credits) I think it's cool that people are submitting all sorts of cool stuff to the engine - lets face it, the engine would get stale quick without it.

I've already once seen someone have to stop and think about how they wanted to submit a change to the engine - should it be under a specialized license, or just given freely to the community?

Point blank, some people want money. Some people want recognition. Some people just want to play with the engine and do cool things. But they all have something in common - eventually, they are going to get bored with coding the engine for fun (or, bored with not getting much back out of it), and quit working on the engine. Then the community looses another clueful coder, and potentially loose a whole host of future improvements to the engine.

So here's the challenge I'm making to everyone:
I'm going to step up to the plate, and start this. Anyone who is using the Torque engine, and using community resources that enhance the engine, set aside 1% of your profits (Net) right up front. Keep track of all the engine enhancements you use, and who did 'em. It's not that hard, really - just add a comment line that says something like

// GGRESOURCE:  FxFoliage by Melv May (melv.may@btinternet.com)

When you are done with the project, go back and grep (or search, pick your platform ;-) for all the GGRESOURCE: lines, and see who's stuff you used. Then, decide who gets how much out of that 1% of your profits. Then email em (and if you made it easy and used the line I used above, it will be a cinch to look up what it was, who did it, and know how to contact 'em!), and tell 'em what up. If they refuse the split, no problem - just throw it back in the original 1% pool, and resplit it up among the remaining contributors.

This way, everyone who has submitted kick ass code, or is thinking about it (like James Lupiani's Multi-Texturing code) has real incentive to do it. They get recognition, and they get money for helping you with your game! Granted, 1% is not a HUGE amount - but it's something they didn't have before. I mean, what better incentive to get Melv to release his new FxBeerShader code than to put beer money in his pocket?!

I've got two commercial game projects started using the Torque engine, heavily enhanced with community code. So I'm going to kick this off - I'm putting aside 1% from both of those projects for giving back to those who contributed changes to the engine within the last year that I'm making heavy duty use of. (Yes, I'm putting a stipulation of 1 year on the code I'm 'paying' for - the reason is, past a certain point it may have become a change to the Torque HEAD or release branches, which means it becomes almost impossible to track (unless, of course, the author uses the line I mentioned above), and after a while the pool might become TOO diluted to be useful. Plus, after 1 year, it's old hat unless they have made some massive overhauls to it ;-)

I'm considering it an investment in a product that I use. Yes, it's just a little more cash out of my project (which, for Trajectory Zone is actually a little painful - there's 9 people on the project, all with thier hands in the profits ;-). But then again, if *I* had to put all the effort into creating those modifications to the engine, how long would it have taken? And if I didn't use the modifications, then what would my game look like, sound like, and feel like? I hate code bloat, so I don't just throw things in for the heck of it - if I use it, it's for a reason.

So there it is - there's the guantlet I'm throwing down. Let's give people incentive to make the Torque engine ROCK!

If ya agree with this, and you are someone submitting enhansements to the engine - say so! If you are a game developer looking at creating or are currently creating a commercial project with Torque, are usin' some of the engine modifications from the community and plan on doin' this too - say so. Then other people will know that it's a supported concept! (And I'll know I'm not a dork for suggesting it ;-)

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Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr
Owner, Midnight Ryder Technologies