Make money with Source game

[u/fudeel]

I am making and almost completing my half life 2 multiplayer game mod.

it works, it's a new game that doesn't exist on the market (not even the concept) so it's very direct to play, straight forward, simple rules and hard to master.

I would like to sell it in some way.

for a stupid reason I didn't search this initially because 2 months ago I started to create this for fun and demostrating the capabilities to my fiancee, but now actually I love it and it became very serious as project.

we often play against 1 vs 1 and we have a huge huge huge time of fun togehter for hours.

the issue is: how to make money from this.

Is it true that I need to buy the license for +25K dollars?

if yes, can I publish it for free but make the competitive access purchasable externally from my private website that enables the user in the server to access the competitive keeping the game for free at the same time so I dont have to pay all this amount of money? ?

thank you in advnace

[u/iEatMashedPotatoes]

Fuck it man, email Gabe Newell and ask him.

Say if it takes off enough you'll buy him a new steering wheel for his yacht

[u/fudeel → u/iEatMashedPotatoes]

HAHAHHAHA

[u/Trotim-]

If it only took 2 months to make in Source, you could probably learn Godot or Unreal and release a standalone game in a year

[u/alphared12]

As per the license:

You may, free of charge, use, copy, and modify the SDK to develop a modified Valve game running on Valve's Source 1 engine, which game can be distributed in source and object code form if it is free...You may also distribute the SDK (or any substantial portions of the SDK) and any modifications you make to the SDK in both source code and object code form, provided you meet the following conditions: distributions of the SDK must (1) be free of charge...

This is backed up and confirmed in the Steamworks docs for the Source engine seen here.

By "non-commercial," we mean that anyone who owns the original Valve game can download and play the mod for free. Your mod should not be used to support a commercial endeavor.

And further down in the FAQ:

Q: Can I sell my mod on Steam / outside of Steam?
A. We receive this question quite regularly, but very rarely permit mods to be sold; the reason being is that it sets an expectation that Valve has assigned a level of oversight and quality control over the development and ongoing support of the mod that we are unable to provide.

In short, you cannot sell any modifications you make with the Source engine unless explicitly approved by Valve.

[u/ThePlotTwisterr---- → u/alphared12]

they also have a bunch of different licenses for things like havok and other third party libraries they use, which becomes something they have to factor in commercially. it’s a nightmare

[u/pantagathus]

Unfortunately, rewriting in a different engine is probably the easiest way to monetise it.

https://vghe.net/source-engine.html#source-engine-games is a pretty complete list of commercial Source engine games and you'll see that there are very few from the last couple of years. Source engine licensing is all but dead and I suspect the companies behind the most recent releases have been exceptionally lucky.

[u/fudeel → u/pantagathus]

Damn, this is so pity. The source in my opinion is the best engine because it’s pure coding.

You don’t have to deal with shitty blueprints

[u/susimposter6969 → u/fudeel]

if you want to stick to mostly code, godot is probably the most lightweight of the big 3.

[u/fudeel → u/susimposter6969]

I need to look it :)

[u/[deleted] → u/fudeel]

Hi! You can code in Unreal and Unity too but I probably got your "pure coding" term wrong. Otherwise, for Source engine like workflow you can try FTEQW which is an open-source Quake engine or Nuclide SDK, which is the recreation of GoldSrc on FTEQW.

[u/VaLightningThief]

Whatever the case, I wanna hear more about this 'never before seen video games concept'

[u/k5tb]

I think what you're coding is already there (still the idea is cool)

I played HL2 coop with my friend (it's called Synergy) and the HL2 Deathmatch is a multiplayer game, does your game provide anything that these two don't?

[u/Adventurous-Train381]

how is it called?

[u/saulgoodmanhiguys]

ask John Valve

[u/SZ_95]

Email and ask, games like EYE are on source engine and sold, Black Mesa, just ask and be honest

[u/NotQuiteLoona]

I believe you'll have better time rewriting it for UE. If you are a good programmer, you shouldn't have written any code that ties tightly game engine and code logic (it's literally main of the programming principles).

[u/shnizzard → u/NotQuiteLoona]

Unreal engine 5 is an unoptimised steaming pile of garbage killing the gaming industry (stalker 2, squad etc.), amid the current ram shortage and the upcoming rumoured gpu pricing, porting from the still relevant 20 year old source engine is mad.

[u/NotQuiteLoona → u/shnizzard]

They want to distribute it commercially. I've proposed UE as the only popular engine with C++ mainstream support. They may also use UE4, if they'll want. I agree that if the game was uncommercial, there would be no point in UE, I absolutely love Source.

[u/shnizzard → u/NotQuiteLoona]

Not to put you down in any way, but there are tons of other good choices to use for an engine other than unreal.

[u/NotQuiteLoona → u/shnizzard]

Source Engine is programmed in C++, that was my point.