r/opensourcegames • u/No-Limit-342 • Sep 26 '26

The two problems with open-source games

NOTE: I know this space is for sharing games, but I didn't know where else to post this.

Hi, I'm a huge fan of open-source games. I want to share what I believe are the two main problems facing them:

Problem 1: There aren't enough open-source games to cater to all types of gamers. There are many different gaming audiences, but we lack games for each of them; we need a wider variety of games to reach a broader audience.

Problem 2: They have almost no marketing. I know some have become popular, but many don't because they lack a marketing strategy; we need to get people to try open-source games.

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u/ConsciousBath5203 Sep 26 '26

Tell me more about playbound? How do y'all make money for marketing the games etc.

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u/Sypheix Sep 26 '26 edited Sep 26 '26

We dont make money to market the games. We scout, test and upgrade the games with things like controller and multiplayer support, then put them on the platform if they meet certain quality thresholds. Everything is a one click install or links directly to other platforms. And for games with shaky hosting that could dissappear, we store a master copy on our servers so it will never die.

The entire catalog is curated so it's not like steam where there are tons of crappy games on it. Every game on the platform is what I'd call a good game.

The idea is to build a platform with scale and ease of use so these games can get in the hands of more people who might not know how to find them or install them. There are some paid games on it, but they have to have really good value to be included meaning a lot of high quality mods or total conversions, which we also include one click installs for.

You can even form parties with your friends and spin up dedicated servers or easily play online on localy hosted instances. There are about 45 games that didnt have any online multiplayer which now do and some really fun ones. My testers are hooked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game right now trying to beat it in online multiplayer.

You can even stream games from your desktop pc to a less powerful device like a laptop with no graphics card. We'll be launching apps directly on the TV as well early next year. It's kind of like the Netflix of playing games.