SNKRX

There are many open-source games. There are few large-scale high-polish open source games because it's difficult to build a business model around that. Unlike non-game software, games are ~exclusively consumer-facing, so you can't sell support or use them as a loss leader, and they're standalone applications that are difficult to monetize with online features or to use as the core of a closed-source commercial product. That said, there are still lots of great projects out there (some of which have even had commercial success), for example: - https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX - https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason - https://github.com/endless-sky/endless-sky - https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry

I'd like to present a counterexample: SNKRX[1]. It costs 3€ and is under the MIT license, you can find it on github[2]. It sold >100,000 units[3], and AFAIK no one's massively undercut the author. I guess he's kind of undercutting himself by making it available on github, but I bet most people would rather pay 3€ and have nice steam features than download and compile a game off a site they likely don't know. And yes, I do realize he's still the copyright holder for SNKRX, but he's not really enforcing it with a permissive license like MIT. [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/915310/SNKRX/ [2]: https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX [3]: https://www.a327ex.com/posts/2022/

The day-by-day dev log[0] is worth a read on its own. It's impressive what a single developer can do with the right determination and discipline. [0]: https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX/blob/master/devlog.md