Monetizing from open source games

[simple lodge]

Is it possible to create an open source game that have unity ads then publish it on the Google play?

[versed crypt]

That would depend on the license

[simple lodge]

for example, can I write a read-only licence and attach it on my github repo?

[versed crypt]

What is a read only license?

You want to create your own game, release it as open source, and sell it in the store with ads?

Yes you can absolutely do that. But unless you specify otherwise in the license, someone else can create a version without your ads and republish it.

And if you are creating overly restrictive licenses, it shouldn't be open source

Even with a license in place, someone can ignore it and do their own thing, and it's on you to defend (pay a lawyer) to deal with it

[simple lodge]

My plan is to make games and publish them on the market, earn from them and then show my github repos to employers to get a good job.

Is my plan possible?

[spiral prawn]

u dont have to make a game open source to show its code to someone..

[versed crypt]

Having a plan is super important and changes a lot depending on your experiences and opportunities available to you. It wasn't until I did a clearly articulated 5 year plan and executed on it that my world finally changed in that regard.

I'm not sure that open source matters that much, but a healthy portfolio is what was important for me. It wasn't until I had made about 150 mobile apps and games that I became hireable, and then a lot of small and big studio and startup work before having the experience I needed to launch a real studio. It's a journey not a destination for sure.

I'd focus a lot more on a good portfolio over open-source though. But that's just me.

[simple lodge]

Thanks for helping!

[silent granite]

To be fair if done right this pays for itself

[silent granite]

WTF were you making that it took 150??? Even on good applicants I only see 5-20 projects

[versed crypt]

In my experience, generally speaking, I don't think this would be true in practice... the average mobile game generates approx 250 over its life. A Steam game about 1,250. And people copying your titles usually have a reduced sales ratio to you... As someone who's had 30-40 games or apps cloned in my mobile days, it's not really worth it (if you took a paying-a-lawyer-route). It is easy to file your own C&D's, but that doesn't help with recovery, and could be seen as not defending your IP (and thus opening it up to public domain). Plus usually the copy theft comes from countries with very lax copyright law, so even if you did press for a legal action and win, recovery is very unlikely. But I digress. If you had a rather large successful title though, and the company copying it had significant revenue generated off of it, then yea for sure (but I don't think you'd see that very often with a public github opensource self made project). But maybe!

Re: 150, that was back in the day, I'm well over 400 now 😉

It's a lot to cover in a message, everything from anti-virus programs, to browsers, to media creation tools, etc. I've had a wonderfuly creative run 🙂

[silent granite]

For OP if you intent is just to show employees don’t make it open source. If your intent is to educate, do something like educational videos. If you want to show off your code for potential jobs, open source systems/libraries that your project makes.

[silent granite]

That is really good info. I have done more commercial applications(mobile/app) so longer creation time and a pre existing user base.

[versed crypt]

Absolutely, when you have long-term dev-ops to think about, and all of that, security and defending everything gets complex and necessary fast. I know our medical stroke and dementia care stuff, we chase that very strongly on a legal level, versus a smaller mobile game.

I have great appreciation for people that can work on long-duration projects, you need to really think ahead

[silent granite]

True or just shamble along with a mountain of bandaids(would never suggest this).