For me, this has more to do with public ownership of folklore and cultural goods, and how something being in the public domain gives complete freedom for it to step beyond just being a specific single piece of art, to become a rich ecosystem/universe of ideas.
Let’s say I wanted to make a mario-like platformer / some-other-game in a different engine with characters and creatures from terraria, with a campaign mode, fully happening in a world that’s just terraria’s world and use the same art & characters you’ll find on the original game… well, you can’t straight away rip the assets, or even reference them too much in a way that’s obvious it’s a derived work if you don’t want to step into some legally tricky waters.
Compare this to public domain universes like greek or norse mythology, fantastically idealized historical periods and many fairy tales and legends from around the world, that have been a source for ideas during centuries and even today we make use of that folklore and remix it in new ways to further contribute to our culture.
Videogames are now pieces of culture in a similar way as those old universes are. If they are tied to companies, then this makes the companies own pieces of culture and it stops further developments of the mythology behind the collective stories that could be created.
Even if the company were to be ok with the assets/universe being ripped for other games/ideas, to what extent would they allow it? no serious project would wanna take the risk of possibly having the company one day pull the plug. And if the company doesn’t really have the intention of pulling the plug: why not formalize their good intentions with an open license?
For me, this has more to do with public ownership of folklore and cultural goods, and how something being in the public domain gives complete freedom for it to step beyond just being a specific single piece of art, to become a rich ecosystem/universe of ideas.
Let’s say I wanted to make a mario-like platformer / some-other-game in a different engine with characters and creatures from terraria, with a campaign mode, fully happening in a world that’s just terraria’s world and use the same art & characters you’ll find on the original game… well, you can’t straight away rip the assets, or even reference them too much in a way that’s obvious it’s a derived work if you don’t want to step into some legally tricky waters.
Compare this to public domain universes like greek or norse mythology, fantastically idealized historical periods and many fairy tales and legends from around the world, that have been a source for ideas during centuries and even today we make use of that folklore and remix it in new ways to further contribute to our culture.
Videogames are now pieces of culture in a similar way as those old universes are. If they are tied to companies, then this makes the companies own pieces of culture and it stops further developments of the mythology behind the collective stories that could be created.
Even if the company were to be ok with the assets/universe being ripped for other games/ideas, to what extent would they allow it? no serious project would wanna take the risk of possibly having the company one day pull the plug. And if the company doesn’t really have the intention of pulling the plug: why not formalize their good intentions with an open license?