Hello!

I have a question which problably is asked 100 times before but, how can you get a sourcecode from a old game (like worms or something) when the game is copyright protected? Cause some people are able to port Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem etc. (which I think is also copyright protected) Are there free game sourcecodes online or something?

Thx!

no. Doom and Quake engines went open-source years ago. The actual data files however are copyrighted. This is a way for Id to make money on old games. People port the engines to systems like the PSP or DS or GP2X or PocketPC...and then people have to buy the actual .wad a nd .pak files...clever marketing scheme.

Right... the engines for these games have gone open source... so a company will port the engine... think: "Oh we can probably sell the official game since we have a working engine..." Then pay for the right to sell the engine with the official datafiles...

That went right over your head, didn't it? What he meant was this: Say someone ports Quake to the GP2X. Totally hypothetical situation, I know. The game's engine is totally free, right? But you need those datafiles to play! And oh no! I lost my copy of Quake years ago! (Or maybe I missed out on it way back when.) Whatever will I do as a copyright respecting individual? Oh, I guess I could buy a copy from id, which I will then use with my 2XQuake port! Genius! id makes more $$$, we get more games, everyone wins.

Nope... didn't go over my head at all... Your scenario, of course pans out. But shortly after the doom source went open source, There was a GBA port... OK so I see why the scenario I explained is less likely... But just because I didn't express all eventualities of how the fact that old games have gone open source, could still benefit the original game creators... This does not mean that I haven't considered some if not most of these aforementioned notions. It just so happens that the last thought entering my head at the time of posting was my previous post. So there.