No. The game industry is really bad. It requires secrecy because it's full of developers who can be fired at any moment. All some developers have in that industry is the ability to program things that are difficult to make from scratch- to have their code be readily available would not benefit them in an industry that is so cut throat.
I think it would be nice if more indie devs did, but even then, that mindset trickles down. So many indies will never make a living wage on their games and to release their code would allow people with a lot more resources to profit off of their work. We know companies with more money wouldn't hesitate to use a devs' code in the worst way possible. This is an unnerving feeling.
It's unfortunate and a reason I actually struggle with getting into Godot and things. So much code just isn't readily available like in other engines I like. Much must be built from scratch or using plugins that may have issues that you can't figure out how to solve while in RPG maker, there's often a million plugins for one different thing.
It's why I asked Basicbean's help with the dollmaker template. I think Godot is really convenient but there's just not many resources for it and most artists Aren't programmers and don't have time or patience to be programmers. And I love games by people who lean more towards the art side/writing than the developer side.. It's why engines like RPG Maker are everlasting too.. Works for artists in a way many game engines don't.
I don't think the above is good or anything. The game industry is a beast and artists (and programmers in art industries) have to try hard to protect their jobs due to constantly being abused by people in power, especially with all the cases of developers being fired right after a game releases only for the project / base code to be handed other people who are less skilled. So many of my favorite games have been ruined by this practice too because a good skeleton still requires meat.
It's worse because now the game industry and other art industries are benefitting off the work of artists they refuse to hire or even acknowledge the existance of with giant AI things that scrape every little thing on the internet. Things have the potential to change but.. smiles, I think a lot of AAA corporations have to die and more avenues need to exist for game developers to earn revenue (IE Itchio being really the only place for poor Western indie developers without publishers is terrible while having the moderation team be the way that it is not helping anything). I really do think so many problems are the result of AAA industries snuffing out everyone they can.
That is to say, I do think indies are doing well in recent years but even then, a lot of the indies in high regard (ie Hollow Knight) may not be AAA but they still have so many resources me and my dev peers don't have so I consider them to be seperate from the problems we are experiencing, even if they have other struggles. Tap tap, I've had conversations with larger indie people in the industry who don't even KNOW the situation on Itchio right now.. They are not my kin.
TLDR: When art is made for the sake of profits over the sake of creating, people are less likely to help each other and the game industry loves when developers feel like they are going to starve. To help others is a luxury developers typically don't have the luxury of doing.
FOSS is the good and holy way. Any time I say I hate it, it is like having an argument with a sibling I adore but get tired of. Game dev for solo developers requires being cautious of who you put your trust in but with Free and Open Source, when you download the software, it's yours really. FOSS is also what you have to turn to a lot of the time if you use Linux which makes it a godsend for diversity of OS usage.
BUT. Unfortunately I find that FOSS tends to have issues with usability and the communities around them. Looking up an issue may result in "it works on my machine" attitude or you may just find a bug that is unfixable... And it's enraging because somoene may have fixed it but forums and Discords for a lot of it can be long-dead unfortunately since people in these communities frequently keep to themselves.
Still, really I love FOSS. I use Aseprite. It started out as FOSS, and it's excellent because I use Aseprite forks on my iPad. For game engines, FOSS is good because game engine distributors randomly change their terms. I'd never use Unity for game dev and I am averse to Gamemaker because of the fuckery of the company. I do think both are useful. I do use Unity for some things- corporate backed things have the ability to make a lot of software that would take a lot of manpower that can't be funneled into FOSS projects a lot of the time.
Really I think so many earlier versions of many engines should be FOSS because of how Aseprite being FOSS earlier on has benefitted the community so much. Ik the developers were working on apple versions but the App Store is expensive and it would require maintaining two distributables. I just really love forks even if the new fork is not FOSS.
FOSS projects inspire me alot. It's why I distribute my scripts for free. FOSS I get mad about when there's bugs because of losing work and I get like.. enraged, but you know, even my own scripts have problems at times haha. Anyways, CHURCH OF FOSS.
