[directory-discuss] Fwd: Re: Congratulations for making Animal Farm game

[Quiliro Ordonez]

I have written a letter to the developers of a would-be game based on
the George Orwell book: Animal Farm. I pasted the original above all
text so you can see the flow of mail. I have still to receive reply from
my last email. Please suggest what I can add to my next email.

-------- Mensaje Original --------
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 11:12:41 -0800
From: Quiliro Ordonez <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden

Congratulations for making Animal Farm game.

It is a great idea to make a game with the ideas in George Orwell's
Animal Farm. Teaching that authoritarianism is antagonist with socialism
and the well being of the people is of paramount importance. It gives
pride on people's autonomy and self criteria.

Vith this same train of thought, it would be great that this work is
libre software. Libre software is such that gives rights to users in
order to avoid digital authoritarianism. More information on the Free
Software Foundation's web site:
https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software .

Ĝis revido!
Quiliro Ordóñez
Freedom Activist

-------- Mensaje Original --------
Asunto: Re: Congratulations for making Animal Farm game
Fecha: 2019-01-04 09:11
De: Quiliro Ordonez <address@hidden>
Destinatario: Imre Jele <address@hidden>
Responder a: address@hidden

El 2019-01-03 03:05, Imre Jele escribió:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for getting in touch and for your kind words.
> 
> The development of the Animal Farm game is a considerable creative,
> visual art and programming undertaking as I am sure you understand.
> Releasing it for free would require one of two things.
> Firstly, we could find a team who'd be willing to work for free. And
> honestly this is very unlikely considering the quality and reliability
> of work this project needs and what Orwell's book deserves.
> Secondly, we could finding a charitable financier to pay the team
> without expecting any return. So far we have failed to find such a
> source for the game's budget.
> 
> I am keen to hear if you have any practical solutions to this.
> Also, I'd love to see some examples of free games of comparable
> creative ambition and responsibility. So please share if you know of
> any examples.

Thank you for your email, Imre Jele.
You do not have to make the software gratis. Distributing free software
may be gratis or for a fee. Free software is not about cost but about
freedom for the user.
The business model is a separate topic. My suggestion for the business
model are the same as is for all services. I am not suggesting to make
the game an online game because this would turn it in practice worse
than non-free software. These are my suggestions:
- crowd-found the development
- ask for donations after the release
- charge for teaching how to contribute to development (many people
would pay to learn how to develop games)
- sell swag
- sell tickets for animal farm competitions or other events
- organize charity events for donations
- charge for development of new functionality (release as free software
when funded)
- sell advertizement to be included on the software
- etc
I do not know what would be your take on these business models. So I
would like to know what your interests are in order to help more. 
You could also reduce costs of development by contracting cheaper
developers of free software activists which would subsidize the work
with their own money.
I think it is an excellent opportunity to show people that they can
avoid slavery of an authoritarian system by using example. Besides, I
think that giving the software a freedom respecting license would raise
more publicity than if it was non-free (as in freedom, not cost)
license.
I do not have any examples of games with a libre (free as in freedom)
license. But I certainly know about enterprise grade, million-dollar
software that is released as free software. Some have been funded by
universities, others by the developers and others by users.
Nevertheless, I think the libre software camp is a greater opportunity
for games because there are very little good free software games. They
are on high demand.
On the other hand, it is possibly not very easy to have good graphics on
a completely free software platform. But the software itself could
easily have a free license. It is just a question of changing a few
words and making the source code available. The important thing is to
get a good marketing consultant in order to make the money flow.

Hope this helps and:
Long live Animal Farm!