Campaign to get developers to release source code for old games

Sorry if this belongs on /vr/ but I thought I would start out here.

There are many old games that are still fun to play and even relevant but are in danger of not ever working on new systems because of incompatibilities.

I want to start a campaign to encourage and advise the developers who are still in business to release the source code. Obviously this is a big task but I am going to start by possibly hosting a website and making an informal request to help us preserve these games for the future.

I need your help, what games/developers should we start with?

Pic is some generic looking source code.

Turok 3? They rereleased 1 and 2, but 3 remaines N64 exclusive.

Dark Forces and Blood ports would be good. Maybe they exist already.
Wing Commander series

Also what I plan to do is to make a list of games where any user has requested the company to release the source code together with a copy of the email (obviously with contact details removed) and just get people aware of how companies react to such requests. Might be interesting.
Damn, news to me. They released 1&2s source? where?

Lmao entitled pc fats

But most of old games were made on obsolete systems with obsolete SDKs and obsolete hardware, it's much easier to remake a game from scratch, though in this case people will want a new HD assets and shit

Doesn't need to be PC games only, you moron. Console games are built from source code too.
Not always true, but the key thing is if the language it's written in is completely unknown or obsolete. Most games are written in C or C++ so there is always some chance the game can be salvaged to run on a new system.

>Most games are written in C or C++ so there is always some chance the game can be salvaged to run on a new system.

Really doubt it, to be honest. It's more convinient to create an emulation software, like DosBOX - but for Win32 and other platforms

I can point to several open source vidya projects that are keeping the games updated. But it's easier to google. Talking about projects where the original source was released btw, like Arx fatalis and Warzone 2100. Too many others to list but still so many games that should be on the list.

The thing is, most of old games source codes and assets are lost, lost forever. Even Squaresoft, who made millions of Final Fantasy games just lost the prerendered scene's source models, and that's why we got blocky backgrounds on FF9 release. It's a good thing if the source is available, but for most games it is not possible, so making an emulator is a better solution.

Good luck getting companies to let go of their property. Even if the devs would surely like seeing their games being played again it's usually not up to them to decide. Also that's not source code that's an HTML website, the fact that you don't know the difference leads me to believe you don't know much about programming, who exactly would be in charge of updating the games?

What's the best text editor?

There was talk about Unreal 1 engine getting it's source code released. Tim Sweeney made a comment to the effect that it might be possible, but it would take some work to get things up to releasable standard.

I think that would be a fantastic gift to the Unreal community.

Games have very long lives, much longer than the creators anticipated at the time. Anything that helps them become more accessible to a modern audience is a huge boon.

Not to mention you better hope they have proper documentation because who knows how the devs programmed their shit.

Not source, but straight up remaster. Look on Steam.

>Thinks I don't know the difference between HTML and game source because I randomly used a picture of source code that I found while googling
Read the post again you fucking moron. Consider throwing yourself into a fire.

Also if you don't think HTML counts as source code, just fucking kys, do it twice just to be certain.

Who cares

>Most games are written in C or C++
Simply not true for most older games. For example, every Game Boy game had to be written using the Game Boy's version of assembly.

Depends on the gen 3bh

I get it that the game boy had its own assembly language, but surely they also developed a higher level language for it, right? They must have made up a GameBoy-C or something that compiled into their assembly, no? If not that must have been a nightmare to program, makes me appreciate those games way more.

Also depends on platform. Typically you will find most PC games are C/++. I can't even think of a popular PC game written in asm other than RCT.

This will never happen because:

1. Many older game companies never kept their source code after release.
2. Even when the source exists, things like middleware fuck up the licensing situation. This requires the game dev to go back and write their own implementation of said middleware if they want to avoid legal action.
3. They just won't because MUH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The best hope is game devs that support open source/free software from the get-go. Which are rare, because games require more time and effort than most software projects.

If we get even a couple, I think that would be cool

I'm guessing a studio like CDPR would be open to giving code to the community but as noted there's a lot of limitations, middleware licences being the biggest hurdle for anything even remotely recent.