Frequently Asked Questions - Philosophy
What the project is all about.
The Metropolis Project is a non-profit group of city sim game fans. While it is not yet formally incorporated, we intend to set up a community-controlled, registered non-profit organization as the project grows.
The goal of the project is to create an open source, next-generation city simulation game. If you're not familiar with the genre, city sims (or city builders, as they're sometimes called) are games in which the player controls a virtual city, guiding its growth and development, either directly or indirectly. The most famous example is the Sim City series, created by Will Wright and Maxis. The tentative title for the game we want to build is Metropolis, and it is intended to be a spiritual successor to the Sim City games.
Aren't there games like that already?
Sort of... the state of the genre right now is a bit uncertain. There are currently a couple of city sim/city builder games on the market, but all of them have some drawbacks that make them unattractive to one segment or another of the city sim fan community. The reigning gold standard is still Sim City 4, which has an excellent and compelling core game, but which is now seven years old and starting to show its age graphically. The other current contender is Monte Cristo's Cities XL, but although it boasts modern graphics and some other features like freeform roads, it's been perceived by many Sim City fans as lacking in other areas (mass transit options and dynamic development, for example.)
In addition to these two, there are a number of more specialized games, most of them more limited in scope and intent: There are several titles focused on ancient world cities, for example, (Grand Ages: Rome, Children of the Nile) or specific geographic areas (the Tropico series). We believe that, as of now, there is no modern game on the level of Sim City 4, and that Sim City 4 has a limited lifespan for the future.
Surely game companies will develop a new game if there's a market for it.
Well, first of all, we're the impatient type. Secondly, EA (owner of the Sim City franchise) hasn't shown any sign that they intend to continue the series, at least not in the direction fans of Sim City 4 would like to see. Nor (to our knowledge) are there any other games of this type currently in development. Third, the genre has not had a great track record for commercial developers recently: EA's sequel/spinoff Sim City Societies fared very poorly, and the original publisher of Cities XL went bankrupt after its release. There is a strong possibility that investors and publishers will be wary of trying to trying to capture the city sim market for some time. Last, and perhaps most important, we believe an open source game built by the community will ultimately be a better game than a proprietary, closed platform.
Doesn't it have something to do with Communism?
Um, no. The exact definition of "open source" is a bit outside the scope of this FAQ, but briefly, open source is a type of software in which the source code is made available to the public, allowing anyone to modify the program freely. In many cases, such software is also distributed free of charge. Some examples of open source software you might be familiar with are Mozilla's Firefox web browser, or the Open Office suite of programs. For a more comprehensive definition take a look here. Our intention is for Metropolis to be released as FOSS (Free Open Source Software.)
Who said a game had to make money for someone? The Metropolis project is a non-profit group; We're not trying to get rich off of the game, we just want to play it!
Ah. Well, the traditional open source answer here would be: "They don't have to cost money either! Volunteer developers can create software through mass collaboration!" Unfortunately, while this optimistic view has proved practical for some kinds of project, it has not panned out so well for games thus far; So, we here at Metropolis do acknowledge that a good game will probably cost money to make (while not underestimating volunteer contributions, of course!) To that end, we intend to fund a full-time, professional development team to make Metropolis. Fortunately, we also believe there is a good way to pay for development while still keeping the game open: It's called community funding (the technical term is an "assurance contract"). You can read more about it in the "Funding" section of the FAQ.
Why not just start your own company and make a game, if you think you know what people want?
There are a multiple reasons: First, we don't claim to know what people want; The city sim community is very diverse and everyone's wants are different; For that reason we need a platform that is, above all, adaptable, and that means open source and community-directed. As described in this article, a for-profit game company simply can't open it's source code; So, ultimately any commercial game is going to be limited in its adaptability. Furthermore, an open source game will grow and get better over time: modders will add new content, the core game can be upgraded, and the game's value increases as time goes on. Contrast that with a commercial game, where the engine will eventually become dated and the company has no incentive to keep working on it; Even the best commercial games will eventually die off. In short, this approach will simply lead to a better game.
Second, on a more practical level, we doubt we would be able to do such a thing even if we wanted to: As stated above, after the lackluster performance of both Sim City Societies and Monte Cristo's city sims (City Life and Cities XL) there are not bound to be many investors interested in funding such a venture, and certainly none who would fund us, seeing as we are not professional game developers.
Nothing at all, in theory. It's just that, currently, no one has been able to produce an open source game on par with commercial titles using a purely collaborative approach. Games are one of the most complicated kinds of software to develop: They need focus and dedicated effort, and these are hard things to build out of a large, diverse, and distributed group of people.
Furthermore, we believe that asking members for a monetary contribution, rather than soliciting volunteer development efforts, is a more efficient way to marshal community support: the number of people with the talent, time, and inclination to develop a project like this for free is small, whereas almost everyone has the capacity to donate money. Making participation exclusive to those with programming or game development skill neglects the possible contribution of the vast majority of the community. I elaborated on this subject a bit more in this article, but basically I'm of the opinion that creating a next-generation city sim with an all-volunteer approach would require an amount of effort and luck out of proportion with the task.
Nevertheless, there are more optimistic people than me out there attempting to do that very thing; Off the top of my head, there are several open source city sim projects currently active: LinCity, OpenCity, WorldSim, and CityMania, to name a few.
If someone's already doing it, why bother with a new project? Doesn't starting a new one just dilute effort?
Since Metropolis isn't working with a traditional open source approach (make a rough prototype with a small team, try to attract developers based on that.) we don't really see the project as "competing" with others. Most projects are trying to attract volunteer developers, while we are more interested in attracting funding. Essentially we are working towards the same goal from different angles. Naturally, we also believe we have a better chance of success with our method, or we wouldn't have bothered.