Creating a commercial game with SpringRTS

[ppombal]

Hello everyone,

I want to create a MOBA-like RTS and I'm starting to investigate available RTS engines - SpringRTS was one of the first results.

The game I envisage would be free-to-play but with features that are only available by spending actual money (specific unit types, buildings, unit upgrades, etc). I confess that I went through the GPL "legalese" but I'm completely lost. So, my question is: is it possible to use the SpringRTS engine to develop such a game? If so, what do I have to do?

Probably this is a very generic question or it has been answered somewhere else, but I would appreciate a lot if you could help me.

Thanks in advance,
ppombal

[FLOZi]

Spring has been used for at least one commercial project in the past (PURE).

Legally it is perfectly fine so long as you release the source code (game lua gadgets & widgets) under GPL.

[gajop]

To be clear that means you can still prevent the free distribution of your game by having assets released under a proprietary licence. It's "only" the source code of the game that needs to be released under a GPL compatible licence. Any server code you would have wouldn't need to be released either.

[ppombal]

Wow! Thanks for the fast replies!

Considering your answers, it's time to roll up my sleeves and start digging in.
With more time I'll describe what I want to do in another post.

Thanks once again.

[Google_Frog]

Zero-K is already free-to-play with some paid content. Our paid content consists of cosmetic things that can be bought with donations but it would be easy to expand the system. So it is definitely possible from the technical side as well.

[PicassoCT]

+1 at Googlefrog and Zero-K. They are the spearhead of spring development and some of there UI-Advances have found there way into comercial titles outside of the spring world.

PS: It also depends on the type of title you want to do. Some stuff is easier then other.

[smoth]

Mobas. Good luck, I'll be interested in seeing your progress.