Hi. I'm a linux user who just found out about the AGS being open-sourced, and I'm incredibly excited about the whole idea. I have in the past kept multiple outdated computers boxed up in my basement just so that I could play favorite games that are no longer natively supported. I realize that emulators can take care of almost all of that nowadays, but for the guarantee that a game will always be playable, nothing can beat running on an open-source engine (or virtual machine).
I've heard the possibility that the file format won't be open-sourced to make it harder to decompile people's games, and I've got some questions and an idea about that. Assuming that the rest of the engine gets open-sourced, how hard would it be for someone to write a program that simply grabs the data from in-memory, and writes it out in any format they want? I suppose only CJ knows the answer. Even without the engine being open-sourced, if no AGS decompiler currently exists, it seems like that's mostly because no determined hacker has decided to make one.
However, I do understand that people have put a lot of effort into games that they have released for AGS, and some are undoubtably worried about their game data becoming suddenly so easy to steal. So, here's a thought on a solution. Let AGS have a brand new open file format, but also allow AGS to read in the file through a binary plugin, or a binary callout program. Then AGS could provide a binary plugin to load files from the existing file format. This way, everyone who has written a game for AGS already will not have to worry about their game data being trivially accessible. And going forward people have a choice. They can distribute their game in a format that will be guaranteed to be playable everywhere, or they can distribute their game in a format that isn't so easy to decompile. Paranoid developers could even write their own encrypted file formats and binary plugins to read them, but if the API to read files changed in a future version of AGS, their games may become unplayable. Additionally, if there was a conversion program, the the creators of existing games could be contacted for their permission to convert their game to the new open format. If they agreed, then their game would be converted. If not, then it would remain only playable via the binary plugin.
I realize that I'm suggesting a bunch of development work that I don't plan to do myself, but I had the idea, and thought it would be worth sharing. In the end, I'm grateful that AGS exists at all, and also that it's going open-source.
I've heard the possibility that the file format won't be open-sourced to make it harder to decompile people's games, and I've got some questions and an idea about that. Assuming that the rest of the engine gets open-sourced, how hard would it be for someone to write a program that simply grabs the data from in-memory, and writes it out in any format they want? I suppose only CJ knows the answer. Even without the engine being open-sourced, if no AGS decompiler currently exists, it seems like that's mostly because no determined hacker has decided to make one.
However, I do understand that people have put a lot of effort into games that they have released for AGS, and some are undoubtably worried about their game data becoming suddenly so easy to steal. So, here's a thought on a solution. Let AGS have a brand new open file format, but also allow AGS to read in the file through a binary plugin, or a binary callout program. Then AGS could provide a binary plugin to load files from the existing file format. This way, everyone who has written a game for AGS already will not have to worry about their game data being trivially accessible. And going forward people have a choice. They can distribute their game in a format that will be guaranteed to be playable everywhere, or they can distribute their game in a format that isn't so easy to decompile. Paranoid developers could even write their own encrypted file formats and binary plugins to read them, but if the API to read files changed in a future version of AGS, their games may become unplayable. Additionally, if there was a conversion program, the the creators of existing games could be contacted for their permission to convert their game to the new open format. If they agreed, then their game would be converted. If not, then it would remain only playable via the binary plugin.
I realize that I'm suggesting a bunch of development work that I don't plan to do myself, but I had the idea, and thought it would be worth sharing. In the end, I'm grateful that AGS exists at all, and also that it's going open-source.