03-04-2022, 10:22 AM
It might seem a good idea but there are a bunch of issues.
Firstly it is minefield regarding copyright and ownership. If tVGR started with source code, then the likes of Nintendo, Square Enix and Take2 would more than happy to send a C&D to close the site down. This is due to getting closer to the actual game itself. You hear about disassembly (e.g. the GTA ports to the Vita, the Super Mario 64 PC port) getting taken down. Plus a metric ton of games had its source code lost, you often hear about Sega and Square Enix having problems if they do remake/remaster a game. Not to mention the various games from defunct companies and deceased programmers.
Secondly each game as its own style of code. They might be in assembly language (very common for older games), the C related languages, Rust, even something Fortran or RPG Maker. The code might also be very hard to read, spaghetti coding is a thing (e.g. why Red Dead Redemption wouldn't get a port after its original 360/PS3 releases). Related to that, a disassembly of a game might not 100% match of what the programmers had done as some did have comments here and there (some NSFW too) that get lost. A disassembly is what people have done, most source code is very hard to find and only parts of it might accidentally still be in the game itself. The stuff that people can find like DOOM were made open by the developers themselves and even that might change...
Personally this should be something that the likes of the Video Game History Foundation would do. I think they deal with game source code on a legal basis. They preserved the source code to the Genesis Aladdin game and why they (via Digital Eclipse) was able to do a Final Cut version.
Firstly it is minefield regarding copyright and ownership. If tVGR started with source code, then the likes of Nintendo, Square Enix and Take2 would more than happy to send a C&D to close the site down. This is due to getting closer to the actual game itself. You hear about disassembly (e.g. the GTA ports to the Vita, the Super Mario 64 PC port) getting taken down. Plus a metric ton of games had its source code lost, you often hear about Sega and Square Enix having problems if they do remake/remaster a game. Not to mention the various games from defunct companies and deceased programmers.
Secondly each game as its own style of code. They might be in assembly language (very common for older games), the C related languages, Rust, even something Fortran or RPG Maker. The code might also be very hard to read, spaghetti coding is a thing (e.g. why Red Dead Redemption wouldn't get a port after its original 360/PS3 releases). Related to that, a disassembly of a game might not 100% match of what the programmers had done as some did have comments here and there (some NSFW too) that get lost. A disassembly is what people have done, most source code is very hard to find and only parts of it might accidentally still be in the game itself. The stuff that people can find like DOOM were made open by the developers themselves and even that might change...
Personally this should be something that the likes of the Video Game History Foundation would do. I think they deal with game source code on a legal basis. They preserved the source code to the Genesis Aladdin game and why they (via Digital Eclipse) was able to do a Final Cut version.