> That sounds the authors are giving up on the project, not that it's an opportunity for Wolfire to leverage the community to build a brand new thing.
It doesn't have to be either of these things. They have been very clear that they're releasing the code as open source as a learning experience for those interested in one or more of these three things:
1. Are interested in looking at what shipped game code can look like.
2. Want to look at specific code, like the procedural animation system.
3. Are an Overgrowth modder who wants to make a more involved total conversion or mod
They haven't given up on the project nor are they attempting to leverage the community for anything. Instead, they are releasing their code for others to see (and potentially use) in case it's useful...full stop. The code is released under the Apache license in the case that someone wants to reuse the code for their own project and sell it. Actual content is not included because then someone could just resell Overgrowth.
This viewpoint of yours is unnecessarily dense and pessimistic, especially in regards to a company that has done exactly this same thing in the past with Lugaru.
>this was announced a week ago and not a single person has commented/liked/whatever on the post at the bottom.
Given that their yearly disqus discussion is at a staggering 4 comments, I don't think this says anything either way. It seems in this case people chose to comment on the youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOdjo_Do6hM
If you think that no one cares about this, I'd be happy to link to a few reddit posts I read last week on the announcement. There was a volume of discussion at the time from a developer and consumer standpoint (whether or not it was productive I'll leave to your judgement).
>I think people who claim this project is going to be actively developed in 5 years are being optimistic and naïve.
Is this an expectation of a game that's been "released" for 4.5 years? are there some major features promised or bugs that warrants active, continuous (but not necessarily full time) attention from the developers?
Maybe I'm old fashioned from a day where you can't patch your game randomly 13 years later like Binding of Isaac, but I don't see a need for every game to take on a SaaS route for the sake of... well, whatever players here seem to desire in this game and not a sequel. I don't know that answer.
