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I'm curious as my previous company is asking us (people who developed the game) on what to do to the game since it's no longer financially viable.

My suggestion was to open source it so people can still enjoy the game at the same time it could at least be improved.

But we did use a licensed Torque engine which was mostly recoded/reworked. Not sure if their license allows for the move though.

(Also not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask here)

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I'm voting to close as "too localized" - whether this is possible or not depends entirely on the contract you had, which is probably under NDA, and even if it wasn't, IMO this is a legal question and not a game development one. –  user744 Sep 24 '10 at 7:50
Agree @Joe. Still, if you kept your code and the library well separated, you could very likely open source at least your code - but I guess that's not the case. –  Lohoris Sep 24 '10 at 8:51
Like I said I'm not sure if it was an appropriate question. I guess I should've ask the owner to review his license agreement rather than asking here =p. –  Wight Sep 24 '10 at 9:17
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4 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

Most likely not - I doubt Torque would want their engine to be open-sourced.

For a real answer, read the license you signed when you bought the engine.

For an even better answer, read the license, then hire a lawyer to read the license.

What you may be able to do is distribute the Torque modifications as a patch. Anyone who has the engine source will be able to apply the patch and release a build. But, again, consult a lawyer before doing this.

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I had a teacher that made the game Alien Anarchy. He cannot re-release or open source the game, because of licensing issues. –  speeder Sep 24 '10 at 16:45
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I would say that the answer lies in your Torque license, which your company's legal department should read and base their decision on that.

You could also just email the Torque folk (they're quite friendly!), explain what you want to do, and ask if they see any problems or can suggest a path that gets you what you want.

This advice works in the abstract, too, and can be the answer for any question of the form "does my XYZ license allow me to do FOO?"

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Your license with the engine owner prevents you from open sourcing it, not the fact that you used or modified it. Reading said license will confirm this.

Another option would be to give it to Instant Action (the company that owns what was once known as Garage Games, who created Torque) and let them distribute it as a sample, or otherwise integrate your changes into their work.

Console manufacturers explicitly disallow releasing code that uses their APIs to the public or to any non-licensed third parties, too, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Torque's license also forbade doing this with any of the code that you wrote.

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Downvoted because? –  dash-tom-bang Sep 28 '10 at 22:02
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Maybe you can make your TorqueScript gameplay code open source rather than the actual engine source.

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