# more indie games should be freeware aka being online isn't enough scenario: in which it's not enough for indie game developers to simply be online merely having an official game website and a blunt promotional strategy doesn't mean devs understand or truly care about the actual "spirit of online sharing" many developers[citation needed] think that by simply being part of some (largely mythical and romantic) indie game movement they're somehow automatically doing enough to encourage the growth of the living spirit of the internets yet in fact "online = share everything": to be online means to share it all the whole experience - ideas (game design documents) development tools source code art assets - and profits the main reason given for why so many indie games aren't freeware - that "developers want to actually sell ir game duh" - is often too simple an explanation in a massively networked age keeping everything to do with teh game tightly locked down is a ridiculously obsolete notion and only helps prevent innovation and slow down the speed with which fresh ideas may be realized consider video game mods: why aren't more video game mods themselves entirely modifiable? why is there still a pervasive atmosphere of auteurism among game devs? keeping the behind-the-scene contents of your mod your own and not sharing them with others is amazingly unnecessary the point of modding is to share what you love to help create - yet there's often an unspoken attitude in teh game modding scene of "this mod is my hard work and belongs to nobody else" but that's the point - everyone builds upon a matrix of per-existing ideas; no state of play is an island unto itself indeed too many games are almost arbitrarily similar; the ability to simply fork off a main shared depository of code and assets needs to be more fully implemented in play culture indeed development will be even quicker and easier when the often highly inflatable modern rock star egos of developers don't get in the way - and everything to do with a game is placed online for free from the very outset this is not simply to encourage the idea of open source games (which misses the point) but rather to promote the free (libre) sharing of ideas pretty soon the simple idea and delight of sharing everything to do with teh game will seem totally cool and important // image here: the high (ego) cost of indie game development // republic of bob