GT1 Modding discussion

[Ambivalent_]

Well, as mentioned already - it's better to write game from scratch than rev-engineer GT1. It's a painly process you know.

Besides that for some unknown reason PSCX Redux doesn't work on my machine. It have nice debugger, but I can't run it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but for success in rev-engineer this game you need at least a team of 4-5 experts in rev-engineering. It's a not one-man job.

So basically either Polyphony makes GT1 open source or AI gets so amazing at coding that it is able to rev-engineer the whole game by itself.

Both options are a pipe dream for now lol


EDIT: maybe a petition for Kaz (or Sony) to make GT1 open source?

 

[pez2k]

EDIT: maybe a petition for Kaz (or Sony) to make GT1 open source?

That's making the big assumption that Sony and / or Polyphony actually still have the source code for GT1. It's been useless for 25 years, and was written on entirely different computers and OS than they use today. Someone would have had to have made a concerted effort to keep that specific version of the code somewhere as a backup for all of these decades, despite it not having any real value to the company due to the game being superseded by its sequel after two years, and most likely not being compilable with modern tools.

There's also the much larger issue - why would Sony want to let other people make their own derivative works using Sony's intellectual property? It doesn't make them any money, and risks hurting the GT brand. This is the hurdle which kills off official mod support in most games, never mind freely giving away all of the hard work it took to create the game too.

 

[Jandar-man]

EDIT: maybe a petition for Kaz (or Sony) to make GT1 open source?

GT1 is not in abandonware list. This is one of the most reasons why it will be impossible.

ps: people still play it - even sometimes

 

[Ambivalent_]

I think it totally makes sense to make GT1 open source (provided that the source code is saved).

Sony can't make money on GT1 because of the licensing issues for the cars (maybe even some songs). That is why we didn't get GT games on PS1 mini or the Classics store on PSN.

I don't see how GT1 being open source would hurt Sony or Gran Turismo. It's an almost 30 year old game that can't even be commercialized anymore due to legal (licensing) issues.

In fact, this could be a cool marketing move and could invite some veteran players back to the franchise, as well as some new players who could become new fans of the franchise.

 

[pez2k]

I don't see how GT1 being open source would hurt Sony or Gran Turismo. It's an almost 30 year old game that can't even be commercialized anymore due to legal (licensing) issues.

Sony don't want new fans of GT1, they want new fans of the game they're actually selling. Allowing other people to make their own variants of Gran Turismo also means having their very valuable trademark attached to products completely out of their control. Imagine if someone used the source code to make a version of the game where you score points for running over kids or something, I seriously doubt they'd want that associated with the GT name. Even just a badly-modified version which crashed frequently would reflect poorly on their brand.

It's also not just about not hurting them - they're a business, they'll only do what makes money. Spending the money to dig out old source code and release it for the goodwill of what is realistically maybe a couple of hundred people is absolutely not worth it for them, even ignoring the issues above. It's also source code that they spent of a lot of money to create, so giving it away for free doesn't add up.

There's also the point that the source code is technically useless to the public, as the Sony SDKs required to build it are not freeware nor have they ever been released to the public. Even if they were, there is no way to run a modified game on a standard Playstation console. For a source release to have any real utility, Sony would need to be implicitly endorsing pirating their SDKs and bypassing the copy protection on their consoles or running their games on other companies' hardware, all of which are the direct opposite of what they want people to do.

All of this is why you don't normally see source code releases for games in general. It provides a long list of issues and liabilities for the company, and basically nothing in the way of tangible benefits. We're frankly lucky that Sony haven't issued any cease and desist demands against existing GT mods, never mind supporting them in any way.