I don't have much to add except to say that I think this is a stand-out example of how companies and preservationists should work together and not against each other. The childish folks who are upset about this aren't familiar with the realties of either open source games perseveration nor the realities of being an IP holder. This is as close as we have gotten to the Good Place. I wish Atari luck on the re-release and I hope that anyone who's upset about it reflects on why they are upset.
This is about as much as you can hope for tbh. More than a fair compromise.<p>Society has become quite 'entitled' to 'free' things. As popular as they are, torrents and free streams and emulation and clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact.<p>Now, those rights violations viewed in a larger context may change one's opinion on the whole, and I'm not jumping into that debate today.<p>Atari did a cool thing. That's rare in the corporate world today. Give praise where it's deserved.
Are they really stealing it though? They only brought the IP 30 years later they didnt make it or put any work towards it. The openTTD community has easily done 100x the work to extend the game.
First, I agree it's cool that Atari, with all its ability to completely screw small projects over, didn't do that in this case.<p>But, at the same time, I find it interesting that "emulations and clones" are considered entitlement (in a derogatory sense), but copyright protection is not. Before 1976 in the US, the _maximum_ copyright term was 56 years, and that would require filing for an extension from the default of _only 28 years_.<p>I think it's easy to forget that copyright as we know it is not set in stone. Historically, after 28 years, most works became public domain and that meant you could do literally whatever you want with it and it would not be legally stealing at all. I think we as a society have forgotten what it means to have a public domain.
> clones of games in an open source lib are all stealing something<p>If you're going that far, aren't proprietary games and software "stealing" open source libs too? I think your definition is a bit wonky.
> ...all stealing something. I know thats an unpopular thing to say but it a fact.<p>This is an unpopular opinion because it is not, in fact, a fact.
I think it's interesting to look at your opinion (not you particularly, but everyone) and see if it would have been different if instead of "Atari" it was "Chris Sawyer".<p>If it would have been, then there's probably an inconsistency somewhere.
As a sidenote, this whole situation implies just how important platforms are.<p>Nothing about OpenTTD has changed. You can literally just go download it off their website for free - same as it was 20 years ago. And you can add it to your Steam library just fine. It's only been on the Steam store for 5 of those years.<p>But the open internet is dead now and just being "de-merchandised" from a platform feels like being relegated to the dark web (maybe something the open source community doesn't quite fully appreciate).
> You can literally just go download it off their website for free<p>That's cumbersome. The main benefit of platforms is comfort. Steam takes care of installation and updating, while often also offers some access with the community. Open internet has more choice and liberty, but for the price of more work and annoyance.<p>That the main reason why all big platforms succeed and the small platforms fail. Comfort is just too valuable.
OpenTTD has an automatic update mechanism already and its installation is as simple as could be.<p>Steam succeeded because of its store, which still has the best prices on the market. That’s their original moat. Their current moat is sunk costs. People have thousands of dollars in their Steam Library. At this point Steam’s advantages as software are negligible, especially considering its poor performance.
Easiest of all is `pacman -S openttd`.
I don't remember how I first heard about slashdot, but I <i>know</i> I discovered debian and enlightenment through it, and I would assume I discovered openttd through it.<p>Perhaps some comment on a forum or usenet somwhere. Or perhaps on a compuserve group. Or maybe someone else at school.
Open internet is dead only to those that don't take the effort to discover. Otherwise it's still as open as it always was.<p>Since there was an internet to speak of, there always were and still are vast amounts of people unaware of stuff that exists, limited by no "platforms" but only by their own lack of desire.
That is true to some extent. However, let me ask you one simple question: how would you try to search for something if you are not aware of it's existence? In other words, how people that are not aware of existence of open-source projects (such as OpenTTD) are supposed to discover them if they're not searching for them on purpose (which is impossible given that they have no clue about their existence)?<p>Of course there will be some ways like social media or something else. But that question is what seems to worry many people in our case, in my humble opinion. Remember that most of the planet's population is not even aware of existence of open-source projects and open-source concept itself. So how are they supposed to discover it if they don't know about it? When it's present on platforms like Steam and GOG, it helps to spread the word, but when it's not... Well, I guess that seems to be a problem for some people.
> So how are they supposed to discover it if they don't know about it?<p>Presumably, through social interaction with others in the communities they are a part of. That's how I heard about OpenTTD in the early 00s, at least.
> how would you try to search for something if you are not aware of it's existence?<p>You're asking a leading question. The verb you're using here is one specifically indicating interaction with a "platform" (a digital aggregation of information). The answer is you don't search anything, you completely change your epistemic and interaction model. Instead you build a social web of people who have their own social webs, and you share things you've made and things that have been shared with you. This is your "platform".
> how would you try to search for something if you are not aware of it's existence?<p>How are most games on steam found? I kinda doubt all people find them through steam own mechanisms. I even doubt the majority find them this way. Gaming has multiple sources of information, be it news, social media, influencers or cooperations. Video-content is probably the biggest source of being discovered for most games these days.
> In other words, how people that are not aware of existence of open-source projects (such as OpenTTD) are supposed to discover them if they're not searching for them on purpose (which is impossible given that they have no clue about their existence)?<p>This question tickles me. In the before time, something would be so good you were compelled to tell someone about it.<p>Sriracha, Costco are brands you likely know that dont advertise, and somehow got popular. In the 90's there were bands that were massively popular with little to no air play, and less promotion (Fugazi is a great example).
> Sriracha, Costco are brands you likely know that dont advertise<p>This was a Costco ad <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i5CQVfmx-0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i5CQVfmx-0</a>
probably a little telling that you don't seem to know the name of the sriracha brand you're referring to that does zero-dollar advertising
By googling "best open source games" and finding blogs and forums that talk about them. In fact googling that exact phrase returns as its first search result a Reddit thread in which OpenTTD is one of the first games listed.<p>It's not like you can discover it on Steam any easier.<p>Of course, searching for information itself is also a skill, but it is a truly essential one for the modern world.
Right. This is a chicken-egg problem. We also need a replacement for google search; Google ruined it, on purpose. We are being made blind (not totally blind, but dumber, and then blind).
I played quite a bit of OpenTTD a year or so ago and I'm pretty sure I downloaded it straight from their site.
Technology Connections referred to this as “algorithmic complacency”, young people don’t like Bluesky because they have to decide for themselves what content to follow instead of a default algorithm feed
I use a similar argument to those who say that gaming is dead. Sure, if you're waiting for $AAA_DEVELOPER to change, it's probably dead, but you don't even have to look that far to find amazing games everywhere in indie and AA.
Sadly indie developers are only just starting get into my preferred genre. I am excited to see how a number of upcoming titles turn out, but for the time I’m stuck waiting for $AAA_DEVELOPER to change.<p>I’ve had half the mind to just try my own hand at game dev again.
Gaming feels dead to devs these days. But I know that's not what gamers care about.
> limited by no "platforms" but only by their own lack of desire.<p>Or Google's low ranking of their content
This is as good an argument as saying that Americans with unhealthy diets bear sole responsibility, ignoring the massive corporate efforts to convince them of the healthfulness of highly processed foods. While, obviously, individuals have ultimate responsibility for their actions, ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions through psychology, marketing/ads, paid “experts”, paid influencers and celebrities, lobbies, blah blah et cetera.<p>When I started using the internet, if I asked someone what the internet was I was unlikely to get any answer at all. It was new. I had to define it for myself. Ask a 6 year old what the internet is. It’s YouTube. TikTok. Roblox. Experiences that are designed to keep them there. It is obviously more difficult for an individual to engage with the open web than it ever has been (for those with access at all).
>ignoring the concerted efforts to influence those actions<p>Ignorance isn't the point. The issue is that it's your responsibility to stop them. the buck always stops at "I". Are they just going to stop themselves? Is your neighbor going to stop them for you? If so, why should she if you don't?<p>As Kant said, enlightenment is getting out of your self inflicted tutelage. When is it self inflicted? When you have the reason but lack the courage to act without direction from someone else.<p>Yes, there's influencers and lobbies but the solutions are still one search away. Even Google doesn't hide the alternatives from you. And sure we can force feed every American veggies and force install linux on their computers but that'd defeat the point.
> It is obviously more difficult for an individual to engage with the open web than it ever has been (for those with access at all).<p>It’s very easy. If you’re a producer, you maintain a separate presence outside the walled platforms. If you’re a consumer, you look outside the walled platform for content.
Hey maybe I’m wrong, overthinking it. Maybe the problem is that simple. Maybe you can only see things simply. There’s simply no way to tell.
>It’s very easy. If you’re a producer, you maintain a separate presence outside the walled platforms.<p>I want to try one day. Steam's pricing parity adds friction to that, though. I can't reward people for venturing to a place where they own their software, and that seems to be the only real way to move many.
The open internet is a whisper in a screaming crowd. Yes, it’s technically still there.
That's why we need to reel in these platforms. The mobile ones are slowly starting to relent, but that's only the beginning.
[dead]
This is beyond reasonable.<p>You can still download it for free outside of Steam.<p>If I make a Sonic fan game and Sega is like, you can keep it online, but just not on Steam, that’s nice.<p>In this situation you still have the option of playing it on Steam for a modest price<p>The alternative is the Nintendo route…
<i>One</i> alternative is the Nintendo route. Another is the Hololive route, wherein they started a publishing brand for indie fangames which they actively support and promote on an official Steam store page. Another example being Touhou, a one-man indie franchise with permissive commercial derivative works licensing, which has become a cultural phenomenon in Japan and to a lesser extent overseas thanks to an absolutely vibrant community that has made millions of fan illustrations, tens of thousands of albums, and thousands of fangames, hundreds of which are sold on Steam.<p>If megacorps would stop being stuck up their own ass and completely irrational about how they exercise their IP rights, they would actually be able to benefit massively from allowing their fan communities to flourish. The status quo doesn't have to be this shitty, and we don't necessarily need to give credit to companies who meet the incredibly low bar of "not Nintendo".
Steam is not the only way to play games.<p>Atari is very kind to say you can keep distributing a fan game, just not on a commercial storefront.<p>I don’t expect to see Sonic Fan games on Steam anytime soon. Even though Sega is one of the best publishers in this regard.<p>Now if OpenTDD said no , we’re leaving it on Steam for free ,Atari could probably contact Valve to get it delisted.<p>A compromise is not a loss. I’ve downloaded tons of applications and games without Steam holding my hand and somehow I’m ok. Although I do wish sandboxing solutions with better gpu support existed
Fully agree, and glad you posted this. Atari has no responsibility to the open source community, and indeed has every reason to push back against this effort. That they're willing to discuss things at all, and that they agree to help support the effort, is frankly astonishing and extremely kind-hearted.
At the same time, the open source community has absolutely no responsibility to make Atari profits here either. The outcome here is simply that open source is getting screwed over<p>It isn't kind hearted. Them trying to shut down openttd would lead to a gigantic clusterfuck that would hurt their sales. This is them trying to remove a direct competitor to them releasing a new game as much as possible, without generating community backlash - to maximise profits<p>These companies are not our friends
> open source is getting screwed over<p>It may have been "screwed over" if there was no access to the oss game. But you can still download the game from their website. They just do not want that these appear as competitors in steam/gog platforms, so they bundled the oss version. Both sides thought this was a reasonable resolution. Thus I don't see "screwing over" here.
And yet, they're also directly supporting the developers of OpenTTD via a donation and not giving them any legal harassment.<p>This is, at worst, a morally-neutral compromise that's far better than any worst-case scenario
"no responsibility" but they could have chosen not to intentionally hurt them
The Dwarf Fortress route.
>Additionally, as part of the discussions we held, Atari agreed to make a contribution towards the running costs of our server infrastructure. We are also extremely grateful for the many donations that have come in over the past few days from users - your support will help keep our services going, and it is deeply appreciated.<p>That's pretty cool of them.
I'm glad that Atari was willing to compromise at all. I'm happy with the updated response, and hope that it helps others understand the nuance of the situation. Anyone can still go download the main release from the official site.
How are people supposed to understand the "nuance of the situation" when they aren't even sharing it? What is the problem to begin with? Why can't both projects continue to exist independently?
The bundling might feel necessary from Atari's side because OpenTTD would compete with Atari's re-release on platforms like Steam and GoG (unlike on OpenTTD's website, where you're already at the end of the funnel for OpenTTD specifically and therefore Atari doesn't feel like they're losing a sale).
The problem is copyright won't expire on the 1995 game until some time next century, while a French company that acquired Atari's name and copyrights 20 years ago is now asserting their exclusive rights over the IP.
OpenTTD started from the ip they now own, and it's possible Atari could try and prove that in court. I don't know if they would win, but why spend the legal fees here?
Until the IP is flipped to another owner and the final squeeze begins. Gotta mirror this.
I'm sure I'm missing some context but what is Atari's role here exactly? Isn't OpenTTD an independent and fully legal project? What is Atari's basis for asking for a "compromise"?<p>Or is it just the case that the project maintainers got paid off?
These are not people ripping off TTD to make a buck. If you absolutely love the game so much that you spent 20 years modding it, you're going to have some respect for the original and the publisher and are probably glad they are interested again.<p>I get that it's not the same Atari as it was 30 years ago. But I liken it to you being a Beatles cover band and the estate of John Lennon reaches out to you, you're going to treat them with some sort of respect.
Atari own all the IP and copyright.<p>While OpenTTD is open source, it's basis is really that the original game was reverse-engineered, originally using the original assets, and then rebuilt.<p>Also all the map data etc is owned by Atari, so you need to have a 'genuine' copy to access all the levels etc.
What copyright? OpenTTD doesn't copy any code or assets from the original game. It is a ground-up rewrite. There is no copyright violation.
Note that, while it is a rewrite, it was done so through disassembling the original game, not via a clean room implementation. I find this particularly relevant given that the original was written (mostly) in assembly too.
It might be improved and changed in many ways. But I have zero doubt it would not lose in court any argument over copyrights. Most reasonable people would tell that it looks way too close to original. And that would probably be enough.
There's two issues:<p>1. OpenTTD is not a clean room rewrite. It started by disassembling the original game and manually converting to C++ on a piecemeal basis.<p>2. As the game was updated, sure lots of this code has been rewritten. Almost certainly the majority. But has all of it been legally rewritten? Ehh... much less clear.<p>This sort of process has generally been held to produce a derived work of whatever you're cloning, even if the final result no longer contains original code, hence why clean room reverse engineering even became a thing in the first place.<p>It's probably fuzzy enough at this stage that you could have a long expensive drawn out legal battle about it (and I suspect we'll see at least one for some other project in the coming years with the recent trend of "I had AI rewrite this GPL project to my MIT licensed clone"). Would OpenTTD win? Who knows. Could OpenTTD afford it? Certainly not.
Its not a clean ground-up rewrite. They dis-assembled the original binaries into assembly and started from there.
I read somewhere that it's not a clean room rewrite but rather it started off as a reverse engineering.
If I were to create a new game from the ground up, with new artistic assets, and not an LLM in sight, with the characters of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader playing around on the Millenium Falcon, I would be breaching copyright.<p>I'm not sure if look and feel of a game like Transport Tycoon can be copyrighted, but I wouldn't like to be against it.<p>(I remember buying Transport Tycoon from I think Beatles, in Altrincham. I clearly remember riding on the front seat of the bus upstairs on my way to Flixton back in 1994 reading the manual)
It seems you don't understand copyright. The entire game is copyrighted. Not just the specific sprites.<p>You can see the same effect if someone were to make a yellow short guy with metal claws and regeneration as a character.
[dead]
[dead]
Reproducing someone’s intellectual property and publishing it is exactly what constitutes a copyright violation.<p>You can retype someone’s book with your keyboard, it’s still not yours.
Reproducing the surface behavior of a program, no matter how faithfully, is not in itself copyright violation if it's a cleanroom implementation. But int this case it's not to write the new one, the developers studied (and manually translated to C++) the original code, not just the program's behavior. So this is more of a case of a derived work, like a translation of a novel.
Learn something new, dear GenZers:<p><a href="https://osgameclones.com/" rel="nofollow">https://osgameclones.com/</a><p>Maybe you all realize how much brainwashed from corporations yall actually are.
Reproducing is absolutely not a copyright violation. Otherwise emulators would have no legal option to exist.
What levels? TTD, Open or no has no levels, only a map generator, and you seriously don't want to try the reimplementation of the original one.
While Atari holds the rights to Transport Tycoon, I'd argue that at this point taking OpenTTD down would be a huge footgun; like Nintendo with emulators, they can also buy / license the engine and re-release the game on modern platforms under its official name.
I really wonder who "Atari" is these days . . .
Atari probably threatened to take it down if there wouldn't be a compromise. So a compromise was worked out that wouldn't require a takedown.
The initial post has omitted any reason for the change. Of course people would speculate, including in the HN comments.<p>What seemed majority at the time was the idea of some collaboration/partnership and monetary exchange.<p>I think its a good lesson in communication, especially when you have a dedicated community. Transparency is welcome.<p>Regarding Atari and "their rights", there hasn't been an Atari for way too long and the IP was passed between companies left and right without additive value to users. I expect transport tycoon to be another cash grab, but happy to be surprised for the better.
Atari being the commercial firm it is, I could very well imagine that stuff was under NDA. Just 'by default', because that's what the lawyers like. And only when angry speculations emerged they could be persuaded to just openly communicate.<p>Or the OpenTTD guys were not the best communicators. Considering it's the OpenTTD creators live at the intersection of the groups 'programmers' and 'adults who like to play with train sets' it wouldn't be a stretch.<p>All in all I think this collaborative approach is very much the preferred outcome.<p>All those people saying 'the open web is dead' and 'people don't download from websites anymore' are exaggerating imo.
In situations like this it's odd to me that the rightsholder wouldn't just sell an official build of the FOSS reimplementation with the assets (legally) included. If some of the proceeds end up going toward the FOSS reimplementation's donations then it seems like an easy win-win.
There are actually cases this has happened in (e.g. re-releases using ScummVM under the hood; id basing products on community source ports, etc.), but it's not always that simple.<p>Chris Sawyer as creator for example is known to have particular opinions on this as I recall, and if you e.g. look over to film making there's also a hot debate over preserving original artistic intent and original creations over later remasters. OpenTTD is more than a maintenance upgrade, it's a continuation and a different game.<p>Honestly I think it's probably just OK what Atari has done here. Monetizing the original assets is well in their rights both legally and morally (especially considering e.g. royalities to Chris), OpenTTD remains available everywhere, they're monetarily supporting OpenTTS, gamers will find it.<p>Note that once a commercial company decides to ship a FOSS project, they also are much more invested in potentially controlling its direction to different ends. This setup keeps OpenTTD community-run and independent, free to make decisions independent of a commercial agenda. This also feels worth protecting.
Another example is Heroes III with VCMI and HotA and other similar things. Some are attempts to do a bug-for-bug "vanilla" recreation, others expand on it in defined ways, still others add new features "in the spirit" of the original.<p>When you get to the last, you can definitely see how the original creator/artists could disagree.
I am very happy that this long stand grey area licensing situation around something I enjoy deeply has been resolved in what seems like the most perfect way possible
After installing TTD from GOG I panicked a bit, not seeing any DOSBox or DOS files. For a moment I thought it was files from an old Windows 95 version only, but there was (also) a DOS installer (INSTALL.EXE). I ran that, went through all the usual steps (select Sound Blaster IRQs and so on) and now I can run it from my virtual (git-managed) DOS disk install directory where I install all my DOS games and applications. Next to the original TT that I installed a few months ago from an old CD-ROM. For completeness.
So they were not "pressured" but Atari contacted them and they proceeded to make this decision based because they "needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests".<p>That sound indistinguishable from being pressured.
Reaching compromises with others is part of life. If the question is whether a copyright from 1995 should hold in this case, I would say no. But the world is sometimes not as we may want it to be. So taking that for granted, this seems like a very reasonable and mature resolution.
Indeed. It sounds like they were further pressured to say they were not being pressured.
The types of folks who make reimplemented game engines often do it as a labor of love towards the original. And the <i>best</i> companies often have great appreciation for their modding communities and preservationists. (Witness the good collaborations between some companies and SCUMMVM, for instance.) This may well have been a conversation that was entirely reasonable and respectful.
I think they're saying Atari didn't threaten them but they both understood that they <i>could</i> have. Honestly it sounds like Atari were trying to be nice. Like "you technically aren't allowed to do that, and we could just set our lawyers on you, but we'd like to not do that while also making money on our re-release".<p>This seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise to me.
Recent and related. Others?<p><i>Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47381746">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47381746</a> - March 2026 (131 comments)
you know, given that i've often said "if youre getting it for free, your the product" i am ok with this<p>its not really possible for the rights holder to compete with a free product, since they arent harvesting data or oxploiting the userbase, so they need to charge. and openTTD getting a cut of the money really does show that this is fully collaborative
Perhaps it is time for the law to evolve so softwares that are abandoned for x years become public domain (like Epic Pinball, Age of Empires, etc)
Seems reasonable to me. Back when I started playing OpenTTD, about 20 years ago, you had to provide your own data files from your ostensibly legal copy of TTD. They changed that after they started distributing free alternative graphics, but to be frank the <i>strict</i> legal status of both OpenTTD and OpenRCT2 has always seemed mildly dubious to me, on account of both projects being based off disassembled code. Atari is being fairly reasonable and gentlemenly about this.
Wonder if the reaction would be the same if Wine was conditional on buying a license to Windows.
Wine is not a full reimplementation of Windows, so not an analogous situation.
Well IF Microsoft would also collaborate with Wine...<p>I think I'd pay for a Windows License if it means I get official support for Windows apps on Linux (provided the support is indeed good).
In a world full of Nintendos, be Atari.
Would be nice to see OpenTTD on Steam/GOG, for a younger audience.<p>Some games have a good replayfactor. Transport Tycoon Deluxe was nice in this regard; the spirit should be retained so younger folks can play it.
> we have not been “pressured” by Atari to make these changes.<p>> Atari approached us to explain their plans for the Transport Tycoon Deluxe re-release, and what it might mean for OpenTTD.<p>> we understood that a compromise would be needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests […] against the availability of a free, well-developed evolution of the game.<p>Sounds to me like you were pressured by Atari to make these changes.
Everyone's being diplomatic, including most of the HN comments.<p>This seems to be the simplest compromise, and allows OpenTTD to continue existing without too many problems from Atari, so people don't want to make waves.
There is no way not to, OpenTTD has 0 cards to play since everything is explicitly build on IP that is not theirs, and they know it. They were "not pressured" because Atari didn't utter threats to them, it didn't need to come to that because the OpenTTD people were reasonable, and so was Atari.<p>Not sure why so many commenters are failing to grasp this.
[dead]
> a compromise would be needed to balance Atari’s commercial interests (which of course they are entitled to pursue as the rights holder)<p>No, fuck 'em. They had nothing to do with developing the game, and in a sane copyright structure a thirty-year-old work would be public domain by now.
Agreed. Publishers need to be knocked off this absurd moral high ground. If merely being rich is enough for me to profit off of Miles Davis songs for decades after his death, copyright is just another wealth redistribution to the rich. Steal all the games and music, and any ghoul that claims I’m stifling creativity can compare their compositions to mine.
> They had nothing to do with developing the game<p>OpenTTD started as an effort to translate the original game’s assembly into higher level code.<p>It was not a clean room implementation. The original code was used as a base.
> in a sane copyright structure<p>You are not wrong. But alas we don't have that. ANd in the reality we live in this collaboration is way better than the alternative.
Well, they shouldn't be entitled but they <i>are</i> entitled.
But it's not and we don't live in fantasy land. Your approach would have it shut down tomorrow.
[dead]
Atari is releasing an inferior product and needs the superior community one delisted. The remaster cannot compete, simple as.
it is neither being delisted, nor was it requested to be. As far as rights holders exercising their rights, this is about the most collaborative way it could have gone. Not every rights holder is a John Carmack.
> please be nice to Atari<p>You're not my mom...
Now with AI I wonder if it’s possible to just let agents build a perfect emulation of the game. It reminds me of fuzzers. You let the agent go loose on the game and it brute forces every possible state. Then recreates the code. It’s very inefficient- but it probably works.
Why would you when an open source version already exists?
You’re going to <i>brute force every possible state of a sandbox building game.</i> See you on the other side of the heat death of the universe; hope you stocked up on Claude Code credits.
So <a href="https://malus.sh/" rel="nofollow">https://malus.sh/</a><p>Good luck with all that