This post is a rewrite of a forum response that I made on the Talk Arcades gamers forums. You can read the original thread here. In the thread, someone by the pseudonym of ‘Twistedduck’ announced the development of a new arcade script that aims to “be better than all the others”. He/she asked forum members to outline what their ideal script would consist of. The thread received a fairly enthusiastic response and people generally accepted the idea that this is yet another business venture aiming to corner the arcade market.

One of my own suggestions was to make the script open source. In response to this, Twistedduck said: “I think going OSS is not something we would really consider – after all this is a business venture, but thanks for the idea anyway.” The reaction is fairly straight forward and is based on the common belief that open source software (OSS) equates to free software and is therefore not profitable. I disagree. Some of the most successful business ventures have begun with open source applications at their core. To palm it off as an impossible business venture signals on the one hand a lack of understanding of OSS and its capabilities, and on the other hand an implicit need to conform with the current market structure.

In the following few paragraphs I’ve layed out a brief action plan for the development of an open source arcade script. Given that Twistedduck and his/her associate are highly unlikely to take this plan into consideration – they are far too bamboozled by the 4 figure sum that a small proprietary arcade script will bring them – I offer the model to any brave soul who is looking to make a serious impact on the arcade and multimedia script market.

In its current form the market is spread among a handful of individuals who all place financial return before quality of product. This has lead to poorly coded scripts, laxed script support and a culture of mediocrity among arcade webmasters. So the conditions for a paradigm shift in this niche market are almost perfect.

In considering the possibility of an open source script we must first let the idea of the simple economic exchange of goods drop for a moment and consider another way of creating wealth.

Let’s assume that you and your associate are expert developers and that you’re able to build a semantically coded platform for the distribution of multimedia content that responds to current webmaster needs, that addresses the ills of existing scripts and that meets your own aspirations.

Let’s also assume that your platform is both ‘themeable’ and modular; in other words it can be extended and built on using 3rd party add-ons. Let’s keep rolling with these assumptions and say that you release this software under a GPL2 or near-equivalent license, thus allowing others to modify the code base, to contribute to it, enhance it, but not to pass it off or resell it as their own.

Now providing that your software is a) properly coded b) user friendly and c) aesthetically coherent, then what you have just done is to create the de facto framework that will power new game arcades and other multimedia sites for years to come.

The consequences of this are where things start to get interesting. First of all by making this platform open source you will have contributed to a lineage of work that champions ethical practices in coding and accessibility – enabling others to learn from your work and to partake in it with you. In short you will have earned yourselves a solid reputation and this will inevitably open doors to other prospects of work and collaboration and other primary sources of benefit.

Secondly, your platform will have broken the entire arcade script market and you will have absorbed the competition. Within a matter of months, rival script owners/developers will ditch their individual Machiavellian schemes and begin searching for ways of generating income from your platform. Many will start developing add ons for your platform, some free, some paid, but all finding a way back to the source i.e. you.

Thirdly, users of your platform will become its strongest medium of publicity. Your software will spread virally and accrue thousands, possibly tens of thousands of genuine links back to your site. Users will do this of their own accord. For once they will not be coerced into doing so by the petty stipulations of some desperately restrictive commercial license, but simply because they want to give genuine recognition to your achievement. They’ll be proud to use your software.

By this time you and your friend will have established ‘Company X’ – the company that is credited for the entire operation and as a result you will receive a high influx of job demands; you will now have the luxury of choice. You will also begin to employ other members of staff and operate as a professional and scalable set up.

Finally, after a good year to two years of sustained growth, your platform will have considerably evolved and will offer a wide range of options for webmasters. On the whole, not only will you have gained indirect financial benefit and professional renown from the project, but you will have helped lift the flash arcade industry out of its current state of drudgery, instilling higher standards, wider choice ranges and a better gaming experience for all.

The economic exchange of goods is not the only means of creating wealth.