OpenGameArt.org

Last updated
Open Game Art
Opengameart-logo.jpg
Type of site
Media Repository
Available inEnglish
OwnerBart Kelsey
Created byBart Kelsey
URL http://opengameart.org/
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedMarch 28, 2009 (2009-03-28)
Current statusActive
Content license
Various Open content / Free Cultural Works licenses

Open Game Art is a media repository intended for use with free and open source software video game projects, offering open content assets.

Contents

Its purpose is to allow developers to easily replace programmer art with high-quality, freely licensed artwork. [1] [2] It accepts both 2D and 3D art, as well as sound effects and music, unlike similar projects such as ccMixter, which only deals with audio samples and songs, and The Freesound Project, which limits itself solely to samples.

Content licensing

All content found on Open Game Art is licensed under free licenses. The project does not accept content licensed with clauses which prevent commercial reuse or remixing (like the Creative Commons license clauses NC or ND), as these are perceived to restrict users, thus making the content non-free. [3]

The acceptable licenses currently are: the Creative Commons licenses "CC BY-SA 3.0" and "CC BY 3.0", the license "OGA-BY 3.0", which is based on the "CC BY 3.0" license but removing that license's technical restrictions (i.e. anti-DRM restrictions), the GNU licenses "GPLv2/GPLv3/LGPLv2/LGPLv3" and the Public domain like license "CC0". The latter is functionally equivalent to releasing content into the public domain, relinquishing as many rights as possible. [4] Content under other highly permissive licenses such as the WTFPL or public domain-like licenses, should be relicensed as CC0 before being uploaded according to the site's FAQ. [5] The website also allows co-licensing, that is, the uploading of assets under more than one license, similarly to Wikimedia Commons.

Content

Sara is the mascot of Open Game Art. This interpretation of the character was made by David Revoy. OpenGameArt Sara.jpg
Sara is the mascot of Open Game Art. This interpretation of the character was made by David Revoy.

Being a repository for free content, much of the site's content is often created using free software such as GIMP, Inkscape, Krita and in particular, Blender. [6]

Artists from the Warzone 2100, The Battle for Wesnoth and Frogatto projects, amongst others, have contributed assets. [7] Portions of the collections of Quarternius and Kenny.nl are also included. [8]

The site also has a section for articles and tutorials, as well as a discussion forum for its users.

Operation

Hosting costs are currently paid for by the site operator. Donations are accepted through a PayPal account, and are used entirely to commission new artwork, with users being able to make requests as to what kind of artwork is commissioned. [9]

From June to July 2009, a pixel art contest was run to create clothes, hair and accessories [10] for a pair of humanoid sprites that had been commissioned exclusively for Open Game Art. [11] This subsequently evolved into the Liberated Pixel Cup (LPC), a project to create a unified set of Creative Commons artwork. [12]

To stimulate new artistic contributions, the site also hosts an informal weekly competition called the Friday Challenge, wherein an artistic theme will be announced on a Friday, and entries will be voted on until a winner is decided nine days later. [13]

OpenGameArt.org is also affiliated with related websites such as Libregamewiki, [14] a database of purely libre games, the Free Gamer blog [15] and the FreeGameDev forums. [16] [17] [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creative Commons license</span> Copyright license for free use of a work

A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. CC provides an author flexibility and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.

A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source code and object code forms, unless that software was developed by the United States Government, in which case it cannot be copyrighted. Authors of copyrighted software can donate their software to the public domain, in which case it is also not covered by copyright and, as a result, cannot be licensed.

<i>Free Software Magazine</i> Web site and magazine about free software

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free-culture movement</span> Social movement promoting the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others

The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content or open content without compensation to, or the consent of, the work's original creators, by using the Internet and other forms of media.

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This comparison only covers software licenses which have a linked Wikipedia article for details and which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, the Debian Project and the Fedora Project. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, see List of free-content licences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-source video game</span> Video game whose source code is open-source software

An open-source video game, or simply an open-source game, is a video game whose source code is open-source. They are often freely distributable and sometimes cross-platform compatible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public-domain software</span> Software in the public domain

Public-domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words, software for which there is absolutely no ownership such as copyright, trademark, or patent. Software in the public domain can be modified, distributed, or sold even without any attribution by anyone; this is unlike the common case of software under exclusive copyright, where licenses grant limited usage rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTFPL</span> Permissive free software license

The WTFPL is a permissive free software license. As a public domain like license, the WTFPL is essentially the same as dedication to the public domain. It allows redistribution and modification of the work under any terms. The title is an abbreviation of "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public-domain-equivalent license</span> License that waives all copyright

Public-domain-equivalent license are licenses that grant public-domain-like rights and/or act as waivers. They are used to make copyrighted works usable by anyone without conditions, while avoiding the complexities of attribution or license compatibility that occur with other licenses.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to free software and the free software movement:

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Creative Commons is maintaining a content directory wiki of organizations and projects using Creative Commons licenses. On its website CC also provides case studies of projects using CC licenses across the world. CC licensed content can also be accessed through a number of content directories and search engines.

<i>Frogatto & Friends</i> 2010 video game

Frogatto & Friends is a platform game with adventure elements released in July 2010. The game received positive reviews, particularly for its "gorgeous" pixel art. The game is cross-platform and runs on Linux, AmigaOS4, AROS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS. The game uses an open-source engine, with game data mostly proprietary and partly under Creative Commons BY license.

A public license or public copyright licenses is a license by which a copyright holder as licensor can grant additional copyright permissions to any and all persons in the general public as licensees. By applying a public license to a work, provided that the licensees obey the terms and conditions of the license, copyright holders give permission for others to copy or change their work in ways that would otherwise infringe copyright law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unlicense</span> Anti-copyright license

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References

  1. What's the purpose of this site? on opengameart.org
  2. "Free-licensed art for free software games". Free Software Magazine. Archived from the original on 2011-01-01.
  3. Hancock, Terry (2009-09-16). "Free-licensed art for free software games: OpenGameArt.org". Free Software Magazine . Archived from the original on 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
  4. "OpenGameArt FAQ". OpenGameArt.org. 14 July 2011. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
  5. WTFPL content on OpenGameArt.org
  6. "Open Game Art - Free game content". BlenderNation. 15 November 2009.
  7. Bardin, Maxim (2010-07-25). "Frogatto 1.0 released". Linux Gaming News. Retrieved 2023-10-03.
  8. "Quaternius Free 3D Assets". GameFromScratch. 2023-02-02. Retrieved 2023-10-03.
  9. Donation page on OpenGameArt.org
  10. Pixel Art Contest!
  11. The first OpenGameArt.org exclusive artwork is now done!
  12. Rodriguez, Juan (2012-04-27). "The Liberated Pixel Cup: proving the potential for free culture and free software game development". Opensource.com . Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  13. Introducing the OGA Friday Challenge
  14. Bolding, Jonathan (4 September 2022). "Y'all know about these huge lists of free, open-source game clones, right?". PC Gamer . Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  15. Sogge Heggen, Erlend (2011-02-08). "Open source games: It's a team effort". Opensource.com . Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  16. Behrenshausen, Bryan (2014-07-21). "What is open gaming?". Opensource.com . Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  17. Banks, Hunter (2015-11-11). "The State of Open Source Gaming on Linux". FOSS Force. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  18. Hasan, Mehedi (2022-07-13). "The 20 Best Linux Gaming Websites That Every Gamer Must Know". Ubuntu Pit. Retrieved 2023-02-02.