Can you sell a Doom II Wad you created commercially?

[baja blast rd.]

Quote

monster textures

 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

32 minutes ago, Andrea Rovenski said:

Either way, I think the idea of making a bigbox or a book, something physical, is awesome and more wad authors should consider it. I'd happily buy a book or box copy of wads that I love if it meant directly supporting the authors and also getting a cool shelf item. 

I absolutely love the idea of buying a boxed jewel case with a pwad on it. Or hell, couple floppies for the smaller and more oldchool wads! Down the Drain would fit on a single floppy, for example. Apparently there are "magnetic sensitive" stickers one can get to ship them safely world-wide. That would be so cool.. and support the artist

[Andrea Rovenski]

1 minute ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

I absolutely love the idea of buying a boxed jewel case with a pwad on it. Or hell, couple floppies for the smaller and more oldchool wads! Down the Drain would fit on a single floppy, for example. Apparently there are "magnetic sensitive" stickers one can get to ship them safely world-wide. That would be so cool.. and support the artist

manifesting this energy into reality 🙏

[Lucius Wooding]

The people who work on projects like GZDoom are talented developers; you couldn't afford them and you'd get queasy if you were handed the bill from a month of full time development. Their time and skills are quite valuable and they already contribute more "money" than you'd ever raise commercially just by working on it in their spare time. Not to mention the team has been working on it for years, they have their own vision for the project and more right than anyone else to make those decisions. They seem to get on fine without raising funds.

 

 

 

Spoiler

Hobbies in most cases are money pits that never return anything back except fun and enjoyment. Otherwise we'd all be rich.

 

[roadworx]

2 minutes ago, Havok said:

 

I've seen realistic textures using PBR materials. If it can do that then why can't it handle realistic water? In any case, the source code is available for GZDoom so I could potentially add those features myself if I wanted.

it can handle those (and they do in fact all exist, i believe), it's just that you're asking them to implement that as a feature rather than leaving it as an optional wad/pk3 that someone outside the gzdoom devteam maintains. for...some reason.

 

if you wanna fork it and add those yourself, then feel free to

 

2 minutes ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

I absolutely love the idea of buying a boxed jewel case with a pwad on it. Or hell, couple floppies for the smaller and more oldchool wads! Down the Drain would fit on a single floppy, for example. Apparently there are "magnetic sensitive" stickers one can get to ship them safely world-wide. That would be so cool.. and support the artist

again, action doom 2 did this. if you want to, then go for it; shit, i'd probably buy a copy from you, cuz that sounds pretty cool lol. just don't try to sell the wad itself :p

[Havok]

10 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

 

 

I don't know what your point is. I'm aware there are fan made enemies for Doom. It's just frustrated me that (correct me if I'm wrong) there's never been better designed versions of the stock enemies in Doom. There's been bad looking 3D versions. I like the voxel mod that makes enemies 3D but I'd like the enemies to look a little more realistic while still keeping the same look. I hate the way the enemies look in Doom Eternal, far too detailed, the classic Doom enemies look better.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

20 hours ago, roadworx said:

also, if by "fine" you mean that they were sued into oblivion by id software back in the 90s, then sure. shovelware disks are totally fine

oh were they? I had no idea! I just know these things were all over the place.

20 hours ago, roadworx said:

standalone games made using gzdoom don't use assets from doom though, that's the thing. they use their own assets, made by the developers behind the game

If you make a pwad with nothing but lines, relying on the iwad assets, that still wouldn't be okay, or would it? I'm wondering this because the freedoom iwads are explicitly made to be free of licensing restrictions. What if you say the pwad is targeting freedoom, which is functionally identical?

But I've also heard (sorry, I'm terrible with sources and specifics) that there are some legal issues with freedoom itself.

 

edit:

1. if you rely on anything else than the doom engine code, you're in trouble for trying to sell it.
2. relying on freedoom assets is fine, as long as you include the license.  https://www.moddb.com/games/freedoom/features/freedoom-faq
3. ideally, get bespoke assets made for the project.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Sneezy McGlassFace

[Havok]

6 minutes ago, Lucius Wooding said:

The people who work on projects like GZDoom are talented developers; you couldn't afford them and you'd get queasy if you were handed the bill from a month of full time development. Their time and skills are quite valuable and they already contribute more "money" than you'd ever raise commercially just by working on it in their spare time. Not to mention the team has been working on it for years, they have their own vision for the project and more right than anyone else to make those decisions. They seem to get on fine without raising funds.

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hobbies in most cases are money pits that never return anything back except fun and enjoyment. Otherwise we'd all be rich.

 

 

Because they're coders and I'm not. Hence why I would use the money to pay someone to develop a particular feature that I'm looking for.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

5 minutes ago, Havok said:

I don't know what your point is

You said monster texture. What you meant are sprites. Textures are on walls, sprites are on objects like monsters and decorations. The hell knight has a door texture on it, that's the joke.

[Kinsie]

42 minutes ago, Havok said:

What I was thinking was I would build a reputation making several well received WADs for free and then I would release my commercial game. 

Make the well-received WADs first and then you can start talking commercial projects, since we'll actually know what you're capable of and be able to decide whether or not to sacrifice our time following your vision instead of our own.

[Havok]

14 minutes ago, roadworx said:

it can handle those (and they do in fact all exist, i believe), it's just that you're asking them to implement that as a feature rather than leaving it as an optional wad/pk3 that someone outside the gzdoom devteam maintains. for...some reason.

 

if you wanna fork it and add those yourself, then feel free to

 

again, action doom 2 did this. if you want to, then go for it; shit, i'd probably buy a copy from you, cuz that sounds pretty cool lol. just don't try to sell the wad itself :p

 

Do you have a link to a realistic water/nuclear waste or lava texture that you can swim in please? I've never seen one before.

 

It looks like Action Doom 2 used exclusively their own textures though.

[ImproversGaming]

 

49 minutes ago, Gothic said:

Unless your name is John Romero, no.

Interestingly, I don't think even the great JR could do this. I interpreted the Sigil strategy as avoiding the issue by releasing a free WAD whilst monetising off of the other collateral (merchandise, boxes sets and music).

 

Agree with @Andrea Rovenski - if making money is an important factor in your decision then there are better ways to achieve this. Earning money will be tough in a highly competitive market with so much amazing free content from so many highly talented and dedicated creators.

 

All the best with whatever direction you take.

[roadworx]

1 minute ago, Havok said:

It looks like Action Doom 2 used exclusively their own textures though.

yes, it did. however, you can still sell a physical copy of the wad as long as you're giving the wad itself away for free (which is what action doom 2 did), because then what you'd be selling is a physical item and not a wad. which is fine, nobody would have a problem with that; it's essentially selling merchandise for the wad. the problem arises when you sell the wad itself, which is what you're wanting to do, isn't it?

[dasho]

12 minutes ago, Havok said:

Do you have a link to a realistic water/nuclear waste or lava texture that you can swim in please? I've never seen one before.

 

This is an honest question...if people want hyper-realistic liquids, why do they want them in a game whose geometry is far removed from reality and has enemies that are 2-dimensional by default (which is equally unrealistic)? If that's what you want, why not make something in Unity or Unreal or whathaveyou?

[Lucius Wooding]

9 minutes ago, Havok said:

 

Because they're coders and I'm not. Hence why I would use the money to pay someone to develop a particular feature that I'm looking for.

I've made this point before in similar arguments; it's easier to just learn how to do it yourself than to try and convince someone to do it for you, unless you provide more of a starting point than just an idea. 

 

-It's actually really cool and rewarding to learn new skills, especially since you're clearly interested in games. And although there's no way to dumb a lot of the process down, if you apply yourself you don't need to be a genius or have a math background to pick up a good deal of it. 

 

-It would take a lot of money to pay programmers. Good programmers often don't need to work more than a few months out of the year,  and yet still make good money because their skills are indispensable just like elite athletes and artists. To misquote Biggie Smalls, you can't replace em, you must chase em. So as a result they often can work on their own terms and refuse offers they don't care to take. Money alone isn't the best motivator for some of these weirdos.

 

-Remember, you want this stuff made but they don't. To motivate others to take your vision over their own is a tough ask, especially when they've already done 100% of the work themselves.

 

-If you're cool to the devs, and work halfway to your goal, very often they'll be willing to help you learn needed skills and explain things about the existing code and not charge money for this legitimately valuable favor. "Show me how to do this" has a much different tone than "Do this for me".

 

-If nothing else, even if you fail to learn, you'll gain a great appreciation for the skills and hard work put into this community.

[Havok]

5 minutes ago, dasho said:

 

This is an honest question...if people want hyper-realistic liquids, why do they want them in a game whose geometry is far removed from reality and has enemies that are 2-dimensional by default (which is equally unrealistic)? If that's what you want, why not make something in Unity or Unreal or whathaveyou?

 

I like the art style of everything in Doom apart from the water for example which doesn't really look anything like water. It looks really bad. I don't think having realistic liquids would spoil the art style of everything else.

[raddicted]

yes, and you can make approximately a bajillion million dollars

[ViolentBeetle]

Legally, making a wad would be something like making an entirely new from scratch audio for a movie, like a parody dub (That isn't actually a translation or anything). Doom.wad would be the original movie that your customers would already own, possibly legally. The executable is like media player, free and open source.

 

But who would pay for it?

[Redneckerz]

So @Havok you are an Ideas Guy with some mapping experience. Is this a correct assessment?

[RataUnderground]

I think that if you make a good pwad and allow people to contribute a voluntary amount (as many itchio projects do), you might make some money. Not a salary, of course (after all, we're not that many around here), but I would at least be willing to reward creative people for their efforts, like any other kind of artist. And if those who buy the paid version get an extra, that would be great :)

[Faceman2000]

I think it's a great idea Havok. You should do it. I'll buy it. Just make sure you put a single purple pixel in all the artwork first to avoid copyright issues.

[Azuris]

4 hours ago, Havok said:

The reason I ask is that the Gloome Source Port seemed to suggest you could sell a WAD you made using the original Doom II textures. 

 

A video game developer who published their own game (nothing to do with Doom) said that under copyright law, in video games if you change a texture even very slightly then you're aren't breaking copyright. Haven't the original Doom 2 textures been upgraded with high resolution textures in GZDoom or is there some other high resolution texture pack that can be commerically used? And would that count as changed textures?

 

No, as you can't upscale Mario and say you changed him enough.
Make everything new.

 

Here two Examples of Games being sold using some Source Port of the Doom Engine:

 

https://www.gog.com/de/game/hedon

 

https://www.gog.com/de/game/rekkr_sunken_land

 

 

[Mr Masker]

3 hours ago, Havok said:

It's just frustrated me that (correct me if I'm wrong) there's never been better designed versions of the stock enemies in Doom.

Well I mean, "If it ain't broke..."

[Murdoch]

4 hours ago, ImproversGaming said:

Interestingly, I don't think even the great JR could do this. I interpreted the Sigil strategy as avoiding the issue by releasing a free WAD whilst monetising off of the other collateral (merchandise, boxes sets and music).

 

This is correct. He was selling the box and other associated materials. The WAD was free, as it was available for a free download without the material.

 

As others have said, if you try sell a WAD containing original resources, modified or no, and the relevant people find out you will get in trouble. Personally, I have no interest in paying for a WAD when there's more high quality WADs out there than I could conceivably play in my lifetime. I suspect I am in the majority on this opinion.

 

If you were to make a physical copy with box art etc, essentially pulling a Romero as detailed above, you might net a few sales from people who like that kind of thing. But a year's salary? Not a chance.

[Scypek2]

2 hours ago, Mr Masker said:

Well I mean, "If it ain't broke..."

 

Well, of course. That's why he's asking for new features that make Doom better while also keeping it exactly the same!

[Azuris]

35 minutes ago, Scypek2 said:

 

Well, of course. That's why he's asking for new features that make Doom better while also keeping it exactly the same!

 

Freedoom :>

[Anarkzie]

I'm pretty sure you can sell a wad along as it did not come packaged with any of the commercial assets. 

 

The bigger issue is to do with are people willing to buy it, which is probably going to be no.

[Edward850]

I've decided to write a complete Q&A about this topic, with every possible question you could have answered with my professional insight. This isn't legal advice, but it's the next best thing you could get in this thread. As a note I'm not offering any privileged information, or know of any regarding Doom. Any of the information provided can be applied to just about any game, especially games with GPL code.

 

As with anything, if you are selling a game or game-adjacent no matter what it is from or for, always consult a lawyer. There are no exceptions to this rule. If you do not do this and there turns out to be a legal issue with what you're doing after money has been exchanged, you are going to be in for a really bad time!

 

"I want to sell a Doom wad, mod or original game made in its engine. What can I sell definitively?"

You are allowed to sell a completely original work made out of the Doom GPL source code release. You are not allowed to sell any of Doom's data assets (sounds, music, graphics, maps, etc) as these are not covered by GPL. You must include the source code with your game as per the rules of GPL. Modifying an asset does not remove its copyright under most stipulations. You also cannot include Doom (that being the name, imagery and such) in the marketing or in any aspect of the game. The only thing you have is the code and absolutely nothing more.

 

"Can I sell a Doom map/mod that requires Doom to run, even if it doesn't contain copyrighted assets?"

Possibly not. This runs afoul of id Software's intellectual property rights, as while modding the content is fair use, you haven't been given permission to use their property as a platform to sell your own work. This is a bit like trying to sell fan fiction in a way. Besides, the use of Doom, its name and its imagery in a for-profit context is absolutely a copyright and/or trademark violation, so even if you could somehow sell the wad you are going to have significant trouble trying to market it.

 

"Weren't there compilation discs of Doom maps sold in stores?"

Yes, and as best anyone can guess they were unlicensed. The catch with these is it was very difficult for id Software to litigate such things at the time, and it's up for debate as to what they were selling. It could be argued they were selling the disc itself as a convenience, not the actual work on the disc, as these were usually compilations of works from an FTP when legitimately the Internet was harder to access (so trying this now would be beyond pointless). They were also very careful not to say the word Doom or show any material from Doom anywhere on the packaging.

 

"Hasn't John Romero sold Doom mods?"

Only in a very indirect sense. Sigil sold a special edition soundtrack but the wad was free, and One Humanity was a charity event. There's every possibility as well that Romero got these cleared, Bethesda obviously know what he's up to give Sigil's presence as an add-on for the official ports.

 

"Could I just simply ask id Software if I could sell it?"

Physically nothing is stopping you from asking. However there's nothing simple about it, that would be an involved business deal. As such please don't go pestering game studios about this sort of thing.

 

"What if the map/mod was for another engine related game?"

Same rules different people. Heretic and Hexen are owned by Activision (at the time of me writing this, could be Microsoft real soon). Strife is owned by Nightdive.

 

"Can I include the DOS executable from Doom with my game?"

No. Doom's GPL code only applies to the Linux Doom 1.10 release. It does not retroactively apply to the DOS 1.9 release, which also contains the licensed sound API DMX which you are not allowed to redistribute.

 

"Am I allowed to use existing source ports as a base?"

Yes, this includes ports such as GZDoom, Eternity, DSDA, even Chocolate Doom. Be sure to check what license the port is under however as some source ports are GPLv2+ or v3 while other much older ports maybe under Doom's original Doom Source License distribution (notably up to and including ZDoom 2.8.1, only modern GZDoom changed the license to GPL), which is not allowed to be used for any commercial use at all. Some ports may include modified doom assets such as textures for their UIs, these need to be replaced. GZDoom has non-free assets stored in a specific removable file.

 

"What platforms can I sell my Doom engine game on?"

Steam, GOG, Itch.io, and any other distribution platform that allows for the distribution of GPL software. Note that the APIs used for Steam and GOG Galaxy aren't compatible with GPL, so you can sell on these platforms but can't use their special features.

 

"Can I sell my Doom engine game on consoles?"

Unlikely or no, depending. The SDKs for consoles seem to be incompatible with GPLv2 but I have not verified this myself. Normally an OS exception covers linking, but the implication is the OS SDK is still included for compiling where as the console SDKs are under strict NDA and can't be included at all in a source release. Talk to a lawyer.

However GPLv3 is absolutely incompatible due to the TiVo clause preventing secure platform distribution (if you can't compile the source for that platform as a third party, it's unelligible). Most source ports are GPLv3, such as GZDoom.

 

"Doom and Strife are on consoles with new ports, doesn't that violate GPL?"

Id Software are not beholden to GPL restrictions of their own code, given they own the copyright for it, and thus can continue to relicense it however they wish. The only thing they can't do is use other people's code from GPL ports without getting the copyright exempted from the owners. (GPLing code does not give up the copyright to that code, and thus you can keep relicensing it.)

 

Strife: Veteran Edition's source code has permissions granted (with conditions) to allow for its release on closed platforms. This was easier to accomplish given the small number of contributors to its reverse engineering project.

 

 

 

Edited June 8 by Edward850

[slowfade]

I don't think it'd be impossible to earn a bit of money if you were a Gazebo tier mapper relentlessly hyping a large crowd with a megawad, with screenshots and short videos, a gameplay demo featuring a map or two, for a few years while building it. Especially if you had an ability to make good (or entertaining, captivating) youtube videos and reach a wider audience. If I were a fundamentally different person I could make a lifestyle channel about Doom mapping and use every storytelling method available to talk about my megawad, show how it's done, do mapping livestreams, invite high-profile gamers to test some of my maps, all the bullshit you can think. I don't think it'd be impossible to sell 1000 copies of a $30 wad. Maybe even 2000, 5000. Maybe even 10k. If I'm not mistaken some people are earning six figures with excel templates and stuff like that.

 

A megawad as a retirement fund... Like the idea of that. Heh.

[Andromeda]

20 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

 

Count BIGDOOR2 looks badass!