About 5 years ago, I launched the first version of my airline business web game called Airline Empires. Through several upgrades, a handful of neglected periods, and a roller coaster of fame and notoriety, the simulation is stagnating in mediocrity. Time is an issue, and as I'm sure all of you developers are aware, its impossible to financially support a group of developers with the small revenue potential of these types of games. So I find myself at a crossroads of development. Do I let the game lag behind the competition, or do I open the code allowing for better development, but giving the competition a free look at everything we develop?

Did I mention the competition? Basically there are 5 other airline simulations considered competition. None of them are open source, and all have superior functionality to Airline Empires. What they all lack is an in depth knowledge of the airline industry, and the complex algorithms I've written for the game.

Several questions I keep asking myself:
1. Could Airline Empires survive status quo?
It could, but it has already been surpassed by clones.

2. Are the algorithms a strong enough secret to keep at the expense of development?

3. If I open the source code, would that even mean active development would begin with a larger development group?

4. Would opening the source code just be helping my competitors more than my own game?


I appreciate any feedback the Dream in Code community has to offer.

If you'd like to take a look at the game, you can find the main page at: http://www.airlineempires.net

The login page is a bit harder to find at: http://www.airlineempires.net/content/view/63/77/ Please feel free to pm me if you'd like a demo username and password.

Well if you want to compete and you have some algorithms that the other guys don't, opening it up is only going to let the others take the pieces they don't have and then your game will be further behind before it gets a chance to even catch on with the open source community.

Secondly, this appears to be a very specialized game and knowledge of the industry is important. Your open source community isn't always going to have such intimate knowledge and may go the completely wrong with this project leading to disaster.

Third, if you have something the other guys don't, you should think about what you need to improve around these features to build it up into something that can compete. Your algorithms being the core piece of the technology.

Lastly, you really need to work on your marketing of the game. I went to your website and at first I didn't even know where to find the game and second if you hadn't said anything I wouldn't have known it was even a game. You need to get a lot of those blog articles off the page if they don't exactly pertain to the game. Your idea is to hype it and show off what you got that the others can't match.

If you have enough of a unique niche market, you may even be open for a buy out later down the road from a competitor. If you have something they want, they may want to acquire it.

Either way, going open source when you have a bag of tricks up your sleeve isn't going to help your cause. I don't think the open source community will be interested enough or have enough expertise in this particular market to take the game to the levels you need for competition. Your competitors will just dive in and take what you have going, leaving you bankrupt.

Hope that helps.

Not an expert at things like this.....but when I visited the site....it was so professional, I would sure hate it if others grabbed what you made from scratch.

Ok yea and just something about the site what age group is this game for? Over 18, good looking site, very professional, I like professionals.

If I were you, I would advance at things you have that other airline web based games don't have, if you have better content the players will leave them and come to you.

Like Martyr2 said I do doubt the open source community would know much about this market.

I have always wanted to run my own airline company......could I have a demo account...or is it the same as the normal sine up, if it is.....I am trying the game this second.

Not sure If I helped at all but I like the market you are aiming for and really encourage you to keep up the good work with the site.

......open source was my mistake with somethings I made.....sure lost money, don't make the same mistake as me but I am not a salesmen good luck.