I've been chewing on an idea for a few months. It's a bit of a scary idea. Somewhat experimental. Slightly radical. What if everything I make gets released free, open source, and under a permissive license? My games, my videos, my writing, my educational resources, my comics, everything. Just put it out there in the open and see what happens.
The idea scares me a little because it goes against the grain. But is it possible to make a living giving everything one makes away?
I know it happens for visual artists, musicians, and podcasters with platforms like Patreon. So yeah, it's possible! But for projects that take months or years to produce like games, I wonder if it could work.
Why would I want to do this? Well, I want to make my work as accessible as possible. I want it to be available for people to use, enjoy, and learn from. There's a rich history of game developers making and releasing freeware. While one could argue that releasing their work for free devalues it, I've been wondering if it instead allows the work to be more easily shared and thus gets played by more people.