S&box is now an open source game engine

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

The three most prevalent themes in the discussion are:

Valve's Shifting Focus Away from Public Engine Support: There is significant discussion regarding Valve's lack of commitment to releasing or widely supporting the Source 2 engine and associated SDKs, contrasting sharply with their past support for modding communities.
- Support Quote: Regarding the Source 2 SDK, a user noted, "Originally people thought the Source 2 sdk, was going to be released with Half Life Alyx, but it never materialized." (Author: "charcircuit")
- Contrast Quote: A user lamented the change in Valve's strategy: "I remember when they were still shipping SDKs and proper mod support, even for their multiplayer games. Today they are just killing everything that could divert revenue from their cash cow CS2..." (Author: "super256")
The Financial Dominance of Steam Over Game Development: Several users expressed the view that Valve's primary business is now Steam, relegating their game development revenue (even from major titles like CS2 and Dota 2) to a secondary, less essential role.
- Support Quote: "Valve's cash cow is Steam." (Author: "wavemode")
- Context Quote: Another explained this hierarchy, saying, "All of their games... are basically just passion projects at this point, lingering on from a bygone age when they were a game development company." (Author: "wavemode")
S&box as an Emergent, Open-Source Solution Built on Closed Source: The discussion heavily centers on the launch of Facepunch's S&box, noting its development path (initially on UE4, now leveraging Valve's closed Source 2) and its licensing uncertainty, positioning it as a potential alternative akin to a "Roblox competitor."
- Technical Detail Quote: One user summarized the dependency: "S&box is open source, but you can't run it without a closed-source backend." (Author: "sznio")
- Licensing Uncertainty Quote: A user pointed out the ambiguity surrounding the Facepunch project's foundation: "It's built on Source 2 so that license isn't the full story" (Author: "whywhywhywhy")

🚀 Project Ideas

S2Mod Inspector: Source 2 Asset Pipeline Visualization Tool

Summary

A tool enabling developers to visualize and understand the structure of Valve's Source 2 assets (.dmx, etc.) without requiring access to Valve's closed-source internal tooling or full SDKs.
Core value proposition: Deciphering the modern Source 2 asset pipeline, which users note is significantly different (e.g., .dmx files instead of BSP) and less documented than Source 1.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Modders, community developers attempting to create content for S&box, CS2, or Dota 2 using partially reverse-engineered or community-supported Source 2 knowledge.
Core Feature	Import Source 2 asset files (meshes, materials, scenes) and render a human-readable, interactive graph or view of the internal structure, dependencies, and conversion pipeline (e.g., how a standard 3D file relates to the final engine asset).
Tech Stack	Rust (for cross-platform stability and performance with asset parsing) or Python with bindings to key libraries; Visualization via an integrated web framework (e.g., Tauri or Electron with WebGL).
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

"terabyte: I really struggle to wrap my head around how this engine works. I haven’t used it, but I have experience with Source 1 and its systems and I imagine Source 2 is an extrapolation of that. But I really can’t wrap my head around how they’ve turned it into a scene-based game engine when Source 2 is map-based, how they’ve managed to build a completely different editor that still leverages Hammer maps somehow..."
This directly solves the confusion expressed by users about the fundamental architectural changes between Source 1 and Source 2 (BSP vs. scene-based/mesh oriented).

Open Valve Engine Documentation & Conversion Tool (The 'Source-Historical')

Summary

A service that collects, cross-references, and standardizes documentation, known community workarounds, and open-source tools related to Valve's publicly available SDKs (Source 1 TF2 SDK, and any newly released Source 2 remnants like S&box source code components).
Core value proposition: Reversing the fragmentation of knowledge about older, well-loved engines, and providing migration paths/context for current community efforts.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Long-time Source modders, developers returning to Source 1 modding, and those trying to connect legacy knowledge to S&box development paradigms.
Core Feature	A centralized, navigable wiki/documentation system that actively links known undocumented quirks, bug reports, and successful community patches for Source 1 and S&box base technologies, featuring automated "Source 1 -> Source 2 Concept Mappers" (e.g., "What is the modern equivalent of a BSP map entity?").
Tech Stack	Static Site Generator (Hugo/Jekyll) hosted on GitHub Pages, powered by community contributions and automated scraping of old forums/wikis.
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

"torginus: Dude. People are playing and making Gmod and HL2 mods and maps to this day. How many 20+yo game engines can say the same?"
This capitalizes on the enduring legacy of Source 1 mentioned in the thread while addressing the frustration that documentation for the older but still active ecosystem is hard to find and maintain.

Community-Focused Engine Export Provisioner (For S&box)

Summary

A neutral, community-driven wrapper layer or service that negotiates/abstracts the complex, non-public licensing and distribution requirements necessary for exporting S&box projects (which depend on closed Source 2 binaries) as truly standalone executables for non-Steam platforms/local distribution.
Core value proposition: Overcoming the major barrier to entry for S&box—the current requirement to publish exclusively through Steam—which users clearly flag as a major uncertainty ("jNathanba: Same price as I do on my own website/store?").

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Independent developers using S&box who want distribution flexibility (e.g., selling on itch.io, launching direct desktop installers, or supporting Linux natively).
Core Feature	A managed service that accepts S&box project source, handles necessary runtime binary inclusion/linking based on Facepunch/Valve agreements, and produces a portable, non-Steam-dependent build, potentially operating on a revenue-share model that covers any licensing fees paid to Valve (though the tool's primary goal is to clarify/enable this path).
Tech Stack	CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions/GitLab CI), built around .NET compilation environments, communicating with S&box build tools.
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

"unavailableuser: You can't ship standalone games yet, they're currently in talks with Valve, lawyers talking to lawyers to try and make this happen."
This directly tackles the major roadblock preventing S&box from being a "serious third competitor" [hnuser123456] against Unity/UE by proactively attempting to solve the distribution/licensing ambiguity.