I feel like people would buy a game if the alternative was just that you have to compile it yourself and not have Steam achievements

For someone (a fucking large portion of people) who would play and beat the game over a weekend, you just gave everyone a boner for saving them a fuck ton of money. Pay $35 (or even free since their rig can’t do any of that regardless) for the game vs $80, fucking eh dude.

I don’t think you made the point you wanted lmfao.

That has nothing to do with my op. It's actually the opposite... If people could just copy shit they could copy it and make a version without subscription.

Also my op was borderline just sarcasm. Although isn't it how everything works in China with ip laws?

Thanks Satan.

That's not how the projects in his example work. It's closer to a game which you can play for free but getting it to start is a bit of a hassle if you aren't tech oriented so they offer to host it for you.

It wouldn't work for all types of games though. And some products do keep part of their offer behind a pay gap. Some work with donations, including governmental.

It is FOSS, see other comments.

Mindustry has also been paid since launch, its open source, not FOSS.