[HN Gopher] Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam
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       Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam
        
       Author : canpan
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2026-03-14 22:04 UTC (55 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openttd.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openttd.org)
        
       | basilikum wrote:
       | OpenTTD with its beyond clunky UI has a special spot in my heart.
       | 
       | There is even an Android version with the same very much not
       | touch friendly (but somewhat customizable) UI.
        
       | ocdtrekkie wrote:
       | This seems quite positive to me: Clearly the rightsholders are
       | not being total jerks since they're happy to allow an OpenTTD
       | bundle, and the original game is available with modern fixes as
       | well.
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | More likely they were jerks and blackmailed openttd into bundle
         | on the threat of forcing them off steam altogether.
        
           | LASR wrote:
           | Yep. There is no being nice in the business of copyright.
        
           | ocdtrekkie wrote:
           | They legally own the assets. Taking them off Steam if the
           | title is no longer abandoned by the publisher is a 100%
           | reasonable decision, so you need to understand this is above
           | and beyond what the publisher needs to do.
        
         | tonypapousek wrote:
         | > If you already own OpenTTD on Steam, nothing changes. You'll
         | continue to receive game updates as usual. If you ever need to
         | re-download the game, the game will remain in your Steam
         | library.
         | 
         | This part of the announcement was nice, too. It would suck if
         | existing users had it deleted from their libraries.
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | Steam is really good about that kind of thing. Not quite the
           | same, but I have a couple of games on my account that haven't
           | been sold on the store for years, and I can still download
           | them any time. I don't think there's any way for publishers
           | to _really_ remove a game that 's already been purchased.
        
       | jjmarr wrote:
       | I like Simutrans more because the cargo and passengers have
       | destinations in mind.
       | 
       | TTD and OpenTTD do not which incentivizes mechanisms to dump
       | everyone at the edge of the map.
       | 
       | Aside from that they're both transport games with bad UIs.
        
         | skulk wrote:
         | OpenTTD has the `cargodist` option which simulates reality more
         | closely. Passengers enter stations with a destination in mind
         | and will transfer at other stations.
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | Why the simutrans folks decided on a weird hardcoded frame rate
         | (40fps) that looks janky as hell on every single display ever I
         | will never understand. Unplayable. instant motion sickness.
        
       | xyzzy_plugh wrote:
       | It would be nice if someone could provide some explanation as to
       | why this situation is necessary. Did Atari's lawyers go full
       | tilt?
        
         | II2II wrote:
         | Who knows, though I always thought that it was rather odd that
         | OpenTTD was on Steam. I'm not sure whether that's because it is
         | an open source remake or because you had to own the original
         | for the graphics/sound assets back in the day. (Apparently that
         | changed over 15 years ago!)
         | 
         | Even if Atari's lawyers were involved, it may have been a
         | friendly exchange. The post claims that OpenTTD was available
         | on Steam for 5 years. That is more than enough time for them to
         | apply legal pressure. It's also worth noting that the open
         | source version is still available from the project website, as
         | are the open assets.
        
       | ndiddy wrote:
       | Obviously having OpenTTD available for free on Steam would
       | jeopardize Atari's paid rerelease of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, so
       | I think this is a good compromise. Hopefully they rigged it up so
       | the assets from Transport Tycoon Deluxe get picked up
       | automatically by OpenTTD when you install the bundle. I also hope
       | that Atari will be sharing some of the revenue from the bundle
       | with the OpenTTD team as part of this arrangement. They've spent
       | the last 20+ years adding nice quality of life features and
       | keeping the game playable, and I think they deserve to be
       | rewarded for that effort. Going back to stock TTD after playing
       | OpenTTD feels like a massive downgrade, like going from vim to
       | BSD vi.
        
       | koolala wrote:
       | Atari got a game I like called Awesomenauts and revived it from
       | being shutdown F2P to $20. They paid an old dev to get it
       | playable on a temporary contract. Though it has a few rough
       | qualities I'm glad it's playable again.
        
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       (page generated 2026-03-14 23:00 UTC)