ideasman42
Most of the commercial and big games has data that can open with some tools… Some of them has own editor for example (the biggest ones too: Unreal, Cryengine etc.). I have no worry about anybody can open my blends - my blends are protected by copyrights as you write.
I dont understand why you think this? I spend time with it, but not in this topic… This is very simple I think.
ideasman : how to make a modded blender player for 2.49 like you said ? 
Lemme throw in my 20c into the thread
You don’t need to embed anything into your game, endi, to distribute it using Steam. Just make a game, reach beta stage, submit it to Valve and if they feel the game is fun, they will let you use Steam to distribute it. You will have to finish the game, prepare installers for PC, Mac and Linux (yes, Steam is going to Linux too).
If you want to make $$$ with your game, I encourage you not to release game as whole under GPL (keep data under proprietary license), because you will fail commercially.
Also keeping all the data in a single archive (.zip file renamed to anything else; pk3 in my case) helps to keep people away from poking your art assets (at least for a while).
Good luck with your game!
-It is possible to put code in BGE that the online distributors needs (for example: Steam)?
You can put whatever you want into the BGE as long as it’s GPL compatible. Most people (I think) don’t seem to realize that it is a violation of the GPL to include non-GPL compatible code even if you provide the source.
The easy way around this is to make the non-conforming code into an external lib and link the BGE with it like linux kernel modules do.
-It is possible to get support from official Blender developers (for money of course)?
From what I can tell they seem perfectly happy to accept money in exchange for working on specific projects using blender.
-What about the Mac? It is true Blender and BGE totaly compatible on Mac? (Or on Linux?)
Pretty sure it works on linux – don’t know about OSX.
–edit–
Reading the GPL for artists page it seems the ‘kernel module clause’ isn’t valid for the BGE (or blender) which makes sense because it is technically a violation of the GPL but tolerated in an ‘ends justify the means’ kind of way by the kernel folk.
More advice on this topic…
Go ahead and make your game, worry about the details of how you meet every spec of the GPL later. 99.99% sure you can just distribute your work without troubles.
Even if you go into GPL grey area (like some say the closed kernel modules are) - NVidia do it and manage :D, Im sure you can too.
And even if you end up breaking the GPL somehow, who is going to take action against you? - the blender foundation???, doubt that would happen - theoretically possibly but IMHO just not likely.
And even if it does all you need to do is comply, which probably means opening up some small bit of code.
The blender foundation already says game scripts are considered ‘data’ - so I just wouldn’t worry about this so much.
I know you said you do not want to learn something new
but I feel if you want to go via steam and be successful
I think BGE might not be the tool of choice here.
The project I was involved in always turned to be done
with the Unity Engine.
Keep in mind with that engine you can now also release
the games for the iPhone. In terms of technical access
it also seems to be a better platform than BGE at the
moment.
Claas
Dark Places can be as good choice too 
Hi Endi,
some good questions.
I’m not a serious user of the BGE but can possibly answer some of your questions as well as other related questions.
-What is the compatibility of the GLSL? I plan my game it must run in a Gef7600 minimum config. It must run on popular integrated videocards too but with at least the performance of a Gef7600.
I don’t think anyone has a good answer for this at the moment.
-It is possible to put code in BGE that the online distributors needs (for example: Steam)?
Steam runs some old games that it ships on DOSBox. DOSBox is GPLed so presumably there is a way to ship GPLed software in a way that makes Steam happy that is GPL compatible. I was actually planning to email Valve to query about what challenges might be involved having the BGE ship in Steam.
-It is possible to get support from official Blender developers (for money of course)?
Right now yes sorta. In the furture even more so.
-What about the Mac? It is true Blender and BGE totaly compatible on Mac? (Or on Linux?)
Yo Frankie runs on all three platforms, and every BGE game I’ve tried has worked on all three platforms. So yes.
Other questions that have been asked
protecting assets - as already noted copyright already protects the assets - a simple way to protect the stuff from prying eyes without too much effort is have the blend encrypted and your launcher unencrypts the blend and passes it to the BGE executable. Or have a part of the blend be on a server and your executable downloads that part and combines it with the rest of the blend before launching the BGE. Technical protection measures of various sorts shouldn’t be difficult to do.
The biggest downside to using the BGE for commercial game is that a different gameengine will have to be used for console ports and for phone ports.
I’ve also discussed with Ton the possibility of bringing back the ‘Blender’ license. So that closed source versions of the BGE can be used for console porting. This would require quite a bit of effort on behalf of the Blender Foundation (ie getting agreement from core developers who haven’t contributed code under the dual license blender used to be under, and possibly rewriting those parts for which permission couldn’t be agreed on. Also some librarys we use are GPL only and thus would have to be replaced with BSD/zlib/MIT or similarly licensed librarys).
Another option which has been raised is to use GameKit. That might be a feasible option within a year and it is already ported to the iphone. You would need to change any scripting logic to Lua from python (Charlie has stated that porting from blender python logic to gamekit lua logic should be fairly trivial).
If the node logic refactor takes place, a part of that is a portable zlib licensed logic library that would be reusable in other gameengines including gamekit.
Unity allows quite easy porting of game assets between Blender and unity which is another option. Logic though would have to be rewritten.
-What is the compatibility of the GLSL? I plan my game it must run in a Gef7600 minimum config. It must run on popular integrated videocards too but with at least the performance of a Gef7600.
I have a Geforce7600GT, GLSL mostly works fine but there are some problems with SSAO, atmospheric scattering and similar filters and effects you can find in the BGE resource forum. I can have a maximum of around 16 lamps per scene, add more and the result is really weird. Whole of the scene is completely black. It doesn’t matter whether the lamps’ effect area overlaps or not.
If you want I can test your scenes, but please be a bit less of an impatient agressive piggy 
That’s basically how the BPPlayer works (link). The BPPlayer allows you to create commercial games using the BGE without having to worry about the GPL. The current version (v1.02) is stable, however, it has a few issues:
A) It only runs on Windows.
B) (Unless your using a patched blenderplayer) the BPPlayer can not link to other blend files.
C) When you read and write files, you need to define the full file path using sys.
D) It requires administion rights.
Version 1.03 (which is a rewrite of v1.02) fixes most the problems listed above and it includes a Linux build. If you want Mac support, however, you’ll need to wait or find an alternative method. Version 1.03 is planned to be released on June 6, 2010.
I hope that was helpful,
- DeltaSpeeds
Please… I dont need to protect my works. Big projects like Crysis or many games with UnrealEngine dont protects its data. You can extract everything with free tools or the main tools of the engine… You can load all levels in the public editors… etc…
The copyrights protects the works…
Lamoot, I dont need SSAO and other effects. Blender 2.49 good for me in standard to make professional look.
LetterRip, thank you.
Protecting data: see my answer to C-106 Delta.
Platform: Windows, Mac and maybe Linux is perfect for me. I dont want to plan other platforms.
And again: BGE BGE BGE. Only BGE.
And thanks for every other answers.
Distributing content with the BGE is a bit of a grey area. While it is pretty damned awesome to create your assets, prototype your game, and then distribute the finished product using the same engine / codebase - there are a couple of legal question marks still above the embedding of scripts & whatnot in the finished product and the effect of the GPL on the copyrights involved.
I am positive that no-one from the Blender Foundation would ever try to assert the rights of the GPL over my game content, but the license applies to everyone receiving the end-product. As such, some pain in the ass could assert rights who was never involved in Blender but wanted to grab stuff for their “free MMO”.
Given the involvement of Erwin in both the BGE & the GameKit engine (with the stated intention of the GameKit being as close to a drop-in replacement as possible) - I’ve resolved the above issue by going with GameKit (in particular OgreKit).
BTolputt,
only the original copyright holder has the ability to enforce the GPL restrictions on their code - GPL is a copyright license not a contract. If someone receiving a GPLed work thinks you are violating it, then they complain to you first. Then if that doesn’t obtain satisfaction they can ask the copyright holder to complain. If the copyright holder chooses not to complain then there is no other recourse available.
True, but I always look to the worst case in legal entanglements. Just look at the SCO vs IBM/Novell/Linux case - it is still going seven years later without proof of copyright infringement and with the fact that SCO distributed any code under the GPL themselves.
As you mentioned, there are a variety of GPL libraries used in Blender. A contributor to one of those could make the assertion as well. And then there are contributions accepted by those not in the Blender Foundation. Any code/patches contributed solely under the GPL (as opposed to having a written transfer of copyright to the Blender Foundation) is also grounds for said claim. Sadly we cannot just count on the nice people in the world but have to guard against the worst of them.
Hence the reason for my preference on MIT/BSD/ZLIB licensed work which can be thrown out of court based on a simple reading of the license by a magistrate. This is not a criticism of GPL, just an intended effect of the license conditions. Richard Stallman wrote the license such that it was as hard as possible (he preferred impossible) to make something proprietary out of GPL code without having the license apply to the application as a whole.
Endi, why dont you just set up a paypal account way of paying, have a system that gives the buyer a download link to the unprotected drm-free blender game and have it that way, it’s fully functional and you could actually make your game in bge and sell it that way.
Oh and, on the bge issue, seriously, learn a new tool, it takes years and years to become a good game developer, it takes that game developer a week to learn a new tool, have you tried unity?, it comes with pretty seamless blender support and works with steam, also has a python variant if that’s the only thing you’re used to.
oh and yes, big engines do protect their data, crysis has tools that were officially made available for people to edit their maps and mod the game, but the engine is still shut close.
Blah, blah…
From now I dont read this topic. (I have no time to read the offtopics and redundant datas :), but maybe it is good for others.)
Thank you everybody.
Oh and I forget: I have no time to read the sentences of the amateurs in gamedev.