Releasing Miner’s Haven to the public domain
In 2014, I used a series of Free Models including a tycoon kit, weapon script, gear giver, VIP door and various other packages to create my first game on Roblox: 2 Player Gun Factory Tycoon.
Less than a year later I used a leaked game file in the Roblox catalog to create a fan mod of The Conquerors, an excellent game that was no longer being maintained. I eventually got the creator’s approval for The Conquerors Mark II, which I’m just now starting to realize was my favorite project of all time.
But my biggest game ever was one that was created from scratch: Miner’s Haven. Published four years ago, it has been played by over 16 million unique registered users on Roblox (a million of which have added the game to their profile’s favorites.)
The Miner’s Haven’s community was engaged unlike any other. Over two hundred of the game’s items were created in Roblox Studio by volunteer players throughout the game’s lifespan, and thousands of community creations were submitted in total.
It was because of this highly-engaged community that my decision a year ago to stop actively maintaining the game was such an emotional one. I still hear from fans who are upset that their favorite game is no longer being worked on to this day:
“stop working on games than no one plays not trying to be rude but a lot of people lay miners haven nd would reaal like it if u updated and fixed glitches and work on the game for all platforms”
— A Miner’s Haven fan, today.
Well… the game must go on.
For all the submitters who’ve always wanted to see their items in the game…
For the aspiring developers who’ve always wanted to make a game with a building system…
For all the kids out there like me- today I’m releasing the entire Miner’s Haven source file on GitHub under an open-source license.
minershaven.rbxl is being made available to the public under the Apache 2 license, which permits full modification and use of the source material.
Download minershaven.rblx on GitHub.
The license allows games which use any amount of the source material but have an otherwise unique identity and branding to be monetized freely.
Mods and edits which use the “Miner’s Haven” name and branding are granted permission to be uploaded to Roblox and distributed as long as they are not commercially used (monetized.)
The official version of Miner’s Haven will be maintained by its lifelong community curator Xavier (OutOfOrderFoxy). Ethical monetization under the Miner’s Haven name will be authorized to legitimate modding communities that reach out to me.
The future of “human co-experience”
At RDC, there was a guest speaker from Microsoft who spoke about the increased community involvement that the game development process has felt over the years. While Microsoft’s observations about the past are right, their prediction of the dev live-ops future is dead wrong.
The future of game development and of the “human co-experience” that Mr. Baszucki likes to talk about is one in which communities have the tools to directly shape how they play. Will the first platform to enable this type of communal reality-bending be Roblox? I hope so, but it may require a sizable shift in how stakeholders see the process of making these experiences.
I’m excited to see how Miner’s Haven’s public release plays out in the Roblox ecosystem. It feels great to be going back to my roots and to reconnect with the amazing community that has supported me throughout my rise to a professional Roblox game developer. To all of you gamers: keep on gaming.
