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I don't follow. What IP value is there in game server code? I would wager usually none. And I would imagine the amount of games made without open source software somewhere in the stack could be counted on one hand.

Open source is a pretty broad umbrella. I doubt a company would say Slay The Spire 2 was poisoned by Godot and that there's no IP value.

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I think you miss how sophisticated some game server code is. Taking fighting games for example: they have entire processes to have both clients predict what the other client will do, and then have the server arbitrate the different client solutions into a "fair" result based on latency, player inputs, etc. There are problems that game servers solve that could have applications in other areas, and have a lot of value.

Sure, I didn't say server code wasn't important, but that doesn't make it an IP concern. Not in the way OP was suggesting.

Fighting games usually run peer to peer either with deterministic lockstep or rollback both of which are managed on the client. For actual gameplay at most there’d be a relay as a server. But almost certainly a bunch of ancillary services to support matchmaking and so on.

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