Apparently Democracy is a Serious Game. Here goes my hope for first-person legislative violence DLC.

Huh, what's that all about?

The license agreement only allows the engine to be used for games that are designed for entertainment. In other words, you aren't (legally) free to use it for arbitrary purposes; in particular, you can't use it to do a physics simulation, for example.

An example of what would likely qualify as a "Serious Game" is Depression Quest. Depression Quest is meant to teach its players about depression, and according to the intro, is not designed to be fun. (Of course, one could probably think of other, less depressing games that would qualify as "Serious Games" under the license agreement's definition.)

This sort of thing is why I would rather use an open source engine or write my own; that way I don't need to worry about this sort of restriction. (The CryEngine license agreement violates at least clause 6 of the Open Source Definition.)

That seems... incredibly dumb. How do you even clearly define what is or isn't fun? What if a lighthearted arcade game also contains some thought provoking deeper message? Or you build a scientific simulation, but add in some clowns and cute kittens, and maybe some balloons, for good measure. Just seems like a really bizarre restriction to me. What exactly was their motivation to limit the use of their engine in such a way?

The weirdest part is that students and members of academic institutions are allowed to make *non-commercial* serious games with it. Still no physics simulations though!

I remember there being some project trying to port Outcast to CryEngine, maybe they can finalize that now? I really want a engine that can utilize GPU acceleration.