Abstract

Open-source software has transformed how technology solutions are developed across both academia and industry, especially within the game development field. This study explores open-source tools used in creating digital games and examines the factors driving their evolution. A systematic literature review, following the methodology of Kitchenham and Charters (Kitchenham et al., 2009), was conducted across 44 studies sourced from ACM and Scopus. A thematic analysis was then performed using a modified version of Braun and Clarke's framework (Braun et al., 2022) Contribution Themes of adapted approaches, education, development processes, cost-effectiveness, passion, academic research and intrinsic/extrinsic reward as themes that contribute to how game development tools evolve when impacted by the application of open-source concepts. After reviewing the seven themes, findings show that open-source game development has similar methods of evolution to other open-source projects. They are often subject to the same community formats and contain similar methods of evolving their tools.