You do need to innovate on the foundation if you plan to maintain your game long term: new consoles support, new hardware support, obsolescence of old platforms, etc...
You do not need to innovate if you plan to let your game rot and become unplayable 10-20 years later.
Yes having a FOSS solution for the foundation would be ideal. That was not the topic of the discussion. The topic was about the claim "we can fork if we're not in agreement".
No, as a game developer you won't be forking and maintaining a game engine. No a "just fork it" is not a viable solution in the majority of cases as you need a strong community behind you and your fork to make it last long term and not rot after 2 weeks.
The examples of successful forks are anecdotal, they are the exceptions not the rule. This is survivor's bias.
Oh but you do. Unless you want to be one of those 10000 asset store games that no one buys.
> You do not need to innovate if you plan to let your game rot and become unplayable 10-20 years later.
They stop maintaining games in 2-3 years, not 10. The few exceptions that maintain sales forever are just that, exceptions.
Are you thinking of multiplayer free to play games? Those aren't games, they're predatory grinding treadmills and I don't care what happens to them.
Don't worry about it. Other people will literally solve that problem for you if they like your game enough no matter what you do. They won't even bother asking for permission.
With a proprietary solution, you might get A, but you have zero hope of B. It's an objectively worse proposition.