The Abandonware Question

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Gamespot.com has an interesting article on abandonware games. They go so far as to seek out opinions of "game makers" with some interesting results. Some of them actually are flattered that their games have gone to that big abandonware site in the sky. Then there's Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry creator) who jokingly replies to the question of why gamers seek out free games, "Because they're cheap bastards, that's why! Always looking for something for free! Sucking the lifeblood out of us poor humble programmers! Now leave me alone so I can download more free pirated music!"" The first couple of pages are boring, with predictable opinions from big publishers. But it gets more interesting as you go on.

Comments

Re:You'd think this was easy money

[Dark Paladin]

Actually, I have, and usually rely on The Underdogs for this system. The Underdogs (search on Google) has a list of places where to buy these Abandonware titles.

Usually a search to Chips and Bits, or the CD-Rom shop, or Dragon Games (http://www.dragon.ca/) turns up a list of old software (I found Masters of Orion II this way). The CD-ROM shop even had an old copy of the Bungie Sack Pack I had been looking for (ah...Marathon...come to me.)

And no, I'm not going to publish a list just so that the SPA or SBA or whatever they call it can double check me, call me up, then stick the rectal probe to make sure I'm current. Sorry, I might be dumb, but I'm not stupid. But I can say that whenever I see a "collection" that contains the game I want (including a manual), I usually pick it up (like I did last night in pickingup the Journeyman Project Trilogy).

I guess my challenge to you would be to go to The Underdogs, and if you find a title you can buy somewhere, let *them* know, so that they can let *me* know.

Abandonwarez

[SkewlD00d]

Geez, why don't game companies release the source to the old games too? id does a pretty good job. I remember Rise of the Triad was an awesome game!

Good stuff:

• For old dos games, you might need Bochs
• Abandonware: Classic Trash
• ,
• theunderdogs.org, abandonware.universal.av7.net,
• arcade emulation: mame.net, mame.dk, mamefans.metropoliglobal.com
• To code new games that run on DOS/Win32/*nx/BeOS, use allegro.

NGO's that suck:

• MPAA
• RIAA
• NAB
• BSA
• IDSA - stoopid anal idsa protecting 15 yr old dos games LOL!!

Copyright myth

[Jerf]

I was disappointed to see Will Wright (SimCity, Sims, etc.) say the following:

Maxis Software's Will Wright, designer of SimCity and The Sims, was also asked his opinion on the matter.

"This is a rather complicated issue, but let's say I create a game about [a fictitious character named] 'Zars from Mars,'" begins Wright. "Now even though the game may be off the market, by allowing everyone to freely download or even sell collections of old games, I might lose whatever copyright claims I have on the original character. So if many years later I want to start a comic book about Zars, I might have a hard time legally protecting the intellectual property."

That is incorrect. Copyright never expires due to lack of enforcement, and this argument is complete bullcrap... though to be fair, I bet Will Wright doesn't know that.

It would be interesting to know if he came up with this misunderstanding on his own, or if somebody fed him this line.

Now, he may be legitimately concerned about the trademark, which does need to be defended, but as long as nobody is doing anything with the charecters other then downloading the game they came from, I can't imagine that trademark infringements are taking place. That would happen if you started printing posters of the char, or putting it in your own movies, or other similarly infringing activities, none of which have anything to do with downloading a game.

Downloading games does not strip publishers of any rights. In fact, if massive downloads of a game did strip publishers of the copyright, then this would be a null issue, as abandonware would be perfectly legal! Once the copyright is stripped, we could all download these things with impunity. (Extensive warezing could become legal, too, by the same argument.) Lawyers aren't stupid, so they didn't leave this gaping loophole open.

It's difficult to move debate on these issues forward when there's so much ignorance of the issues. (How many of you noticed this before I pointed it out? And IANAL, either.)