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Grand Theft Auto Released For Free
Snover writes "It's already incredibly difficult to actually get to the site due to its extreme popularity, and can only get worse after the inevitable slashdotting, but Rockstar Games has updated their original hit, Grand Theft Auto, to run on 'modern' computers and released it for free to the public. It'd be nice if more gaming companies did this! Unfortunately, it (of course) is Windows-only and utilises the propietary DirectX API, but hey, free game for anyone that's paid the Microsoft tax! (The download speed, once you actually manage to connect to the site, is quite excellent -- it's maxing out my 2Mbps connection.)" Ah, what a classic game.
If Rockstar weren't so successful, do you think they would be so generous?
Not everybody has the ability to dedicate time to projects that aren't profitable. It's great that Rockstar does, but don't spite small-time developers for having to eat, sleep indoors, etc.
Did anyone else find the full version somewhat lacking after playing the demo for weeks? It was just that after you had unlimited time, you actually needed to calm down and play nicely so that you'd stay alive.
With the demo, you had only a short amount of time, and you could _almost_ finish all four missions successfully in the time given, if you were really fast. Attempting to get all four in one insane speed-mayhem rush was the most fun I've had playing a video game, _ever_. The full version just didn't provide the same level of excitement.
Then how come the most popular games in the world are "The Sims" and "Myst"?
Actually, if someone reverse engineered the network protocol and made a server for it that allowed persistent multiplayer GTA I that would be bloody fantastic. It seems that everyone is making MMORPGs now, but they're all spending too much effort on the graphics, and not enough on gameplay. (Except for a couple of notable entrenched examples which have crappy graphics, but have become extremely popular. You know what they are.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Spreading it on Kazaa is of course a jolly good idea, but I could imagine that a lot of companies would still like to have the exclusive right to distribute the game themselves, even if it is for free. Imagine all the traffic this game must generate to their site which basically is a big advertising board exclusively for their own products. This is a kind of PR stunt that actually works!
/lars
Another company that has done this is cinemaware (www.cinemaware.com). I came to their site to download the freely available Amiga version of Defenders of the Crown, and ended up buying the remake. I still swing by their site every once in a while to check for news on their promised remake of Wings, which I'll also buy when it is released. Pretty good move by them, wouldn't you say?
BTW, GTA has always been available on Kazaa/Direct Connect etc, even before it was legal to distributable it.
I don't believe this is the case. Personally, I think updating the game is merely icing on the cake. I think the good part about this is re-releasing FOR FREE an old game that for all intents and purposes has passed the end of its marketable life. I mean, I would be ecstatic if some of the games I played ages ago were released for free. Too often, games end up permanently shelved or only sold through the most obscure locations and stores. If there were suddenly a whole slew of releases for dos/win3.1, I'd probably dust off some of the old computer parts I still have (including my good old gravis ultasound and gamepad) and build a nice little system for these games.
No one says the small-time developers have to update old games to release them for free, just toss it out in its original form when it's passed the end of its shelf life (or if sequels have already been released). However, whether or not it is profitable is debatable. After all, playing the original version for free can stimulate people to purchase the latest release. (raise your hand if you ever bought the sequel to a game just because of how much you loved the original). So you end up dealing with 2 different categories of people. Those who have supported your company already and are looking for nostalgia (good to keep happy), and those who have never played the games in the series and if impressed, could shell out 50$ for the newest version (but of course if the game is shite, then it should promptly be buried beside all those Atari 2600 ET cartriges).
-- If you can't laugh at yourself, someone else will do it for you.
* NOTE: The information you provide on this form may be collected even if you are not eligible to download the game.
Anyone not eligible?
I suggest creating a BitTorrent for it. BitTorrent is open source software written in an open language for both Linux and Windows. Here is a link to a great BitTorrent site. BitTorrent makes better use of your bandwidth than Kazaa or GNUtella. It is important to note that BitTorrent is just a swarming and segmented downloading technology that allows someone with limited bandwidth to provide a large file to 1000s of downloaders.
It's too bad companies don't have an incentive to release their copyrighted works into the public domain.
Hrm. Here's a thought on copyright reform:
Make all copyrights viable for 100 years from the date of the creation, period. The first year, the author is capable of receiving full royalties on their works. The next year, a 1% "copyright tax" is levied, to help administrate the copyright system, and as a sort of "copyright social security". Each year thereafter, that tax is increased by 1% - so you receive 100% of your revenue the first year, 99% the second, 98% the third, and so on. Make it a special 'income tax' for copyright holders.
Now, here's the cinch: As copyright holder, you can choose to release your work into the public domain at any time. By doing so, you get back a percentage of the money you paid into the system in taxes, based on the number of years left (i.e., if you had 19 years left until the copyright expired, releasing it into the public domain 19 years early would give you 19% of the total taxes you paid in over the last 81 years).
Any remaining money can be thrown at whatever bullshit "arts endowment" projects Congress seems to hold so dear, so long as the law stipulates that ONLY that money can go into the NEA. I.e., let the system feed back into itself.
What do you think, Sirs?
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]