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Will Classic Games Disappear Forever?
Knightfall writes "Who doesn't remember pumping tons of quarters into games like Joust and Tron? I shudder at the thought of what could have become of that large quantity of money. Well, it seems remembering those games may soon be all that is left. As companies are dropping support, but not property rights to our old favorites, many are in danger of vanishing forever. There are a few trying to prevent this though. An article in Wired tells a little about it. I for one still find these games, on a pure gameplay level, better than most anything out there currently. What can we do to prevent them from no longer being available?"
MAME
Buy one?
Seriously, buy a used machine, learn to keep it repaired and running (or find someone who can), and enjoy!
I enjoy classic pinball machines and that's what I did. I play them almost every day, worth every penny.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
When a product is no longer available for purchase, there is nothing wrong with violating the copyright. Technically, I'm sure there is. Morally, there is nothing wrong at all.
I can sleep at night 'stealing' ROMs for product that is no longer available.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
do you find these games better than anything from a gameplay perspective because that's the case or because you have the whole 'happy memories while growing up' angle?
For every revolutionary game (think Robotron, tempest, bosconian, pacman) there were many others that we remember fondly only because we have other memories associated with them (like summers growing up, friends etc. etc.)
-- the cake is a lie
MAME is perfectly legal. The problem is the ROMs. Gaming companies have missed the boat bigtime by not offering the ROMs legally for a small fee (or free).
I'd pay a few bucks for the official MAME-compatible ROMs for my favorite games, though, since they are all available freely, why pay at this point.
Start collecting classic games and learn how to repair them.
If nothing else collect the ROM's. I know they're copyrighted, but if they're going to let them die then F'em. What the companies need to do is simply come out and sell the roms they currently own or license someone to handle it for them, stick them on a CD and sell it for $10-20 with a copy of MAME included. I'd pay $20 for a licensed library of SNES or Atari console roms.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
I hate to sound bitter, but I've heard quite a bit about folks who claim to "love" classics and want to keep them alive, and then take minimal to no steps to actually accomplish this. They have fond memories, but their actual love for the games has died away and in truth they're indifferent to the demise of what I daresay is history that is no less valuable than, say, a government document from the 1800s.
In my entertainment center, under my TV, VCR, DVD player, and newer consoles, is an Apple II Plus with one 5.25" drive and a joystick -- all that's needed to play games like Boulder Dash, Galaxian, Joust, Mario Bros., Flip Out, Night Mission Pinball, Miner 2049er, Congo Bongo, etc. I have literally hundreds of games on 5.25" disks and I actually play them at least two or three times a week. I've made redundant copies (some games on as many as three different floppies) just in case a disk goes bad. I love these games, I play them, and I take several steps to ensure they survive, at least until I die.
How many others can say they've done the same?
The coolest voice ever.
So did I. Loved it, even. Yet, as is often stated on Slashdot in discussions of other matters (mostly those concerning the RIAA or MPAA), noone has the right to make a profit. If people don't want these games, what can we do? Force them to want them? Remembering the Good Old Days is all too frequently a sign of a common and very dangerous disease called Nostalgia, and a known symptom of that condition is a refusal to acknowledge that what one likes about a certain thing may be more due to associations rather than its intrinsic nature. I'm sure people will root for Doom and Warcraft in much the same way in 20 years, while not bothering much for the titles we (as in me and other old-time farts) care for so deeply, or, for that matter, for the new ultra-hyper-flashy game that we can't even conceive of today.
With this I'm not saying that fighting to keep some culture alive is always vain and pointless, only that sometimes it might be a good idea to take a step back and ask why something should preserved. And then I don't mean preservation for historical purposes - believe me, history will never forget Pacman no matter how much it'll want to - but in the sense of actively trying to prevent these games from being removed from the everyday life of the everyday nerd.
I love these games, but things change, and I realize that the generation they are geared at now may not love them. I don't want to force my values on that generation. You probably didn't want your fathers' Elvis records, which is perfectly OK. But in the same way, you'll have to accept that your future son may not want to play Dig Dug. Even if it'd hurt.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
While not quite legal...
Yep, this is the problem. The more popular the past becomes, the more the video game makers percieve that they are losing money by not defending thier intellectual property. As usual it's a lose-lose situation.
Great games, like Meier's Civilization, should ultimately be preserved as a cultural object. Great novelists get to make thier millions by selling in volume the first few years, but after society has deamed a particular book "worth reading" it becomes public property. I.e. you can find these best-sellers in the library.
The internet should be our library, abandonware sites should be allowed to exist under the law. The problem, as usual, is that we "geeks" are almost ignored by politicians and lawmakers. It'd be interesting to see a future article describing why that's the case...but who really knows the answer?
Anyway please stand up, and say what needs to be said...or your abandonware could become "illegal contraband" instead of treasured public property.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
From an objective point of view it does look like the rights owners are overprotective. But look at it from their point of view. Not only is can the original games be repackaged, but they can also yield sequels. The license for Spy Hunter isn't so another company can put out the same exact game, but a derivative game. There's another Ultima game coming, based on those before. Mario has come a long way from Donkey Kong. Pac Man is still chomping away.
If the rights owners don't assert themselves over the original, they risk losing the rights to control the derivatives. What degree the risk is over old ROMs may seem debatable, but each company/rights owner must decide that for themselves.
And I don't really see the 'vanishing forever' argument. There are plenty of restoration organizations, that watch and pay for older non working games to fix up. Also, have you seen the Ms. Pac Man/Galaga cabinet? Or the 20-in-1 cabinets? I've seen them in Dave & Busters. Technically, not the same controls, but the games are being put out there still. (Obviously, only those that would be deemed to do well. I doubt Stocker will be re-released.)
Irony: An add for the 10-in-1 Atari Joystick on the same page for this story.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.