The Abandonware Question 281
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.
Abandonware games (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny this is, except for VERY rare great gameplay games, the novelty wears off pretty fast and I just delete it again for a few years. I really appreciate having them available though...
Re:Abandonware games (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an excellent point. One of the things people who argue "well what if you could mailorder these games for $20, or even $2?" miss is the convenience of picking and choosing from a large selection and quickly finding out if a game still has engrossing gameplay. You need to get into micropayments w/ electronic fufillment before this becomes worthwhile.
For many, it's the breadth and not the depth of the microcosms that these games give us that's the real draw.
Re:Abandonware games (Score:2, Informative)
Ahhh Leisure Suit Larry .......... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ahhh Leisure Suit Larry .......... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ahhh Leisure Suit Larry .......... (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry.... (Score:5, Funny)
While I'm dreaming, I'd also like a pony.
(*) 2055 expiration date subject to change, depending on campaign donations.
Re:Don't worry.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's value in being able to take a story like the Odyssey and Illiad, and being able to reuse elements from them in crafting another work -- such as the Aenid. Disney does this all the time. Those guys didn't independently develop Snow White, or Cinderella. Nevertheless, there's value in the new derivative work.
I'm sorely hoping that the Eldritch case will go well so that I can work to create a brand new Mickey Mouse cartoon. He's a good character, you can do some good stuff with him. Disney _isn't_, but what I'd like to see is everyone, including them, doing so.
Like it or not, our cultural icons are locked up in copyright schemes now. We used to have trickster characters like Odysseus, Loki, and Coyote. Now we have Bugs Bunny, and it is impossible for our culture to thrive as it did in the past by retelling and changing the stories about him, like we did with the others since time immemoriable.
The justification -- the sole justification -- for copyright is the benefit reaped by the public, not in mere commerce. The abandonware people are doing the right thing. Were it left to business, our history would be wiped out in order to favor their own positions in the present. It's as bad as strip mining.
You'd think this was easy money (Score:5, Interesting)
I use Abandonware to play the games that everybody else talks about. (It's been a near joke playing Final Fantasy I, and marveling that this launched a multi-billion dollar gaming franchise.)
What amazes me is how stupid most publishers are. How hard would it be to take Ultima Underworld I and II, Shadowcaster, update the code to a Win32/OSX/Linux base, then sell the CD for $20 and say "Hey, folks - the great games you loved? Come pay us $20 for it!" 90% of the development work is done, they just have to get an engine in.
Square gets it - look how they're rereleasing Final Fantasy games on the Wonderswan color - and making a mint. How much work did they really have to do? A little engine work, check it out, and *poof* - profit.
I abandonware because I can't find these games any other way, because the publishers won't do it. Heck, if they just sold the porting rights to another company (the way that Macplay [macplay.com] ports Win32 games to OS X), they could leave the success/failure to somebody else, and probably still make a good profit.
But until publishers get half a brain that the past can still be profitable, I guess I'll have to keep going around them and downloading it for free elsewhere.
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:4, Informative)
A LOT harder then you might think. Before Windows 95, games were mostly written for DOS and were tied to the good old 16 bit/640K limits of the hardware. Other things you had to deal with were hard coded delay loops, direct access/support of hardward, bizarre 5 1/4" floppy-based protection schemes and VGA 16 color graphics. Then you have to test it on a wide range of current platforms (5 Windows OS's alone) before you can even think about releasing it.
Given the market I doubt you can sell it for more then $10, which means $5 to you after the retailer steals their share. You're proably talking $500K development costs, which means 100K units just to break even, before advertising, manufactoring, etc...
Still want to try it???
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, exactly right. Changing from a custom overlay-segment scheme to semi-real VM involves some serious pain. Switching from direct hardware access to OS-approved APIs can require hundreds or even thousands of changes, and often wholesale restructuring of the code. Resolving timing dependencies is a bitch; ask any chip designer about those, because it's the same set of issues.
If the program being ported is well designed, with an internal abstraction layer that just happens to match the new-OS API, and with a minimum of timing or hardware dependencies, porting might not be too bad. However, few old games were designed that way, and it's not just because the authors were sloppy (though that's often a factor). At the time many of these games were written, these issues were not well understood, and they're only well understood now precisely because so many missteps were made. Maybe "everyone knows that" now, just like everyone knows that CFCs are bad, but there was a time not so very long ago when pretty much nobody knew these things.
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2, Interesting)
Hindsight is 20/100 (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest factor, IMHO, wasn't that the issues weren't well understood, or that we were sloppy. Everyone knew how things "ought to be done" even back in the dark ages. Heck, we even had indoor plumbing. The main reason early games were so often hardware dependent is that abstraction layers cost clock cycles. Remember that the processors for early video games were about three orders of magnitude slower than what we have now.
People used all sorts of tricks to squeeze performance out of the systems they had, and some of them were pretty darned ugly. Rather than calling a subroutine (the cost being stack operations--this was long before cache worries), move it inline. Rather than paying loop overhead, unroll the inner loop. Now you're tight on space, so do something clever (read: "kludgy") with code that isn't as time critical to save space. Lather, rinse, repeat. We knew some of the tricks were ugly at the time, but they got the job done where something clean wouldn't.
Remember: for any given clean, structured program, there will be a hack that does the same thing and is faster, smaller (or both) and much harder to understand.
-- MarkusQ
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2)
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2)
I really think that a VM that emulated an 8MHz 8088 would probably be great for classic gamers. You've got V86 mode, use it!
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2, Informative)
The "VM" software like VMWARE doesn't come close to emulating anything useful for old games, it's designed to emulate the existing computer with a crappy video card.
Windows NT however does have a built in "DOS" emulator that works pretty well. You can even use VDMsound to make things that use a sound card work?
Trade off? Yes there is... Still no VESA supported video modes (640x480x16 ot 320x200 or 320x240 256 color modes) But it's sufficient for all the pre-vesa games except some whacky Origin "386 enhaced" games with their own memory manager (U7 has an engine rewrite project, U8 has a hack/patch to make it work on Windows.)
Hell even U9 needs a crack to work on Windows 2000 or XP. (CDilla EXE-wrapper protection does not work on Windows NT.)
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2)
I'd buy it! Helloooo ... Electronic Arts? Are you listening?
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2, Funny)
No, they're not! That's precisely the issue!
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:4, Informative)
One thing that might be interesting though is for some game companies to fund or license a PC emulator, like VMware or Bochs, and throw a package of a PC emulator, FreeDOS, and the game together. Lock out access to the BIOS, make pre-scripted CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files that automatically run the game, and -- presto! -- you've got an old game that runs under modern OSes, with no tech support mess. The development budget on this would be reasonably high to start off with (to get the PC emulator) but for each individual title the development cost would be practically 0. Now you've just got the marketing issue of getting people to buy old games; throw enough together in a bundle, especially if you give them a few classics like one of the Ultima or Star Control games, and people'll bite.
(And yes, I know VMware would probably be prohibitively expensive, unless the publisher could get one hell of a bulk license discount combined with a discount for shipping a crippled version that wouldn't interfere with their regular business. I'm just using that as an example.)
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2, Interesting)
Not all game makers don't get this. Some do, and occasionally don't even make profit from it. Why? Many factors; low profit margins, no advertisement, only people who love the game will buy it, and it's so outdated, that the passersby at the store who pick it up will be disgusted when they get it home to play it.
Unfortunately, all of those do happen! For instance, Microprose (before they were bought by Hasbro, then by Infogrames) released a five-CD pack of all their classics; X-Com: UFO Defense, X-Com: Knee Deep in the Dead, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, and a demo CD. I picked it up for $20, because I love XUD, MoM, and MoO, but when I showed it off to my friends, they were appalled that I would spend that kind of money for that "junk." Keep in mind that these weren't updated for DirectX or anything (like Warcraft II: Battle.net), so they still ran in DOS and had Conventional Memory problems, etc. and the same EGA graphics.
The fact is, only a small percentage of the consumer market would be interested in things like this, like collectors and big-time fans. And many expect the programmers to put something in really special, or make huge modifications to the code upon re-release.
Few games can make profit like this, but there are exceptions. Such as the Oregon Trail series, which is now up to version five and runs in Win32, as opposed to the Commodore (correct me if I'm wrong here) and Apple IIe platforms it was designed on. But that's educational, too.
My suggestion? Make the game/application/operating system (maybe) public domain, and sell CDs or downloads of the source code to anyone who asks, for a small fee to cover the costs of the transaction for the company. This will let the real enthusiasts get a new collectors item without the makers having to publish anything, plus it can now be ported to new operating systems without the makers having to program anything (a la Quake 2).
Like the article says, though, this is "gray area" which is perfect for the developers, because it keeps the games in people's minds, and it will probably stay that way.
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:5, Informative)
Usually a search to Chips and Bits, or the CD-Rom shop, or Dragon Games (http://www.dragon.ca/ [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.
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:2)
Ultima Underworld was that 3d first person rpg, right? They did that. It was sold in a set of about 6 old rpgs (also included Wasteland, Might and Magic 5 (I think it was 5. Clouds of Xeen or something like that), and several others. Have you actually been looking for these games, or just claiming they're impossible to find so you'll sleep better at night?
Sorry - I should have made this more clear. I own a copy of Ultima Underworld I and II, so sorry I didn't mention a specific game that's no longer published in stores by the publisher.
Tell you what. Check out The Underdogs - they provide a link to games you can buy on other websites, and where there isn't such a link, they simply have a download. If they have a game there that you can buy somewhere else, let them know. Heck, let me know too - and I'll see if it's one that I already have downloaded so I can buy it legit. (I'd rather have the "official" game that I can stick into a CD-ROM rather than taking up my valuable HDD space.)
Re:You'd think this was easy money (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't see a problem with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it legally wrong for me to download the titles? I don't know, but I believe it is morally right for me to obtain a "backup" of titles I purchased. As far as titles that are truly abandoned, but I didn't purchase, this seems a gray area.
The greed of the publishers is definately repugnant. Instead of opening their mind and allowing others to get some sort of satisfaction from an older title, they'd rather see no one have it and the game fade into obscurity. Perhaps if they realized that the goodwill they'd get for releasing these officially on a website would actually generate extra renevue from loyal customers.
Is ID software likely to lose business because they released the source code to their older engines? No. However, AFAIK they haven't released the graphics, levels, and sounds for them. I suppose this allows them to reuse some of the stuff for Doom3 for instance. Maybe someday people will realize that unlike the real world, I can give you something of mine that is digital and not only will I still have it, you will too.
And maybe after that, we'll have peace on earth, and goodwill towards men.
Because it's law it's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
I too feel there are many moral problems with copyright. If enough people share these beliefs, and we act on them (like downloading abandonware) then it's not as cut and dry as the publishers think. It's not "piracy" any more. It's enough people disagreeing with the law... implying that maybe, just maybe, the law is wrong.
Remember, laws are pieces of paper. Many of them have nothing to do with right or wrong anymore. They have much to do about money and greed and control.
Bill
Re:Because it's law it's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
The software developers won't re-release these classic games because it would be detrimental to their main products. By abandoning titles after a few years, they essentially force you to upgrade. I'm not saying this is the primary motivating factor, but it's certainly an important part. Some people will always buy the latest and greatest, for a variety of reasons; the rest of us only do so when pushed.
This is the way the software industry works. How many Word users need more functionality than Word 5.1 provided? Furthermore, if you can keep people on an insane upgrade cycle, you force them to buy new hardware as well. If each new version of Windows was capable of running faster on older hardware thanks to tighter, more optimized programming rather than feature bloat, the PC makers would revolt. There were stories this summer about charities not being able to get ahold of Windows 3.1 or 95 for the old crappy (but functional) PCs they distribute except at exorbitant prices. It's the exact same problem.
-Nat
Re:Don't see a problem with it (Score:2)
As a person who sells old video games on eBay I have a couple of thoughts. First, many games people believe are only available from abandonware sites are available as originals from eBay, swap-meets, garage sales and classified ads. Also, many are being re-released. While I might download the odd ROM, I also source old originals and buy new updates. Gauntlet is a good example. I recently bought Gauntlet Legends for the Dreamcast, acquired Gauntlet 1 & 2 originals for the C64 and I have previously downloaded the odd Gauntlet ROM. Anyone who claims to be a fan of old computer games and doesn't try to source originals or buy remakes, releases and/or updates is kidding themselves. Real fans would rather have originals. Heck, I've bought originals of old games that I have downloaded ROMs for. Just yesterday I bought Pinball Fantasies for the Gameboy even though I'd downloaded the ROM a while ago. A few weeks back it was the same thing with Qix...
Re:Don't see a problem with it (Score:2)
All the copy-protection back in the day of the C64 would wreak havoc on your little 1541, but people still insisted on making backups because they had the right to do so. (Mr. Nibble, CopyQ, etc). If anyone has references to cases back then, please post them.
Re:Don't see a problem with it (Score:2)
And it's morally right. It preserves information, which is a morally good thing in 99.44% of situations.
The slaves are revolting (Score:3, Insightful)
most companies love it if they can get their customers on a treadmill, constantly paying in new money. And honestly the cost of tech support for the older games may actually be a money losing proposition.
But They still hate the idea of not making money. and count potential loses are real losses.
Right now I think that that rights to software to revert to something more relaxed a few years after they stop providing tech support. They people who know how to use the older stuff will always be a small percentage anyhow.
On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe, in keeping with the spirit of copyright, if a publisher no longer makes a copyrighted work available, then so long as this is the case, there should be no legal recourse against those taking the software for free.
However, I must question the motives of Abandonware supporters. If indeed these companies were to make software from 10 years ago available today (via a website or mailorder) and a small price according to the cost of doing so, would Abandonware supporters be willing to pay?
The real question is, are they truly supportive of it as a matter of principle, or do they simply enjoy getting something for free; being unwilling to pay for it if it was available through legal means?
Re:On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the question should not be whether people would be willing to pay for the software if it was still available for sale (probably not, but depends on the price - at $2 there is a good chance, at $39.95 - not likely).
What we need to ask is whether Abandonware supporters would happily remove titles from their sites if a company started selling the game again. Here I think the sites would happily remove them - The titles are available, no need for the abandonware site to distribute it.
As long as this is true, then I think that abandonware sites are morally correct, although they are almost certainly breaking the letter of the law.
Re:On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:2)
The real question is, are they truly supportive of it as a matter of principle, or do they simply enjoy getting something for free; being unwilling to pay for it if it was available through legal means?
I'm truly supportive of it as a matter of principle because I and others like me are unwilling to pay for it if it was available through legal means.
I sense dead-end here (Score:2)
How can we know? The fact is that the non-availability makes your point void and null. You are reaching for an untested and (until some old game copyright owner decide to re-issue it) untestable hypothesis.
So, I think we should really drop this line of reasoning for now. There is no use in accusing abandonware supporters of being copyright thieves until we can at least test the idea.
Re:On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:2)
you must realize that we can not have both viable copyright protections and individuals being the arbitors of their viability.
Also, individuals are not being the arbitors of copyright protections. Judges and juries are. And I assert without evidence that no one has ever gone to jail or even paid a fine solely for copying abandonware.
Re:On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:2)
Are you certain that you would be unwilling to pay for the product by legal means if it were not available for free? The problem is that its free availability taints your ability to make an unbiased decision.
The software publishers are businesses, intent on making money. They are aware of the inetrest in abandonware.
If they believed there was a buck to be made on the works, they'd be selling them (and rightly so)!
I fail to see why they would necessarily lose any rights to future works because of abandonware. They didn't lose tradmarks by selling the works in the first place. If they had any sense, they'd put them up for download as is, complete with all of the trademark notices, disclaimers, burnt offerings and other legal requirements.
Re:On the reasoning for freely taking it (Score:2, Interesting)
In my case, both.
I support the principle behind abandonware... though not really because it's not sold anymore. I like it because it's an unofficial public domain of sorts... it's a way for budding game designers to have cheap and easy access to the history of video games... classic or little known gems of yesteryear that a person wouldn't spend a penny on continue to get exposure... and I think that's a good thing for gamers and the gaming industry in general.
I also support Abandonware because the companies no longer support the games, and people who purchased a game license who lost the physical media on which the game was stored (or the silly copyright toys that lots of old games used) have a way of enjoying the products that they legitimately own... without putting a burden of service and support on the game publisher (which might not even exist any longer).
Those are the reasons why I think abandonware distribution is a noble cause in general. It's the reason I've donated a few bucks to The Underdogs.
On a personal level, I "rationalize" downloading abandonware by telling myself (and it's the truth) that there is no way I could feasibly purchase the software these days, and that even if I could, I probably wouldn't... I'm not taking anything material away from anyone. It's a victimless crime, so to speak.
I personally don't download "abandonware" that isn't truly abandoned, that someone is actually trying to sell... if I do, it's software that I feel I have a legitimate right to use (as in, I purchased it sometime in the past.) Maybe many others aren't as "scrupulous", but it's seldom an issue since very little of what most people define as "abandonware" is readily available... that's why it's called "abandonware".
MAME et al (Score:5, Insightful)
I see these emulators as a valuable service, preserving what I call our "pop culture heritage"...sure, "Time Pilot" may have been popular enough to make it in some emulator packs, but what about "Time Pilot '84"? A much cooler scifi game in my book, but one whose limited release (during the crash) means that it's not likely to see a repackage rerelease.
I admit it is a bit complicated, because MAME does directly compete with the emulation game packs for modern consoles. But overall I'd rather err on the side of caution and not let these things fall into obscurity.
The trap of good graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
Take Fifa 2000 for the playstation. The players look almost real... almost being the key word. Whenever I see their blocky heads, I think about how bad the graphics are. By coming close to realism, you're forced to see how far away they still are.
On the other hand, a more cartoonish game doesn't invite that comparism at all. Take Super Mario brothers for example. No one thinks that the graphics on that game suck, even though Mario doesn't look like a real person. They get sucked into the game world because they don't even think about how much better he would look with a few tweaks.
Moral of this story? Don't worry about the graphics people, just make fun games.
...of course this is a moral from someone who doesn't really play games much, so take it with a grain or 10,000 of salt.
What about other types of software? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about... (Score:2)
Come on, all together now... "All your base..."
My high school uses these (Score:2)
A [relatively] old subject, good piece though. (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal feelings on abandonware are that there's really nothing wrong with it. I think it's healthy for the market and wonderful for players.
When I was about 9 years old, my father bought me Starflight... a game we saw on the shelves of Radio Shack and thought looked cool. We enjoyed it but never got very far because the game has a high probability of corrupting itself (otherwise it's a terrific game... a true classic). Years later I realized that surely someone must have preserved a copy of the game that I could download... and thanks to abandonware, I was right. I tracked down a copy for download and fiddled around with my system until I could get it to work... and it was just great... it was a minor obsession of mine for several weeks and I finally beat it, getting my father's money's worth out of the purchase. Lot's of nostalgia, lot's of fun. Who gets hurt here?
I dismiss most of the arguments of the game publishers, and especially the stance of the IDSA. The bulk of their argument is that legality equals morality, which any freethinking individual probably realizes isn't true... or else laws would never be repealed or changed.
I also don't understand how Abandonware sites hurt their intellectual property rights as many of them seem to claim. They still own the copyrights, they still own the trademarks. Nobody is going to tell Nintendo that they don't own the rights to produce Mario games because they fail to rabidly attack an abandonware site with a Mario Bros romdump from a 20 year old arcade board. Nobody is arguing that Mario Bros is "public domain" from a legal perspective. The one fellow put it succintly "It's piracy, but so what?" The pirates aren't challenging the rights of the publisher's... they only hurt the publishers by denying them revenue, and in the case of the vast majority of abandonware, they're not even doing that.
Another argument a few of them made was "Well, we might want to release a classics pack one day." This is a semi-legitimate argument, but in reality we know that the only "classics packs" that are truly successful commericially are those that package together a few familiar arcade classics... not more obscure PC titles. Most people only buy "arcade classics collections" because they are familiar with playing those games in arcades.
What is the market for a classics pack of old PC games, on the other hand? There aren't going to be very many people who are going to plunk down $20 for a bunch of old games with EGA graphics that they're not familiar with. If people ARE familiar with the games, on the other hand... it's probably because they legitimately owned the games at one point in time.
And the truth that we all know is that very few people are actually trying to sell 10+ year old games... at least not without heavily retooling the game (like Frogger 3D).
So Abandonware really is quite harmless. I'd like to think that there are a few current and future game designers out there getting exposure to these "Golden Oldies" like Starflight for inspiration on how to do more with less and that thanks to Abandonware, we will (and have been) enjoying better games. I really think the IDSA is doing the gaming community and the companies they represent a disservice by going after abandonware sites so diligently, but I guess they have to take a hardline stance on all forms of piracy to convince their members that they're doing their job.
Re:A [relatively] old subject, good piece though. (Score:4, Insightful)
Beautiful, you nailed it right there. Prohibition is the most obvious example of this, and I like using speeding. Has anyone ever felt guilty for getting a speeding ticket?
The software publishers are trying to take the moral high ground with copyright, which is a completely artifical construct.
Leisure Suit Larry (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Leisure Suit Larry (Score:2)
No no really, I read it for the hints.
KISS, idiots! (Score:3, Interesting)
Look, piracy is a known thing. It's just gonna happen. So, what the publishers really should do if they are so concerned about their IP - make a downloadable version of it that requires a key to unlock. Sell the key for $10 and be done with it.
Then, they
I really like what Maxis did with Sim City Classic - they ported it to Shockwave and you can play it right on their website! (and you stare at a few ads, oh well)
As far as "won't work with Windows XX" - port it to freedos! (could this be one area where Linux actually outshines Windows in -gasp- support for DOS !!@!?!??)
-Ben
Re:KISS, idiots! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:KISS, idiots! (Score:3, Interesting)
That way the publishers are happy because they're not liable for support and they've prevented the Keen Kills O-Town unlicensed titles from happening. Gamers are happy because they get to play the games that publishers no longer want to distribute or support. Abandonware sites are happy because now they're all nice and legal.
Probably never happen of course, but it could be nice.
Re:KISS, idiots! (Score:2)
Wow, that is really cool idea. Unfortunately, Maxis (now EA)'s website is a bitch and a half to navigate. They JS redirect you to a "sorry, you can't come in page" if you don't accept cookies, and if you turn off JS, the site won't work. For those of you who don't feel like digging through it yourself, check the appropriate page out at http://simcity.ea.com/us/guide/classic/index.phtml [ea.com] .
It really does work, and seems like a great move for everyone involved. Granted, Simcity is a fairly simple game by modern standards, so I'm not sure how many other (even abandonware) games could be converted easily to Shockwave. Man would I love to see a Shockwave version of Civ 1, though.
1988 is the magic year (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO, any game made before 1988 should be up for grabs.
Re:1988 is the magic year (Score:2)
Re:1988 is the magic year (Score:2)
Re:1988 is the magic year (Score:2)
Whatever school you went to, ask for a refund.
Re:1988 is the magic year (Score:2)
Moving into an even more grey area ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then I fairly quickly realised that the first releases of Civ2 were quite buggy / unfriendly, but that these had been fixed in a series of patches (I think 14 of them in the end). When I first bought the game it was no problem to download the patches from the microprose site, but there was no chance of downloading it from infogrames (or whoever happened to own it then). So I searched around and found the patch on some download site.
Now, The patch is also protected by copyright, just as much as any abandonware game is protected. So, do those companies who oppose abandonware so vigorously also oppose this distribution of this patch? I think that to claim that distribution of a patch for an old game is just as bad as distributing the latest release on some warez site is just stupid. Hopefully these companies would say the same thing, but im not so sure...
(Having just checked the infogrames site, I can see that they now have the patch available for download! Full marks to infogrames for still supporting the game!)
The right to be stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
We'll lose sales on new games. Well that's just s stupid argument. If I aquire an old copy of Duke Nuke Em and play it out do you think I'll be less likely or more likely to shell out $50 for the new one? I think more, much more. How many times are demo versons of games made?
They want to release a cheap game collection... well yeah those are the games that I buy.. Knowing they're not all that likely to even run on my new Athlon without some pain. But if that particular game that I've been missing for all these years was included I might buy their gamepack and work at getting it to run. So they get a half point for ths argument, but it is going to cost them some bucks to update the game engines to make them work on new hardware.
They want to start a comic book based on a game character. So start one... they might not have that copyright as locked up as before, but they certainly have at least as good a right as I do to use that character.
The bottom line is: they have the right to be stupid. They have the right to lock up that old code and keep us from playing their games. They don't have the right to break any warranties. We have the right not to buy their new games if we don't like how they treat us with their old games. We don't have the right to steal their old code. We don't have the right to act like we're heros for stealing their code. If you're going to steal then at the very least admit you're stealing.
Now I've got to get back to Morpheus to liberate some more music.
Modify Copyright law (Score:2)
I think this is a case where, "the need to maintain a balance between the rights of the authors and the larger public interest", should be enough to shorten the period for this kind of software.
I say, give 7 years, or something around that. Really, after this time, the commercial value is zero, why not give it for free then?
Re:Modify Copyright law (Score:2)
Abondonware helps sequels? (Score:2, Interesting)
Eventually, the publisher answered years of petitions for a sequel, and released SS2 - another incredible game, which came out against Half-Life and other insanely popular games, hurting its sales a good bit. Not to mention less than stellar advertising. HOWEVER. .
The longtime fans of SS1 started telling everyone they knew to buy the sequel. They distributed copies of the original to everyone who would take it, and sales of SS2 began to pick up. Unfortunately, the publisher had already gone out of business due to some other problems, so the benefits of the abandonware upswell were rather lost.
Companies should be glad people are picking up their old games that aren't making them money any more. Worst case scenario, it's retroactively establishing their reputation for good, solid games; at best, it's giving them an increased fan base for possible sequels.
So no, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong for leeching Gauntlet II or Blackthorne, since I can't purchase them directly from their publishers. I'm showing my support for them, and their sequels should they be ever be released. If you can't support them with money via direct purchases, abadonware is your only choice.
Oh really (Score:2, Informative)
If SimCity Classic is anywhere on their page, it sure is hidden well. Oh, wait... Google [google.com]. Ok, thanks to Google I've found it, now I see that you have to play it online (what if I want to play it on my comp?) and its behind one of those obnoxious 'you must register on this site to be able to do anything at all' pages. I hate the latter though admittedly that's the publisher's perogative. But, come on, this is some low-rent online version. This I'm not interested in. I got a copy of SimCity and Lemmings with my first ever mouse about eight years ago. Then the floppies went into out garage and next I know they've been lying in a puddle for the past five years. I can't buy either anymore, and I seriously doubt EA would make much money selling it.
There's also some other stuff I'm confused about. Squaresoft (better known as the publishers of the Final Fantasy series) released two games called Final Fantasy V and Seiken Densetsu 3 in Japan. They didnt bother to release them in the west because they thought they were too complex for our simian intelligence or something. Now FFV has been released in the US about five years late, but from what I've heard it's not going to come out in the UK, and SD3
Retain for Posterity? (Score:2)
I enjoy watching B&W moives- in the same way I enjoy reading the classic novels available from Project Gutenburg. These allow me to envision the past in a way no history book ever has. (Not to mention which, sometimes they're just flat-out better that what comes out today. "Heavens, you mean this comedy has a plot?!?!?")
My attitude on this whole issue is: if the producers know these films won't turn a profit anymore, and they don't have the time / money to keep them, release copyright on them! Firstly, if they don't appeal today, what odds they are appealing tomorrow? Secondly, this turns the expense of preserving the movie over to the pubic- and you cn be sure that the'll be DivX'd faster than you can say "digital".
Back to the topic on hand! As you might guess, I'm all for abandonware- both games and applications. (We're preserving computing history here, after all.) The turnover rate for software is, at a wild guess, 50% every year. As for these silly claims about losing copyright on a character: isn't that better covered by tradmarking? Then you could redistribute (as an example) the original Monkey Island games and LucasArts still holds exclusive rights to the future of the series.
Re:History preservation and the Atari ST (Score:2)
I stand against 0-day warez; if you want the stupid program, go buy it and support the developer. OTOH, when the copyright of (another example) Infocom's old text adventure games can gain no benefit for the holder- since the market for such games is exhausted- I fail to understand their reticence in releasing copyright. (Sure, "legal reasons". That's as much an answer as "because I said so"- it may be true, but it doesn't reveal core motives.)
Most definitely illegal, however... (Score:5, Interesting)
The questions they should be asking themselves are:
1) Does this harm us?
2) Can we capitalize on this?
The first question pretty much comes down to two key issues - is there loss of revenue, and does it dilute intellectual property.
Unless there are ongoing efforts to sell a particular title, it is not generating a revenue stream. This is pretty straight forward.
There may be a question as to whether it could be used to generate a future revenue stream; e.g. via the release of "classic" packs. This, however, is not feasible in a games current form unless it runs on a currently available platform.
So, in terms of revenue, the publisher is out of luck unless it runs on Windows or Macintosh. They may do an port of older games, but that depends on a value add in order to make it a sellable asset.
The second issue - protection of intellectual property - is pretty much a red herring. These are not trademarks; no matter how many times someone illegally copies them, it will not prevent them from successfully enforcing copyright on them in the future.
So onto the second question - can this be capitalized on? The answer here is a resounding YES.
The biggest benefit of abandonware, illegal or not, is that it helps maintain a franchise. If there is any question of the value of having a well known, wide spread franchise, one only need look at Ninetendo.
There is also a lot of good will to be culled from releasing old games (in their current form, not applicable to future releases) under a free beer license.
What my suggestion to publishers would be is to release these games under a license allowing free play, but not free redistribution, and then license redistributions rights to abandonware sites, not for money, but for advertising space.
When applicable this would make an ideal launching pad for advertising updates of old classics, or new games in a series, as it targets the people who loved the originals enough to go searching for them.
Of course, this is only my opinion, and doesn't count for jack in the real world
Matt
Argument to shorten copyrights (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of copyrights for 50,75, or number of years since Mickey Mouse + 10, we change copyrights back to 25 years, renewable. On software, we make the copyright 10 years renewable. But, make a new version (currently a derivitive work) legally it's own work so that the entire package, not what changed from the earlier version starts the clock anew.
Or another way is until the company stops supporting that product and providing free bugfixes. IBM has end of service dates announced for their software, so that once that data passes, you are on your own. That plus 1 year might be a good copyright expirition date. Or at least so that you can make copies to give away (for cost of media), not to allow one to start selling Windows 95 as a profit making enterprise.
How many people out there are running Windows 3.1 or DOS 3.3?
something I forgot to mention. (Score:2, Informative)
A Black Market (Score:2, Insightful)
Abandonware could possibly be fair use. (Score:2)
One of the main tests (arguably the most important) for fair use of a work is the 'affect on the market' test. That is, does the use of the work in this manner alter the market for it significantly enough to cause monetary damages?
Since a-ware games are not found on store shelves anymore, are technically obsolete (most of these won't even work on a modern computer without a DOS emulator) and are no longer generating revenue for publishers and authors alike, the effect on the market is negligible, because there really isnt even a market for them.
Personally I think that if these games have been truly abandoned, and you're not trying to turn a profit off making them available (unless you've got permission, of course), it could very well fall under the fair use guidelines.
Alas, it will take a court battle to decide that though.
Abandonware is a great example. (Score:2)
All the rest? are a bunch of spoile rotten childish bullies... screaming "MINE MINE MINE" for even the worthless, useless things.
remember, if the software company doesn't released their abandonware they are ran by people with 6 year old mental abilities. If they not only release the game but the source code? They are THE example to follow as a software company.
Request Abandonware! (Score:3, Insightful)
Software companies need to show heart, and this is definitely one way they can!
Abandonwarez (Score:5, Informative)
Good stuff:
NGO's that suck:
Re:Abandonwarez (Score:2)
In many cases, the source is either lost or toally unavailable. For example, many publishers buy only the binary of the game plus redistrubtion rights without the source altogether. Another problem is due to scarcity of the source it tends to get lost, either by system crashes or by disgruntled (ex-)employees.
Sadly, closed-source leads to lots of code that took millions of man-years to make to be lost forever.
My suggestion is to make copyrights on computer software exipre 10 years after publication and require the authors to register the copyright by transferring the entire source to the library of congress for archival storgae.
Copyright myth (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
Re:Copyright myth (Score:2)
Compulsory licensing (Score:2)
Japan has compulsory licensing for nonprofit activities involving out of print material. [loyola.edu] This needs to be looked into for Japanese games. You may have to pay a statutory royalty to the Agency of Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Education.
Lost Copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the best examples I have read of this is Wasteland. An Awesome RPG from the 80's. I wasted weeks on it using my apple IIC. I alwasy wondered what happened to it, why their was no sequel to it as it was much loved.
Then Fallout came out. A game that, not only played and felt a lot like Wasteland, but contained direct references to it. This was clearly stated to not be a sequal to Wasteleand, which confussed me as they were so close.
Getting Curious I followed up on this and read up on Fallout. enlightment came in an interview with the developer and producer of the game. Seems that they wanted to make a wasteland sequal and had gone looking to buy the rights to do so. They followed the trail from the original developer, who had gone out of bussiness to an IP holding company that had bought all of the developers IP when it went under. This company in turn had crashed and all their IP had been picked up by another company who had then immediatly gone bankrupt also. The IP was never moved from their, so this resource sat and died on the spot.
Great you would think, grab that IP for a song and get going. The problem is that, while the the IP is an asset of the bankrupt company and therefore saleable, their is no one to buy it from! With no corporate officers left and no truste of the bankruptcy who do you buy it from? No one is the answer so Fallout could not be released as an official followup.
This is the idea that I think the IDSA would really not like to have get around. Groups like this and the BSA bully people by making them think that they represent ALL copyright holders, which is not the case at all. A lot of software is in limbo, just like wasteland is.
Lucky underdog recognized this. They got their notice from IDSA and said, tell us which ones they are. The IDSA never replied, why? because the amount of games they actually reprsent in the abandonware genre are next to none.
The other factor in this enforcement is that groups like the BSA and IDSA charge for membership, which is were they make their money. For every title protected they charge X dollar amount. A company that has stopped selling a game is not going to continue to incur costs by maintaining a watchdog over it that drains money every year. So they remove that coverage, removing IDSA's right to enforce the copywrite, becuase IDSA does not hold any of the actual copywrites and can only act as an agent when given permission.
This is the lie of both the BSA and IDSA, they are paper tigers when it comes to abandonware, they have no enforcement rights in 99% of the cases. If they did most of the abondonware scene would have been stomped out years ago.
Library of Congress and Software? (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see the fiscal reasons for not archiving software, but perhaps its time for the library to address these issues. If a case were made for the benefit of Congressmen and Congresswomen, then I think it would be hard for big business to lobby against it.
Not "getting" copyright (Score:2, Insightful)
The publishers talked very plainly and without elaboration on how making a copy is a violation of their copyright and they will persue it.
The actual writters of the games elaborated in ways that showed a definite lack of understanding of copyright law.
As Will Wright said:
While this may be true with a trade mark, it is certainly not true under copyright (which is what covers these issues being discussed). He was not the first one in the artcile to express a view like that.
I find it fascinating that publishers know all they need to about copyright law, and the game makers are, by and large, ignorant of the real law and its issues. I have to wonder if this is true in other forms of publishing (like books) where the authors hold copyright more often and license their works to the publishers.
-Steve
A conflict of legitimate claims (Score:2, Interesting)
I reluctantly must admit I see how abandonware might very well infringe on the developers' rights. When you retain copyright for a game that was last sold 8 years ago, you technically reserve for yourself the option of re-introducing it. Distribution under abandonware terms means losing this option.
And I disagree respectfully with those who consider this issue related to the length of copyright enforcement; there is no link. If a certain medium can only be copyright-enforced for 6 months, there will still be illegal duplication of that medium within those 6 months. The issue here is not whether 10 years is enough or not; the issue is the legal status of abandonware. And as far as that's concerned, I think the law is most unfortunately clear.
The question now is how to reconcile the legitimate claims of abandonware maintainers/users with the legal rights of copyright holders?
Developers and publishers, IMHO, must begin to consider the promotional potential of that abandoned software. LSL 1, released for free with a few ads in it for LSL42, will never cannibalise the sales of LSL42. We are beginning to see a lot of this happening with magazine cover disks. It's called promotional material, Mr. Publisher.
Looking forward to Lemmings XP.
Pirating (Score:2)
Ok, this will be a little off topic, but whatever happened to the good ol' days when you would grab a piece of software with "Pirated by L33t Hax0r" stamped someplace on the title screen? Whenever I read "pirated music" that is all I can think of...
Well I'm happy about it (Score:2)
P.S. the game was Intrepid by Nova Games. Looks cheesy, but consider the hardware: 4 MHz Z80, 20k of ROM, heh.
Social responsability (Score:4, Interesting)
Copyright is explicitly required to advance the arts and sciences. The old games fall under arts I would say.
In order to advance those arts, publishers and creators are granted legal protection for their works to ensure their ability to profit. However, that profit is NOT the goal of copyright, the availability of the work is the goal. It's just that in a capitolist system, profit is a good incentive.
Reasonably, in exchange for the granting of legal protection, the copyright holder SHOULD be accepting a social responsability to ensure the continued availability of the work. Hoarding the work, or simply allowing it to rot and using copyright to prevent others from preserving the work is preceicely in opposition to the purpose and justification of IP law.
A fair and constitutional copyright law would require that preservation as a condition of being granted a copyright. This was not considered in the 18th century when the constitution and the first copyright law were enacted since at the time, copyright only lasted 14 years and thus there was little danger that a work would be lost by the time it's copyright expired. In addition, the works (books) were not subject to bit rot. Unlike a 5.25" C64 floppy, it's not at all hard to read a well cared for 22 year old book.
By extending copyright many times over, Congress has introduced the very real possability that by the time a copyright expires, there may be no salvagable copy of the work in existance. Changes in the nature of a 'work' introduce the probability that by the time copyright expires, there may be no hardware that can even read, much less execute the software. In some cases, the hardware might be so obscure that nobody remembers exactly how to reproduce it. Quick, what was the record density of track 17 on a C64 floppy? Anyone remember the encoding scheme. Now, in another 50 or so years (when the copyright on Mind Mirror FINALLY expires), how many people will remember. What are the odds that the original floppy you bought in the early 80's will still be readable even if someone does remember how?
Can someone please tell me how losing that work forever will advance the arts or sciences?
what sierra said... (Score:3, Interesting)
Apogee/3D Realms stuff *NOT* abandonware (Score:2, Informative)
Supply and Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a demand for old video games. Game publishers do not make old video games readily available, so people take them for free.
Businesses just don't get it. When people want something, give it to them, or you'll lose money. The only logic they could be using is that they make more money off of copyright infringement lawsuits than they would by selling the old video games. Somehow, I don't think that's the case.
Duties of Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is what I consider to be the crux of the matter. Copyright grants a limited monopoly before the work in question passes on to the public domain. If it is lost forever, it will never pass into the public domain. The copyright owner has essentially killed the work in question.
An attempt to actually kill a work in this way is such an obvious breach of the intent of Copyright so as to justify the entire abandonware concept entirely and without hesitation.
Perhaps Copyright law should be modified so as to require "abandoned" works to be explicitly placed in the public domain, and if this is not done, and the work is "lost forever", then at the expiration of the copyright, the owners of that copyright should be fined the estimated worth of the work in question, plus some punitive minimum amount.
A Copyright holder has a duty to be able to provide the work so protected to the public at the expiration of the term of Copyright. If and when they cannot do so, some sort of punitive and protective measure needs to be taken. (Perhaps all their other copyright worked are immediately placed into the public domain, as they have demonstrated an inability to even retain a copy of the work they claim copyright on.) A deposit of the work, in archival format, with the Library of Congress would suffice, or donating the work to the abandonware sites upon the corporate decision to abandon the software would work as well.
The issues of lapsed warranties were also touched on in the article. Personally, if a company cannot or will not honor a warranty, then they have effectively given that product's IP into the public domain. (Patents *and* Copyrights!) I have old games that I would still like to play, but they are copy-protected *and* on failing media, and the creating companies are "out of business". Naturally, I think this sucks. But I'm breaking the law if I acquire another copy of the software from an abandonware site.
An interesting tale (Score:3, Interesting)
a) wrote windows drivers for U7 to make them work more or less
b) simply reverse engineered the whole U7 engine and wrote their own engine which brought the game up to modern standards (exult... which can be found a exult.sourceforge.net)
c) started several projects to remake the old Ultimas with modern standards
Only to find themselves being attacked by an EA suit openly in a wired article (I have to say EA before they wired article didn't even care to answer the mails from the remake authors sent to them).
This clearly explains the shortsightness of those corps. Instead of supporting the community, by giving them source code, or information and maybe benefitting in the long run (aka they could bring out a fan Ultima collection with all emulators, and remakes), they cry mine mine mine, and dont touch my intellectual property! They should really learn from the Linux community where an entire business has arisen out of it!
Obligations of the copywrite owners (Score:2, Insightful)
1) If the copywrite owners stated, in writing, they would replace defective media.
2) If the game was "licenced" and not purchased (as per most EULAs) then the owner of the software is REQUIRED to replace defective media, because I don't own the game, I only lease it. The lease owner has to keep up the maintence.
I have too many games around here that I did spend the money to purchase that have suffered bit rot, or physical damage to the media. Most of them fit in one of the above catagories.
One Word.... (Score:2)
The classic game is one word :
Elite
And the author has released the source etc...
Haven't been able to play a structured game ever since
Re:The characterization of abandonware seekers (Score:3, Insightful)
as merely cheap bastards is apparently self-abscription of game makers' own money-grubbing, greedy motives.
When Al Lowe characterized abandonware seekers as "cheap bastards", he was clearly joking. Read the article.
Re:Is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
only if you do one of the following. (Score:2, Informative)
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
Re:Who pays for this anyway? (Score:2)
Re:These Old Games are Valuable! (Score:2)
Re:it's the game play! (Score:2)
Older games had these qualities, but not to the extremes that there are today.
At my current job, there's a Q3 tourney every Friday nite. I don't even bother to play (think Stef from UF). Game vendors need to realize that there's older players with slower reflexes and less free time.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if the games were originally meant for windows, they were meant for pre win98 windows and probably work great in wine or other x86 emulators for linux with little effort.
There are many games/ applications that failed the marketing/distribution wars when there was no Internet for the masses. There are many applications and even OSes today that would not have flourished without the internet. Bringing back those "old binaries" in a form that can be downloaded may bring many an enjoyment that they would have missed forever.
Re:abandonware (Score:2)