Will Classic Games Disappear Forever? 481
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?"
One word: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One word: (Score:4, Informative)
Solution: I dunno. You tell me.
Re:One word: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One word: (Score:2)
Encrypt your filesystem, do posess, do tell, and let Them prove it.
EAT THIS! You corporate absentee landlords! (Score:4, Funny)
Oops, what the hell was I thinking?!!!
Re:EAT THIS! You corporate absentee landlords! (Score:5, Funny)
*Bad Star Trek alien voice*
What is this lim mit of which you speak? I am aware of no such attribute on copyrights. Well, I remember learning of them when reading your history files, but if I remember correctly, they were abolished in the early 21st century, before you even had warp, hyoo-mon!
*Bad Star Trek alien voice* (Score:5, Funny)
AHHH!!! Flashbacks!!! AHHHH!!!! Make it stop!!! AHHH!!!!!!11
Re:One word: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One word: (Score:2)
Well...so far, never heard of the ROM police kicking any doors down searching for illegal ROMs on your computers....
Re:One word: (Score:5, Informative)
Oh yeah, make sure to finish like a piece of furniture (use expensive lumber) so your wife lets you keep it in the house...
Build a MAME cabinet in 24 hours (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One word: (Score:2)
MAME (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One word: (Score:5, Interesting)
Mame won't help for long.
As the official moderator of kaillera.com [kaillera.com]
(been there since the beginning) i've watched the real trend of what games are
and aren't popular in mame. (If you don't know what kaillera is, it lets you
play mame games online)
Anyways, when kaillera was first created 2 years ago, people experimented
with different mame games across its network. At first people would play
anything, Puzzle Bobble, Super Sprint, and rampart were some of the games people
played alot. Over the last year however, the trend has been more towards
Marvel Super Heros VS Capcom. In fact, if you were to browse through the
kaillera servers right now you would see that is all that's out there these
days.. In fact, now there are clans DEDICATED to just this game, it's
popularity there is astounding.
I don't know what caused this. I don't know if it was an influx of younger
people (teens-early 20's) or if people just got sick of playing the old school
games because no one would play the classics. The undeniable truth is
still that both our stats [kaillera.com] and what
i've seen show that classics (pre-capcom street fighter derivitives) are about
as popular as Grey Davis right now.
Preserve them (Score:5, Informative)
>available?
Preserve them and actively play/"advertise them".
That's what I do.
And that what's a LOT of people are doing - www.vaps.org
PS. Emulator is *NOT* a substitute for a classic arcade game.
Re:Preserve them (Score:4, Interesting)
No, but I think you're missing the point. How many working I, Robot machines do you think there are in the world? Not many. This was the first 3D arcade game ever made; it needs to be preserved. This is about history, not just video games. Eventually, with the passage of time everything stops working - it's just a matter of how long it takes. With this near-perpetual copyright we've got in this country these days it's possible that some game companies will sit on their IP, doing nothing with it, while all of the old arcade machines/cartridges/CD-ROM's rot and eventually die. With no copies of the original game available any longer, the games will be lost.
That's a worst case scenario that I don't believe will happen to most games precisely because there are so many people out there skirting the law with emulators. There are emulators for pretty much every major classic console and a good 95% or so of all arcade games. But that still leaves a small percentage of both home and arcade machines unaccounted for, and without good ROM dumps from those games, they can and will eventually be forgotten and lost to time in a way none of us ever thought mass-produced digital data could be. We always seem to just assume that anything put out there by a major corporation these days will just always be out there forever wether they still want it to be or not - that's not the case.
There need to be people out there who are actively trying to preserve at the very least the most important games in their original forms - that doesn't skirt anyone's IP, and it will keep the games available for when copyright runs out (fat chance at the rate we're going) or for when the company finally does put the IP in public domain (which doesn't happen very often, for reasons I'll get to in a sec). And I don't mean doing something like putting an old arcade cabinet in the corner and playing it; I mean buying up old machines, in as close to their original condition as possible, restoring them to like-new condition, and then keeping them that way. Right now there are only a few people doing this, and they're generally looked down upon by the gaming literati because "games were meant to be played" rather than stored for posterity. That's true, of course, but we're at the point in time when we do need the equivalent of real video game museums, in the same way we have television, radio and film museums already.
I have been trying to do this in a limited way but I don't have an unlimited budget to do it. I have about 30 classic game consoles, all in their original boxes, some in new condition, some in as close to it as I could find them. They've all been meticulously cleaned and, when necessary, repaired. I keep them stored in their boxes and remove them to play only every once in a while. I do the same with individual cartridges. Of course, I don't keep these things in a hermetically sealed room or anything so they're still exposed to the elements, but I do what I can in my own small way.
As for the IP rights of these old games, a lot of people seem to feel they're abandonware and that they're entitled to simply take them. I will confess to being a big MAME fan myself but I also can see it from the eyes of the publishers. These games are not abandonware, as articles like this [gamespot.com] ought to tell you. And games are not only simply re-released periodically, they're also continuously updated (Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc.), so that IP is certainly valuable. But it would be a shame if those same IP rights were responsible for the loss of some of these classic games to history.
MAME? (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.mame.net
Re:MAME? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:MAME? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Abandonware problems (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem, as usual, is that we "geeks" are almost ignored by politicians and lawmakers.
Sort of. The _bigger_ problem is that there exist consortiums of corporations which hate abandonware. Despite the size, organization, and good intentions of the abandonware community (check out this webring [abandonwarering.com], for instance), there are stubborn corporations that will see practically no profit but want to retain their copyrights on silly-but-fun games forever. Slashdot has covered [slashdot.org] the IDSA [idsa.com]'s legal maneuverings in the past; Mobygames has an excellent feature [mobygames.com] that discusses some of the issues around the legal status of abandonware.
Nobody is going to pay absurdly inflated (probably price-fixed) shelf prices of $40 or so for old games. If the companies won't sell their copyrighted software, these games -- good games, like Civilization or Colonization or Wolfenstein 3D -- will gravitate towards an open trade on the Internet. They're often smaller than MP3's, and they're considerably more fulfilling. This kind of "copyright infringement" is usually ignored and not typically prosecuted; the situation's more or less fine as it is. But it's damned annoying trying to find a safe venue for sharing what is, in a way, cultural heritage. oh, and:
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?
IDSA=money
Re:Abandonware problems (Score:3, Insightful)
This is part of a bigger, deeper problem. Anything that satisfies any kind of need in a "commons" kind of way necessarily detracts from some corporation's profit. Whenever you decide to drink water from some natural source, that's one instance of human thirst Coca-Cola will never make a profit out of. Ditto for breastfeeding and Nestle. And for MP3s and the RIAA. And for MAME and the IDSA. And for Free Software + a
ROMs... MAME... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course ROMs for newer games after they went 3D are mostly uncommon since MAME doesn't really support all that yet. There's a gap there I guess that's in danger... somewhere after 2D and before what's currently in arcades right now.
People also tend to hold on to their old console systems. I myself have a CoCo3, Atari 7800 (with 2600 and 7800 carts), Sega Master System (with 3d glasses), Sega CD/Genesis/32X, Super Nintendo, Nintendo, and more. And guess what? They're not going anywhere. Classic games will always live on through garage sales and eBay auctions and emulators. They won't die because people out there still do care about them and enjoy them.
Re:ROMs... MAME... (Score:2)
Wish I still had my old Atari 400 - complete with Star Raiders and other great games...
Re:ROMs... MAME... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course ROMs for newer games after they went 3D are mostly uncommon since MAME doesn't really support all that yet. There's a gap there I guess that's in danger... somewhere after 2D and before what's currently in arcades right now.
I'd check your facts. MAME supports a LARGE number of 3d games in the TESTDRIVERs, not to mention older classic 3D games like I Robot, Hard Drivin, and more. Coupled with dedicated 3D system emulators like nebula, zinc, etc. the 3D systems are being steadily emulated despite
Re:ROMs... MAME... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but have you actually pulled any of those machines out recently? In college, my roommates and I dug up one of our old NES machines, but it would routinely take us 15 minutes of fiddling with it (Read: blowing on the cartridge, and other ineffectual methods we learned in our childhood) to
The Nintendo Blowing Myth (Score:5, Informative)
What actually happens is this: the original NES had a 'lock-out' function, wherein only licensed NES games would work on the console. The problem is, if the game wasn't seated PERFECTLY in the slot (a real bitch to get right with the front loading systems), there wasn't a good enough connection for the lock-out chip to be read, and thus, the infamous flashing NES display. Cartridge contacts oxidize/corrode mad fast, and after a couple of years most NES cartridges were a real pain to use. Blowing on the cartridge does sweet diddly for the most part, but what it does do is force you to remove and re-insert the cartridge many times into your deck. Eventually, you'll get it right and the game works.. at least in theory.
The solution? Dip a Q-tip in rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) (probably other solvents work too), and scrub the living hell out of the cartridge contacts. The end of the Q-tip will be almost black, that's how much crap is preventing you from playing your game.
I've ran through a dozen decks and over 400 games in the past 2 years, and I have yet to encounter a combination that doesn't work perfectly (and I do mean, on the first try) if the cartridge is cleaned enough.
Also contrary to popular myth, every other cartridge-based system is also suceptible to this. I've seen it with SNES, Genesis, Colecovision, Atari VCS, and even N64 games. It's just not usually so bad because the cartridge fits better - but once the contacts are all gunked up, you have the same problem. Yes, the same solution works.
Having said this, ROMs do unfortunately suffer from bitrot (the eventual loss of bit data from the ROM chip itself). Some estimate we're about to start seeing it on a large scale with the VCS, as it's approaching 30 years for some of its games. Eventually, the original ROMs simply won't be readable. Could be in the next couple of decades, could be a couple of centuries (it's kind of hard to test that length of time reliably
Re:The Nintendo Blowing Myth (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, real ROMs (mask-programmed ROMs) don't suffer any degradation over time. 100 years from now, they'll work just as well as today.
EPROMs are a different matter. Unfortunately, many arcade machines use EPROMS. Only the very high-volume games were made with mask ROMs.
On the other hand, most all cartridge-based home system games were made with mask ROMs. They'll probably never degrade.
-Mark
Re:The Nintendo Blowing Myth (Score:3, Funny)
It had an awful *lot* to do with that asinine sideways cartridge insertion. Ever noticed that *no other* console system *ever* required you to slide a cartridge in sideways then push it down? That's where your problems come in.
Simple fix: take apart your Nintendo so you can actually get the cartridge to make good contact.
Note: If you accident
Re:ROMs... MAME... (Score:2)
Who doesn't remember? (Score:5, Funny)
Me.
Shortly after my video game phase, I got heavily into pot.
How could we forget the classics? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm confused (Score:4, Funny)
Won't someone think of the children?
Ben
Re:How could we forget the classics? (Score:2)
http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/story.s
Why not... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why not... (Score:2)
Re:Why not... (Score:5, Funny)
So... enjoying the single life, eh? My game room got turned into a spare bedroom... not that we have that many guests, but *just in case* was her reason (sigh).
'STEAL' them (Score:5, Insightful)
I can sleep at night 'stealing' ROMs for product that is no longer available.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:'STEAL' them (Score:2)
It would make a lot of sense to lobby for such a copyright law for software. It would drag a lot of companies (kicking and screaming) into line with the public interest.
So get into the politics of it
not going to happen! (Score:3, Informative)
Similarly, many classic video games are being re-released as web games or cell phone games.
better than everything (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:better than everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, a game can have both. But it's not easy. The fanatical devotion that it requires to build such a game is usually not po
Both (Score:5, Interesting)
As an experiment, I gave a decent MAME set to a bunch of the kids I'm currently in school with. Most of them are about 20 years old, and in fact most had never been into an arcade (they simply no longer exist here). The odd pinball game, or Ms PacMan is about as much as they've seen. To them, it's all about 3D.
It took a bit to get over the low-res graphics, but it's amazing: they're ALL playing these games now. In fact, several have actually uninstalled newer games from their laptops (like Battlefield 1942 and Warcraft III) to free up space for more MAME roms. These kids have no 'happy memories' of the old games, yet love them as much (and in some cases more) than the new stuff.
I find this same argument comes up every time Star Wars is mentioned: the whole 'the first movies actually sucked, the only reason you think they're any good is that you were a kid then'. Bullshit. Most adults at the time (my 50's-era parents included) enjoyed Star Wars back then. Lucas didn't make his millions off of just 8 year old boys.
Again, I use some of my schoolmates as examples, because many of them are simply too young to have ever seen the original Star Wars movies. Guess what? They think the new movies are pretty bad, for the most part. People my age seem to actually like them BETTER than people who've never seen the first trilogy.
rights (Score:2, Interesting)
Start buying you're own (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
CAPS project (Score:4, Informative)
The CAPS project [caps-project.org] is starting with the Amiga, preserving everything it can. Not just the games, but archiving scans of the boxes and manuals as well. They are also storing the disks in a format which retains the copy protection of the original.
Many of the biggest games companies today started on the Amiga, so this history needs to be preserved. The CAPS project [caps-project.org] will be moving onto other formats later.
I used to work for one of those companies and I know that these days its heritage has largely been forgotten. It's obvious that the companies who created the games in the first place don't really care very much about anything other than the latest sale. Any attempt to preserve these games should be lauded.
Just look at the situation with the BBC who lost some early Dr.Who episodes and loads of Beatles footage because they didn't see the value in it at the time.
This is why I'm hanging on to my original PC . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
But if I were to ditch this system, it would be like shutting down the gates to a dozen little worlds: The Infocom* adventures, and the early Ultima games (including Warren Spector's early masterpiece Martian Dreams), and oddities like Hidden Agenda.
On the other hand . . . while it's nice to think about playing these old games again, I never seem to get around to it. If a flood destroyed my old PC and the associated disks, I really wouldn't feel that bad. It would almost be a relief.
If there were a computer game museum, I donate all this stuff in an instant. But I suspect that I wouldn't be alone. They'd probably be overwhelmed with donations.
Oye,gevault . . .
Stefan Jones
* I recently purchased at a flea market an unopened Infocom collection on CD-ROM. But dang it, the installer wouldn't work under Win98!
Re:This is why I'm hanging on to my original PC . (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is why I'm hanging on to my original PC . (Score:2)
I'm sorry, I know this is offtopic, but...
All you need (at least, for everything except the graphics titles like Arthur and Journey) is the
Just copy them somewhere and find a
Re:This is why I'm hanging on to my original PC . (Score:3, Informative)
If you were sane, you'd have archived all those floppies on a cd-rom. It's disquieting how many boxes fit on a single cd :)
BTW, there exist many free PC emalutors:
My roomate HAS these games.. original hardware. (Score:2)
It is very much still an alive community of collectors/restorers.
Many of these machines can be seen at the show they put on each year --
"California Extreme" http://www.caextreme.org/
here there are several hundred pinball games and several hundred arcade games from practically all eras.
Simple. Buy the rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
The companies that are dropping support for these games are doing so for a simple reason: They are no longer profitable and are therefore supporting them produces nothing but expense. The property rights remain but the game becomes a victim of bitrot and disappears forever.
The solution is to make these games profitable for the companies that own them. One way of doing this is to handle game rights the same way the Blender rights were handled: Get a bunch of people to donate a little bit of money and then make the company an offer to buy the rights, source code, schematics, and whatever other property makes up the games. To the companies, the choice is simple: Either throw away this game that nobody (they think) cares about, or let a bunch of geeks buy it off them for some money.
I think an organization of some sorts could be put together to accept donations and buy the rights to all kinds of old products, not just games. Anything "classic" or still useful. People donating money could specify all kinds of products they would like to preserve. Kind of like those, "We buy old houses!" or, "We buy old cars!" companies.
Re:Simple. Buy the rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
Donors get to vote on which game to try and get rights to next. Rank them, etc.
ah Joust (Score:2)
thanks for the flashback
just the tiny pic at wired of those little jousting guys with their little flying ostriches, and my mind instantly had a flashback to misbegotten youth
i can now conjure up the sound effect of hitting one of those little guys in the head, and the sound of one of the eggs hatching... quick! dispatch it before the rider takes perch again!
and the lava and the sky islands?
aw MAN what a great game! thanks for the flashback
Re:ah Joust (Score:5, Funny)
Tracing route to life.liberty.pursuit-of-happiness [123.45.67.89]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 28 ms 29 ms 29 ms 89.1.23.11
2 29 ms 30 ms 30 ms 89.1.227.153
3 44 ms 29 ms 29 ms patriot.congress.gov [140.147.249.9]
*** Destination host unreachable: life.liberty.pursuit-of-happiness
C:\>
Preserving classics - for real (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
That's a good question (Score:2, Interesting)
So now i have been dicussing the release of this remake for more than a year with both original copyright holders (ian bell and david braben). In fear of not getting the maximum output from this, they both have expressed their dem
old operating systems (Score:5, Interesting)
additionally, abandonware only encompasses old software that has been released into the public domain... old software that hasn't is known as "old warez"...
also, a lot of companies don't release the rights to games because, even though they don't have any plans for the games yet, they may have an idea for something they could do with them, later. however, if they don't defend their copyright in the present, they'll have a *lot* harder time defending it in the future...
personally, i think that copyrights over software should only last five years, and can perhapes be renewable for anohter five years after that. anything longer then that, and the company would have a very hard time trying to demonstrate that piracy of that piece of software has been harming them. well, except in the case of microsoft and windows 3.1, since we all know windows 3.1 to be completly surperior, in every way, to windows 9x and beyond, and since no one would buy an inferior OS when they could instead by a surperior one, hehe :)
anyways, we should take the time to thank all the companies that have made their software public domain... rockstar studios for grandtheft auto, and recently, Revolution Software for releasing Beneath a Steel Sky and helping Scumm VM emulate it :)
and speaking of Scumm VM, Scumm VM 0.5.1 has been released (the last slashdot article mentioned 0.5.0): http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/
Re:old operating systems (Score:3, Informative)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Friend got Joust machine pulled (Score:3, Informative)
Never confirmed, but my floor was convinced that Cliff was responsible for them pulling the machine.
play joust online! ;-) (Score:5, Informative)
Use of property rights? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, so the plan is to bring out a collection of old games for the Atari XL or the ZX 81 or the C64 in the future? And there will be enough potential customers so that releasing the game into the public domain (or publishing the code) is a bad move financially??
I don't think so. A
KEEP THEM. (Score:3, Interesting)
I also have my original Atari 2600 (and a backup), NES (on which I recently replaced the 72-pin connector to get rid of the "flashies"), SNES, Oddesy 2 (really), Atari 400 (my first actual computer, with my disk drives and floppies that still boot after over 20 years), and so forth. Cartridges for the games you loved and played are easy to find and cheap.
I also have a Robotron machine in my living room and a Defender on the way.
The point is: no, you can't count on new hardware to run legacy games and software. Support may be gone forever and eventually the disks will stop working, but the best way to ensure that your old games are still playable is to not garage-sale them in the first place. Take care of your old machines and they will take care of you. <dieter>TOUCH THEM, LOVE THEM!</dieter>
Here's what you can do... (Score:2)
Nothing. You will die. Your kids will not want to play it. The games will die. Maybe they will be in a museum. But that museum will die too.
Classic games are here to stay! (Score:2)
Additionally, there is a large groundswell of homebrew development taking place for systems such as the Atari 2600, 5200, ColecoVision, and so forth. Numerous homebrew games are released every year
Disney Quest (Score:2)
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/waltdisneyworld/p arksandmore/entertainment/entertainmentindex?id=DD DisneyQuestENT&bhcp=1 [go.com]
GYRUSS (Score:2)
pffft.. (Score:5, Funny)
As a geek, if you don't already have your favorite roms and emulators burned to cd, you simply don't deserve to play the classics.
It's like second on the list right after the pr0n get's archived. Geez, what are you guys doing all this time?
Yay for perpetual copyright! (Score:4, Interesting)
The classics will never die (Score:5, Informative)
This is evidenced in the dozens of emulators out there. Here's a small sample:
Stella [sourceforge.net] (Atari)
FCE Ultra [sourceforge.net] (Nintendo)
Freeze SMS [emuunlim.com] (Sega Master System)
Gens [consolemul.com](Genesis)
and, of course:
MAME [mame.net] (Every arcade game we know and love)
On the PC side, we have some very interesting projects:
AGI/SCI [classicgaming.com] Remember all those old Sierra games? Well a few people were able to reverse engineer the interpreter language. The result is that you can now make your own Sierra games, and even take apart existing ones, look at the code, screens, etc, and even modify them if you want. Truly and old schooler's paradise.
SCUMM VM [sourceforge.net] So times have changed, and you can't play your LucasArts games on whatever OS you happen to be running now? ScummVM will fix that. Compatibility is not 100% but give them time.
The people behind these projects are very dedicated to saving the classics. With these kinds of people around, we should have no worries about the games we loved so much fading into obscurity.
95 is too long for software (Score:4, Insightful)
If most software is becoming abandonware within 25 years of its release, wouldn't that say that the complete economic value of a computer program gets soaked out within that timeframe? Isn't that the point of having copyrights expire, or have we forgotten that already?
Classic rewrites (Score:3, Insightful)
With Open Source being so popular, people can write a program to act like a Classic program and even look like it, but be a totally differnet source code frm the original. Then port it to different platforms. So we get a Classic Rewrite.
Take for example Telengard for Windows [buildingworlds.com] a Windows re-write of the Classic C64 game. See how the game looked like and played on a C64, but on Windows instead.
We just need more people to re-write the classics to save them.
Come on (Score:5, Interesting)
No one cares whether you think old games are better!
"Pure gameplay"? The vast majority of old games have 1 or 2 buttons and endless repetition. I enjoy these types of games (I own 5 arcade boards of various old games and my own cab to play them), but everyone who waxes nostalgic for the "good old days" of videogames needs to take a hard look at what they're saying. The power of modern consoles opens up genres that never could have existed before. Look at RPGs on the PSX and SNES vs the offerings on NES and its ilk. You can call FF1, DQ1, and DW1 classics all you like, but the NES was too constrained for decently varied location graphics, orchestrated soundtracks, or even a decently realized storyline.
Similarly, Joust, Defender, Pacman, and others have their place, but to claim that they are gaming in its "purest" form is denying the possibility that the advancement of technology has improved gaming at all. Blends of multiple genres were not possible in the past. FPS, RTS, and more simply didn't exist! If gaming was purest in the 70s and very early 80s, why does anybody play Starfox, Xenogears, Metroid, Zelda, Final Fantasies past 3, Metal Gear Solid, Counter-strike, Baldur's Gate, etc?
Remember, technology is a tool to allow the developer to more fully realize the world he/she desires to create. Older is not necessarily better.
the industry's problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Stuff like this really ticks me off. Of *course* the gaming industry isn't gonna say, "Hey, don't forget to add in a few (some amount) bucks so we can preserve our history.
Gaming companies, or any company, really, has little interest in supporting games where there is 1) no more money to be had, and 2) it would seem a lack of investment.
That doesn't mean there isn't a solution though. The Internet at large is picking up the slack on its own. The geeks who want to support these games so they don't die out, will, and it won't cost the "industry" any more than letting go of their pride, and in some cases, just creating a link somewhere on their page that says "Download this deprecated, unsupported, game that is now freeware, available to all."
At least that way, the game is alive and kicking, and it would be even better if they released the source code.
This can't be a serious issue, either. When they release patches on a regular basis that are 40+ megs or so, how is a 46k file going to cost them *anything* comparable in bandwidth?
It doesn't take much to support one game, by one fanatic fiend out there on the web. Throw up a homepage, post your memories, screenshots, and the game. Gee, that'll really kill Geocities.
The gaming industry is just too lazy, but if they got their act together, it would be a great PR move for them. "Wow, Company A is so cool, becuase they released their old 80's computer game on the web!!!" Seems to me, that something like that would generate a bit of brand loyalty, and actually *stop* pirating in the process, because then people would respect their decisions, instead of circumventing the law solely to preserve history.
MAME baby, yeah (Score:4, Interesting)
I asked him if he knew what Pac-Man was and his eyes lit up. "You have Pac-Man? Can I play it?" He had played all the old-school games I mentioned, Joust, Spy Hunter, etc.
The staying power of the 80's arcade games is incredible. Being constrained by such small amounts of memory and processor power forced the programmers to innovate and squeeze every bit of playability out of the limited resources they had.
Modern game designers should take note. You can learn a lot about PLAYABILITY from the 80's arcade games.
90% of this thread is FUD and blatant BS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:90% of this thread is FUD and blatant BS (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like movies, where probably the majority of early movies have been lost because the copyright owner couldn't get any money out of them, but couldn't be found or didn't care enough to authorize copying?
Different mediums, different items on different mediums, have drastically different lifespans. A few books have 95 year lifespans. The honest fact is, there's no movie that makes money in the magnitude that a movie studio wouldn't consider noise after 95
Do What They Do (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, the copyright system was designed to promote the arts with the evental intent that the works would go into the public domain. If the work will be destroyed because it was abandoned under the copyright system, then I bet if you took a company to court to get their ROMs released into the public domain, the court would stand a reasonable chance of seeing things your way.
If course, I'd do this with some company that's still out there, teetering on the edge of death and hasn't sold its IP to Microsoft. Get the precident established first, and it'll be a lot harder for the big companies to employ the Chewbacca defense later on.
Oh, obIANAL, so YMMV.
Support the Public Domain Enhancement Act (Score:4, Informative)
Visit the site that champions the Public Domain Enhancement Act (HR2601) [eldred.cc] and write your Congresspeople (House [house.gov], Senate [senate.gov]) to support this bill. If these games are no longer commercially exploitable, the proponents of this bill believe it is unlikely the copyright holders will file the form and pay the low tax to retain copyright on the work. Maybe these games will eventually enter the PD where we can all legally share and modify them so we can play them on MAME.
Here's a FAQ [eldred.cc], previous /. discussion [slashdot.org], and another /. discussion [slashdot.org].
Emulators = Piracy, even if you own the ROMS (Score:5, Informative)
He told me video games revenues are going to surpass Box-Office sales in the future and ONLINE gaming will probably become its own religion. This video game entertainment industry is worth billions and no one wants to see the old games around anymore since you might stop buying new games for a few weeks and revisit some of the classics. Can you imagine that? Someone might actually want to play an sweet classic game instead of a newer lame game? Think of all the new games you've tried/rented and how bad most of them suck. Most of the new games end up costing $20 or less within a month after release because they are so lame.
Here is Nintendo's Position on emulators [nintendo.com] they say it's ILLEGAL even if you OWN THE ROMS. Nintendo is really a sentimental bunch when it comes to retaining pieces of our childhood. I'd like to see someone test this in court, but they would probably lose.
Here is an excerpt from their LEGAL FAQ
Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?
There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.
How Does Nintendo Feel About the Emergence of Video Game Emulators?
The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers. As is the case with any business or industry, when its products become available for free, the revenue stream supporting that industry is threatened. Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs.
What Does Nintendo Think of the Argument that Emulators are Actually Good for Nintendo Because it Promotes the Nintendo Brand to PC Users and Leads to More Sales?
Distribution of an emulator developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software hurts Nintendo's goodwill, the millions of dollars invested in research & development and marketing by Nintendo and its licensees. Substantial damages are caused to Nintendo and its licensees. It is irrelevant whether or not someone profits from the distribution of an emulator. The emulator promotes the play of illegal ROMs , NOT authentic games. Thus, not only does it not lead to more sales, it has the opposite effect and purpose.
How Come Nintendo Does Not Take Steps Towards Legitimizing Nintendo Emulators?
Emulators developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software promote piracy. That's like asking why doesn't Nintendo legitimize piracy. It doesn't make any business sense. It's that simple and not open to debate.
People Making Nintendo Emulators and Nintendo ROMs are Helping Publishers by Making Old Games Available that are No Longer Being Sold by the Copyright Owner. This Does Not Hurt Anyone and Allows Gamers to Play Old Favorites. What's the Problem?
The problem is that it's illegal. Copyrights
Re:Emulators = Piracy, even if you own the ROMS (Score:3, Insightful)
Clones (Score:3, Informative)
In that sense we'll always have the classics, legally.
Although some game companies, such as Hasbro, have been known to bully clone makers, by taking them to court, losing, and appealing over and over until the defendant is bankrupt.
In one bullying campaign, shareware and freeware sites were spidered for names containing "tris" and threatening emails were sent to webmasters telling them to remove the software or be sued, despite having lost every court case against every author they sued.
I've forgotten what I was replying to. I hope this isn't off topic.
Make it into culture (Score:3, Interesting)
Something equal to the library of congress (I hope I got that one right) should be created for digital games. And not just the game but the blueprints/source code as well.
Classic Gaming Expo '03 (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cgexpo.com/
One word (Score:3, Insightful)
MONEY
How much do you want to play these games? Do you want it enough to offer cold hard cash in return for a non-exclusive license? Have you considered offering advertising links? Do you have anything else that the rights owners might like?
If the question is "How can we persuade rights owners to give us the rights for nothing", then you can't be that interested in playing them.
Re:How can that article even be taken seriously (Score:2)
Duh.
Re:I digged... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:4, Interesting)
> The tech at the time could only support very narrow concepts, like "eat the magic pills."
Which is exactly why game designers focused more on gameplay.
Designers focused more on gameplay back then because there was less they could do in other arenas to make the game 'good'. Also, there were fewer 'magic formulas' for making a game.. i.e. many games were truely original concepts, as opposed to today, where most are merely variants.
The point of a game is not necessarily to identify with the avatar. This what you imply when you say "it is pretty hard to thing of yourself as a yellow circle...," etc. The point of a game is to have fun... Suspension of disbelief is beside the point-- When I played board games as a kid I didn't imagine that I was the token on the board!
The real questions are:
Do graphics improve gameplay?
Do graphics by themselves make for a good game?
Sure, of course.
But pretty graphics by themselves do not a good game make... They may make a pretty photo album, but without a means of interaction... Who cares?
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:2)
I think you need to play Harry the Hansome Executive [ambrosiasw.com].
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:2)
Yeah.. when I play DOA2 as Kasumi, I can play for hours, just suspending my disbelief of those bouncing....
ahem.
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:3, Interesting)
And Pac Man, and to a greater degree Ms. Pac Man, opened up video games into the main stream. Whatever you may think of their game play now, they were relatively simple and accessible. And the point wasn't that every second something new and entertaining happened. It was a challenge. How far could you last, how high could you score, in a single setting. That was it. Very few mode
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:3, Insightful)
There's certainly two sides to that. There is a lot of gameplay that has died because nowadays it's too trivial for anyone to pay $50... or even $10... for it, yet it's still fun. The periodic "classics" collections partially alleviate this by bundling a lot of them together.
A lot of this gameplay is surprisingly sensitive to various subtle parameters and the vast majority
You are about as wrong as you can get (Score:3, Insightful)
I also have a Tempest, Robotron 2084, Gauntlet II, Xevious, Ms. Pacman, and Smash TV.
The new games, those that are worth opening the shrink-wrap on, a suprisingly small number, get boring really quickly, and that is by design. Read the content restrictions for Sony, MS and Nintendo for a real eye-opener, they mandate that games l
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:2)
Re:Mod Me Offtopic but-- Gameplay (Score:2)
You've GOT to be having a laugh. Quake kicked Doom's butt from here to kingdom come, and back! Quake was one of the most fun games I ever played. Not that Doom is bad, and that Quake isn't a variant, but its engine was far superior.
Infinite replayability and commercial interests (Score:2)
Old games can still be some of the greatest from a gameplay perspective. Keep in mind:
- great gameplay doesn't mean infinite replayability (you'll still get bored eventually and need a break)
- great gameplay in a game you bought 10 years ago doesn't put money into many people's hands today (so someone keeps trying to seduce you into spending another $60 and then another and then another even i
Re:They will live on (Score:2)
Even if companies do not help out the legal way (by releasing their old unsupported products to the public domain)
That's my biggest complaint with the current state of copyright and "IP" -- why should Companies be allowed to sit on stuff like this, after all it is part of our culture, copyright or not. It really is sad that "pirates" may be responsible for preserving the culture of the 1980's. Copyright law is FUBAR and really needs to be fixed -- to bad Congress had been bought by the "IP" industries.
Re:Ladybug, Qix, Tron, Mappy, Mad Planets, Q*bert (Score:3, Informative)