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Games Entertainment

Grand Theft Auto Released For Free 443

Posted by Hemos from the ka-blam-ka-blam dept.
Snover writes "It's already incredibly difficult to actually get to the site due to its extreme popularity, and can only get worse after the inevitable slashdotting, but Rockstar Games has updated their original hit, Grand Theft Auto, to run on 'modern' computers and released it for free to the public. It'd be nice if more gaming companies did this! Unfortunately, it (of course) is Windows-only and utilises the propietary DirectX API, but hey, free game for anyone that's paid the Microsoft tax! (The download speed, once you actually manage to connect to the site, is quite excellent -- it's maxing out my 2Mbps connection.)" Ah, what a classic game.
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Grand Theft Auto Released For Free More

Grand Theft Auto Released For Free

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  • BRAVO! BRAVO! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Omikr0n ( 656115 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @11:54AM (#5467045)
    It's really great to see software companies finally respecting their loyal customers enough to "reward" them with a free game.

    I've seen the opposite happen, where games are first freeware, then changed to a shareware or other license because they realized all the oodles of cash they could make off of it. I don't think that is a good practice and if more companies follow Rockstar's exmaple, they will have many more happy gamers that will gladly support their other products by purchasing them legitimately.

    Ahh...the memories.

    • Re:BRAVO! BRAVO! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:08PM (#5467117)
      If Rockstar weren't so successful, do you think they would be so generous?

      Not everybody has the ability to dedicate time to projects that aren't profitable. It's great that Rockstar does, but don't spite small-time developers for having to eat, sleep indoors, etc.

      • Re:BRAVO! BRAVO! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by edgezone ( 51898 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:46PM (#5467289) Homepage

        If Rockstar weren't so successful, do you think they would be so generous?

        Not everybody has the ability to dedicate time to projects that aren't profitable. It's great that Rockstar does, but don't spite small-time developers for having to eat, sleep indoors, etc.

        I don't believe this is the case. Personally, I think updating the game is merely icing on the cake. I think the good part about this is re-releasing FOR FREE an old game that for all intents and purposes has passed the end of its marketable life. I mean, I would be ecstatic if some of the games I played ages ago were released for free. Too often, games end up permanently shelved or only sold through the most obscure locations and stores. If there were suddenly a whole slew of releases for dos/win3.1, I'd probably dust off some of the old computer parts I still have (including my good old gravis ultasound and gamepad) and build a nice little system for these games.

        No one says the small-time developers have to update old games to release them for free, just toss it out in its original form when it's passed the end of its shelf life (or if sequels have already been released). However, whether or not it is profitable is debatable. After all, playing the original version for free can stimulate people to purchase the latest release. (raise your hand if you ever bought the sequel to a game just because of how much you loved the original). So you end up dealing with 2 different categories of people. Those who have supported your company already and are looking for nostalgia (good to keep happy), and those who have never played the games in the series and if impressed, could shell out 50$ for the newest version (but of course if the game is shite, then it should promptly be buried beside all those Atari 2600 ET cartriges).

        • Re:BRAVO! BRAVO! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          >> FOR FREE an old game that for all intents and purposes has passed the end of its marketable life.

          They could port it to PDAs, GBA, GP32 etc (I believe it already exists for GBC). Or package it and its sequel into a 'greatest hits' disc for PS2 - it'd sell like hotcakes.

          Those 'arcades greatest hits' and atari collections sell well enough that they keep making them. It's not just nostalgia, my 10 year old likes playing some of the old stuff every bit as much as I do. Good games are relatively timeless.

          Just because something is a few years old doesnt mean its unmarketable.
    • I'm not sure I count as a "loyal customer" as I've never bought a GTA game in my life, but it's still cool.

      I suppose the only reason more companies don't do this is simply the effort involved in updating them for modern systems - especially bearing in mind that they see no return. But I don't see any reason for companies not to release the source of their older games (a la Quake [quakesrc.org]), and let the communities around the games update them.

    • Re: unfortunately... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by op51n ( 544058 )
      I get the feeling this may be just something that comes from Rockstar being a relatively cool company. Their UK offices are just round from my brother's in Leith, and from their thankyou note to the pond in VC (the pub down the road from the office, and best pub I've ever been to) they do seem fairly cool guys.
      Now, if more companies were like this, and less corporately minded then maybe we'd see more of this kind of thing.

    • Eh... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mekanix ( 127309 )
      *What* loyal customers would be rewarded with this? If they're loyal, they already bought the game!

    • IP, Copyright, and the Public Domain (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Hentai ( 165906 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @10:00PM (#5469611) Homepage Journal
      It's too bad companies don't have an incentive to release their copyrighted works into the public domain.

      Hrm. Here's a thought on copyright reform:

      Make all copyrights viable for 100 years from the date of the creation, period. The first year, the author is capable of receiving full royalties on their works. The next year, a 1% "copyright tax" is levied, to help administrate the copyright system, and as a sort of "copyright social security". Each year thereafter, that tax is increased by 1% - so you receive 100% of your revenue the first year, 99% the second, 98% the third, and so on. Make it a special 'income tax' for copyright holders.

      Now, here's the cinch: As copyright holder, you can choose to release your work into the public domain at any time. By doing so, you get back a percentage of the money you paid into the system in taxes, based on the number of years left (i.e., if you had 19 years left until the copyright expired, releasing it into the public domain 19 years early would give you 19% of the total taxes you paid in over the last 81 years).

      Any remaining money can be thrown at whatever bullshit "arts endowment" projects Congress seems to hold so dear, so long as the law stipulates that ONLY that money can go into the NEA. I.e., let the system feed back into itself.

      What do you think, Sirs?

      • Re:IP, Copyright, and the Public Domain (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:06AM (#5470478) Homepage
        I guess that would be a good idea if everyone who held a copyright was a big company that manages to skate on the rest of their taxes and could thus be assumed to have the ability to afford yet another tax on their income. Of course, they aren't.

        I, for one, would be quite resentful of a system that reduced the value of my creation(s) based on that kind of system and I think most individual copyright holders would feel the same. So, since corporations have legal rights very similar to private individuals, the law would have to apply equally and it would be just another penalty for individual creativity.

        Solving the "copyright problem" is very, very simple and we all know it: Limit copyright duration to a very reasonable 20 years and have done with it. Profiting from a creation for 20 years is more than adequate, and such a term would encourage creative output on the part of individuals AND corporations. That number may look short, but really any longer term primarily benefits behemoth corporations (see Disney) and encourages them to stagnate and get testy with consumers who don't want to pay for the same piece of work over and over again until they're dead.

        Of course, it certainly won't change like that in my lifetime given the power that "big business" (ouch) exerts over our national legislature but I can dare to dream (and support the right lobbying/public interest groups - i.e., these peoples). [eff.org]

  • winex (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nunofgs ( 636910 )
    anyone tested it with winex yet? I really love that game!

  • Sucker (Score:3, Funny)

    by javacowboy ( 222023 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @11:56AM (#5467056)
    Damn, I already paid for it :(
  • It's great to see such an awesome game being released for free. This was the second GTA I played (I played gta2 first) and I must say that this one was a much different experience. Besides that, I feel that other gaming companies should follow this initiative and release free, "modern" updated versions, like this one, of classic games (Wolf3D, monster bash, commander keen, etc. come to mind...Man, those were the days!) There are a lot of good classic games that are in need of an update. Besides, isn't part of programming updating the software you write?

    Oh well, since most of them won't make money by doing it, probably they won't...but here's some wishful thinking ;)

  • GTA free - thats great but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtomicX ( 616545 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @11:58AM (#5467061)
    Can anyone afford the OS to run it on?

  • Its already freely available (Score:5, Informative)

    by chrisseaton ( 573490 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @11:58AM (#5467064) Homepage
    Here [freeloader.com], along with GTA London and GTA 2.

  • already been done... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dj_paulgibbs ( 619622 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:00PM (#5467073)
    See Freeloader [freeloader.com].

    When I last looked at the site (a year ago, admittidly), it had GTA1 up for download then.

    Quick look shows it has GTA2, Hidden & Dangerous, and many others available for free download. All you have to do is watch some ads on your screen whilst the files download.

  • Put it on Kazaa! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revscat ( 35618 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:01PM (#5467078) Journal

    Since nobody around here really gives a crap about what the various companies think anywho, would someone please put this up on Kazaa or one of the other P2P networks? If we can make a habit of doing this when binaries are available then future /.ings might be somewhat abated.

    • Re:Put it on Kazaa! (Score:5, Funny)

      by fredrikj ( 629833 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:09PM (#5467119) Homepage
      No. It's not fun anymore when it's legal.

    • Re:Put it on Kazaa! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:32PM (#5467216)
      Spreading it on Kazaa is of course a jolly good idea, but I could imagine that a lot of companies would still like to have the exclusive right to distribute the game themselves, even if it is for free. Imagine all the traffic this game must generate to their site which basically is a big advertising board exclusively for their own products. This is a kind of PR stunt that actually works!

      Another company that has done this is cinemaware (www.cinemaware.com). I came to their site to download the freely available Amiga version of Defenders of the Crown, and ended up buying the remake. I still swing by their site every once in a while to check for news on their promised remake of Wings, which I'll also buy when it is released. Pretty good move by them, wouldn't you say?

      BTW, GTA has always been available on Kazaa/Direct Connect etc, even before it was legal to distributable it. /lars

    • Re:Put it on Kazaa! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lpontiac ( 173839 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:42PM (#5467262)
      Hmm, but you'd run a higher risk of downloading a trojaned/virus ridden binary. Some checksums of the authentic article would be nice..

    • Make a Torrent for it!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @02:35PM (#5467816)
      I suggest creating a BitTorrent for it. BitTorrent is open source software written in an open language for both Linux and Windows. Here is a link [donkax.com] to a great BitTorrent site. BitTorrent makes better use of your bandwidth than Kazaa or GNUtella. It is important to note that BitTorrent is just a swarming and segmented downloading technology that allows someone with limited bandwidth to provide a large file to 1000s of downloaders.

  • Nice editorializing (Score:3, Funny)

    by Soporific ( 595477 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:02PM (#5467083)
    "Free game for anyone who paid the Microsoft tax?"

    A little bitter about this are we?

    ~S
    • Not bitter, just pragmatic. If you're running Linux or *BSD you probably have a legal right to run Windows too, even if you never did, unless you threw away the license and CD or bought a 'white box.'

  • Does everything have to be about MS? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theNote ( 319197 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:02PM (#5467088)
    How does a summary of a story about a free game become a microsoft bashing opportunity?

    This is just about the most childish story post I have ever seen Hemos.

    • Re:Does everything have to be about MS? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How does a summary of a story about a free game become a microsoft bashing opportunity?

      Huh? The ms-specific things stated mean that a lot of us can't play the game. It's not ms bashing - it's avoiding wasting our time.

    • From an earlier story:
      World of Ends Public Draft
      Posted by Hemos on 08:39 AM -- Saturday March 08 2003>
      from the and-i-feel-fine dept.

      Doc Searls sent me the link over to the newest work that he and fellow Cluetrain person David Weinberger haveput together. It's called "World of Ends"[,] although I like the subtitle "What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else" better - but that's just me. In any case, some interesting reading, particular if you like/d The Cluetrain Manifesto.

      First off, "person"? I suppose that works, but it reads strangely. We'd hardly expect a "David Weinberger" to be something else. Maybe "worker" or "contributor" or "author" or something, but "person" doesn't read well.

      Next we have "haveput" - oops. Then we need a comma to keep the next sentance from being a runon or something. Particular should be particularly, and "like/d" is obviously a typo.

      I don't think he's had his coffee yet... despite his belonging to the "and-i-feel-fine" department.

      Update: 03/08 14:42 GMT by CN: Yeah, this is a dupe of yesterday's story. Everyone point at Hemos and laugh.

      So as you can see, Hemos is evidently having a bad day. After being laughed at, he must have felt the need to take it out on Microsoft.

      Actually, if you look closer at the italics, all he posted on this story was "Ah, what a classic game." -- presumably, that means that Snover is being childish, and not Hemos. And I should know - this entire post is, well, childish.

    • Why so touchy on the subject of 'Microsoft Bashing'? The ability to thumb our noses at monopolies and bad government is an american pass-time (there is plenty of prior art if you look in the history books).

      Could it be you own large amounts of Microsoft stock? Do you work at the company? Or, are you just ignorant of the findings in the antitrust case?

      Feel free to bash the open source community, Apple Computing, Sun, HP, IBM, or anyone else you find loathsome. Don't tell me how to regulate my expression (only CowboyNeal and the gang can do that here).

      (this almost begs a new discussion on how the supreme court views freedom of expression online - you probably wouldn't like what they have to say about it) [cdt.org]

      • Re:Does everything have to be about MS? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @02:51PM (#5467891)
        "Could it be you own large amounts of Microsoft stock? Do you work at the company? Or, are you just ignorant of the findings in the antitrust case?"

        So why is it that when people are sick of the MS bashing, it has to be that they have some vested interest in MS? Why can't it be that they're just sick of it because it's repetitive, FUD filled, and a lot of it uncalled for? There hasn't even been any significant developments in that case for what a year now, maybe two?

        "Boo hoo, they use Direct X so we can't play it on Linux."

        That's like being upset that your PS2 can't play XBOX games. Who wants to listen to bitching about not having the right gaming setup? If you're not running Windows, but you want to play Windows games, that is your fault not Microsoft's.

        So no, we don't want to listen to that childish bullshit. You made your bed, now lay in it.

    • How does a summary of a story about a free game become a microsoft bashing opportunity?
      You're new here, aren't you?

    • Re:Does everything have to be about MS? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @03:06PM (#5467962)
      "How does a summary of a story about a free game become a microsoft bashing opportunity?"

      Probably because the Linux Zealots out there who use Linux solely for the purpose of flipping off Microsoft are realizing that Microsoft got the last laugh. Windows can do something that Linux can't do: attract game developers.

      Doh!

  • Don't you know you'll rot in hell? (Score:5, Funny)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) <numbski&hksilver,net> on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:03PM (#5467090) Homepage Journal
    Free software is evil.

    Cop killing video games are evil! You have to repent to the lord Gates and be forgiven of your sins, washed away by the blood of the lame (Jobs). :P

    Actually, never played the game myself. I remember ALL of the churches and law enforcement agencies in my area pitched a raving hissy fit though.
  • Are they releasing the entire game, or just an updated executable? What made the original so good was the soundtrack ( IMHO ), and I'd love to hear all my old favorites again.

    • Re:GTA Music (Score:2, Informative)

      by user no. 590291 ( 590291 )
      The download is 328MB, so I imagine it includes the sound.
    • I thought I was the only one who still remembered "The Ballad of Chapped-Lips Calhoun".

      What I want to know is will this version still let me put in my own music CD and play music from that? ::digs out 'Music to Carjack By Volume VI', track listing on request::

  • In the News Today! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nounderscores ( 246517 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:07PM (#5467113)
    An unknown suspect, or suspects, rammed the Rockstar Games server, waited for the admin to get out and then reversed over them several times.

    police suspect slashdotting...

  • Finally, someone gets it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:09PM (#5467120) Homepage Journal
    What these guys have finally realized is that a game's value to its creator is first (obviously) as a revenue generator, but after newer versions have obsoleted the old product, it's more useful in terms of marketing as a giveaway. I for one, haven't ever purchased any of these games, but I'll give this a try, and who knows, they might just pick up a new customer. Enlightened self-interest works again!
    • Exactly. I've never understood why more game companies don't do this. Giving away an old game is certainly cheaper than conventional advertising. Hell, it's cheaper than a bloody Print Shopped flyer, even taking into account server and bandwidth expenses.

      Yet the rewards for promoting your current product are potentially staggering.

      Don't these guys ever go to the supermarket and eat the free cheese? They aren't giving that stuff away to feed the homeless or something.

      I think every game marketer should be required to spend a few years at Proctor & Gamble first. Now those guys really know how to, ummmmm, play the game.

      KFG
    • There's one difficulty in using this as a marketing tool. The original GTA game is nowhere close to being representative of the latest generation of GTA games. In fact, my experience with GTA1 was actually a reason against purchasing GTA3 for me -- while GTA1 was fun, the gameplay was a little too arcadish (in the sense of having the game reset to a starting state too often) for me to enjoy. It was only after hearing about GTA3 from a bunch of other people that I decided to give it a go.

      So while there's certainly positive marketing to be gained from giving away a game, there's still the risk in that the game being given away is not nearly as cool as the games it's being used to sell.

  • Demo vs. full version (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Furry Ice ( 136126 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:09PM (#5467122)
    Did anyone else find the full version somewhat lacking after playing the demo for weeks? It was just that after you had unlimited time, you actually needed to calm down and play nicely so that you'd stay alive.

    With the demo, you had only a short amount of time, and you could _almost_ finish all four missions successfully in the time given, if you were really fast. Attempting to get all four in one insane speed-mayhem rush was the most fun I've had playing a video game, _ever_. The full version just didn't provide the same level of excitement.
    • The real fun with the full version was to play networked. In my high school programming class, we'd spend the first 45 minutes programming, and the last 45 minutes gaming (the teacher had too much other stuff to do, and we all did our work well, so he kinda ignored it). We played Duke3d a little, but GTA was definitely the all-time favorite.

      There was nothing better than running down one of your classmates while he was standing in the middle of the road trying to steal a car. Ah, good times...
    • For me, the full version did/does provide a great deal of excitement.

      You have a few options

      Play nice, complete missions, hide from the cops etc
      Go on a spree for a couple of minutes before being "Busted"
      Use the cheat codes and have fun

      It all depends on what you're looking for from a game.

      Tim

  • More places to download from (Score:5, Informative)

    by Necroman ( 61604 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:14PM (#5467148)
    http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=2398 [fileshack.com]
    I'm guessing there are many other places also to download it from. But if you are willing to wait in line for it at fileshack, its another option.

  • The email rockstar sent me about this yesterday (Score:5, Informative)

    by rmohr02 ( 208447 ) <mohr.42NO@SPAMosu.edu> on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:15PM (#5467150)
    (Emphasis mine)
    It's like Masterpiece Theater, Rockstar style. Curl up in your library, warm a nice snifter of brandy, and prepare your palette for a decadent trip back in time. That's right - we've gone ahead and decided to take the original PC version of Grand Theft Auto (1997) and give it away to the world, free of charge.


    In keeping with the moral of the game itself, we encourage you all to visit www.rockstargames.com/classics post-haste, fill out the form and follow instructions to download this progenitor of the Rockstar lineage at a five finger discount.

    The catch? Well, you have to sign up on our mailing list first. But if you're reading this, then that's hardly an issue, eh? And at a hefty 336 MB downloadable zip, of course faster connections and processors will prevail. Visit the Rockstar Classics page for much more detailed information.

    Stay tuned for future volumes of Rockstar Classics as we continue to pillage the archives in the months to come...

    www.rockstargames.com/classics

    The rumblings were true. After all, you didn't really think we'd leave our PC loyalists empty handed, did you?

    The street date is May 13, 2002 (May 16th for Europe) - and you should know what to expect. The universally acclaimed, lush, epic splendor of Vice City, enhanced for play on the latest and greatest Personal Computers. Further information, screenshots, and more to come in a short spell...

    www.rockstargames.com/vicecity

    Sorry, mates - this window of opportunity is now firmly sealed shut. Give us some time to pore through the record-breaking number of entries, and we'll be back to report the lucky winners in time for the next Rockstar Broadcast.

    Fingers crossed.

    www.rockstargames.com/vicecity/contest

  • One of the best networked games ever (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:18PM (#5467164) Homepage Journal
    My friends and I played the hell out of this game when I lived in Austin. It's one of my favorite network game experiences, especially for slow (Pentium MMX and competitors) computers. It will run great on a low-end laptop. Unfortunately in its prior form it only supported IPX, I don't know if they've changed that particular aspect of its behavior (I haven't managed to download it yet.)

    Actually, if someone reverse engineered the network protocol and made a server for it that allowed persistent multiplayer GTA I that would be bloody fantastic. It seems that everyone is making MMORPGs now, but they're all spending too much effort on the graphics, and not enough on gameplay. (Except for a couple of notable entrenched examples which have crappy graphics, but have become extremely popular. You know what they are.)

  • Not to rain on everybody's parade... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by diakka ( 2281 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:27PM (#5467199)
    This sounds like a nice thing... altho I think what Carmack did was much cooler.. GPL the engine and still charge for the data file. If Rockstar games did this, they might even find plenty of volunteers ready to port this thing to OpenGL.

  • Source code available? (Score:3, Funny)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdot@spamgoe ... minus herbivore> on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:37PM (#5467244) Homepage
    I can't get to the site, so apologies if it's answered there.

    Are they releasing the source too, as I think ID did with Doom?

    That way we can kill processes by crashing into them. But seriously, if there is source released, we can get it ported to Linux.

  • WineX (Score:5, Informative)

    by BHearsum ( 325814 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:38PM (#5467248) Homepage
    GTA1 runs great with WineX.

  • Funny thing is, hardly anyone ever paid for GTA... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by default luser ( 529332 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @12:42PM (#5467264) Journal
    I seem to recall my freshman year of college, those with faster Pentium-based computers played Quake with cracked copies.

    Those with slower machines opted for multiplayer GTA, which was also not paid for. Unlike Quake, I was led to believe that this was the norm for GTA, and that compared to the sales, the number of GTA "users" was staggering. But this might have something to do with the fact that stores refused to carry the product.

    Anyway, this is hardly amazing news, as there were already patches for GTA back in the day that allowed for Glide accelerated graphics ( for all that fixed overhead angle texture-scaling ). Moving it to Direct3D is simply a small step in the same direction.

    But, then again, there are dozens of classic software titles that could receive a similar treatment. But the companies don't want to let go of anything remotely valuable, and even make up excuses about having to support a free product. I would not be surprised if the GTA community takes up most of the support slack on this one, so maybe that will blow one of the most common developer's excuses right out of the water.

  • I want payback (Score:2, Funny)

    by Schugy ( 556670 )
    A modern game that will run on Linux :-) http://apex-designs.net Have fun.
  • Im sitting here desperatly trying to get settlers (the first in the series) to run under dosemu (great project btw) and it occurred to me. Why doesn't Bluebyte release this under the GPL or something like that? It's not like they are selling huge quantities of this game.

    It's almosed impossible to properly run this game with sound and everything on a modern PC unless your modern PC happends to have a legacy sb16 awe ISA card.

    If they released old titles perhaps small communities would pop up not to mention the good will the company would get.
    just my $.02
    • I concur, so many companies are unwilling to set their old titles free, yet at the same time don't want to exert the effort to keep them available for purchase. I *can* understand their not wanting people to know all they have to do is wait a long time and currently new titles will become free.

      A few companies keep old titles on hand for download-at-purchase time, which requires very little effort. That is a decent model... Of course, you feel kind of cheated when after downloading it is a royal pain in the ass to get working.

      For old dos games, I suggest trying dosemu *and* dosbox (http://dosbox.zophar.net/). They each do better than the other depending on the game. But neither is perfect.

      In this case, the free original makes for a great promotion for the series. Series games I can see benefiting greatly from the early titles being free.

      Of course, this release and The Ur Quan Masters (re-release of starcon2, sc2.sourceforge.net). Are the ideal way of doing a re-release, free and refreshed for modern platforms. UQM is a tad better as it is open sourced and therefore will evolve to new systems so long as there is any demand.

  • don't bother trying for a while (Score:5, Informative)

    by webperf ( 560195 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @01:03PM (#5467359)
    this is what you get after you put your details in

    We have received your information; unfortunately, we cannot provide you with this download at this time.

    they should put this BEFORE you register.

  • Not eligible to download the game. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 08, 2003 @01:03PM (#5467361)
    * NOTE: The information you provide on this form may be collected even if you are not eligible to download the game.

    Anyone not eligible?
  • Once they make the bulk of the $$, create sequels and release the orginal.. Create honest intrest in the new stuff.

    Great for them, perhaps others can take the hint..

  • Why not the source? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by back@slash ( 176564 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @01:12PM (#5467412)
    Don't get me wrong, I commend Rockstar for distributing a great game like GTA free of charge, but why not give the source also while they are at it? Since the game engine is completely different than the one used in GTA3 and Vice City they really don't have to worry about competition arising from modifications to the source code of the original GTA.

    One great example of how releasing the source brings benefits to fans of a game is Descent Freespace 2. Early last year Volition released the source code to the game. I know personally I enjoyed hacking around with it a bit for fun (and playing make believe that I coded games for a living instead of backend java apps :P ). The FreeSpace Source Code Project [volitionwatch.com] was formed and has made many enhancements to the game. They recently released FS2 Open version 3.5 which adds OpenGL support, the ability to add custom movies to mission briefings, many new weapons, damage decals, and ship trails just to name a few things.

    Releasing the source to GTA would undoubtedly spawn similar projects to enhance what is still a great game, and who knows some of the ideas the community may come up with could help Rockstar out with new innovations for latest games in the series.

  • Way to go Rockstar!!! I will go buy a game now! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mustang Matt ( 133426 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @01:16PM (#5467430)
    I am truly impressed. There are so many old games that I would LOVE to see released like this just because they're classics. (Maxis kind of did the same by creating a java applet of the Original Sim City that will run off their site.)

    Half of them are games once bought that no longer run on modern PCs. So I've already spent the money. Populous, Warcraft I, all the old sierra games, etc.

    It's really nice of them to release an updated copy but I'd appreciate just releasing the source even more.

    I don't mind supporting a company that does this one bit!

    Way to go guys!
  • Now all we need is for companies like Rockstar to buy companies like Microsoft and Vivendi :P.

    I used to play this game all the time via modem with a friend of mine "back in the day" (for me at least, I'm only 21).
  • ...and the like always find the need to mention their high download speeds EVERY chance they get? This bandwidth-machismo causes thousands of cases of bandwidth-envy every time a speed is posted, and those with slower connections must either curse the screen and go back surfing the net at 3 MPH, or (if one has the goods) post their slightly slower download speed of 1.5 Mbps in order to tell the world that "yes, I am no 2-Megabit-God, but I do have a place in this world--I am only 1/4th less than the man you are, you Swallower of Many Bits."

    (in case you didn't hear, I have a 1.5 Mbps download rate)

  • Cool thats its out, but...... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dynedain ( 141758 ) <slashdot2NO@SPAManthonymclin.com> on Saturday March 08, 2003 @01:49PM (#5467602) Homepage
    It is not "Windows Only"

    About 6 months ago I downloaded it for my Palm Pilot

  • Bastards!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gorimek ( 61128 ) on Saturday March 08, 2003 @02:57PM (#5467917) Homepage
    I will boycott his until they release a Mac version!

    That'll show'em...

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