177: The Vintage Game Preservation Society
- Thread starter LesIsMore
- Start date
Home of the Underdogs has been inactive for quite a while now. Apparently it is run by a Thai woman but for the last couple of she has not touched the site. There have been no updates or uploads since I think the beginning of 2006. It all still works I think (discovered it about a year ago)but I assume if it went down, that would be it.
As it mentions at the end, Abandonware isn't about piracy -- we're talking about things that are no longer sold. Sure we could find the games at flea markets or garage sales, but that's hit-or-miss and won't give any money to the game producers anyways.
The actual people who created the game probably don't even work at the company that would make money if we DID manage to find a way to send the company money for them. (And, based on my admittedly limited personal experience with the actual creators, they're usually just thrilled that people want to play their old games, and could care less about getting the $2 that Donald Duck's Playground might retail for today.)
If the companies start selling the games again, then they're no longer abandonware and the download links are removed and replaced with links to places that sell the software. If this is piracy, then it's the most benign form of piracy that I've ever seen. Much nicer than things like Gameslop, who make their money reselling actively-available software, giving NO money to the original content creators.
The actual people who created the game probably don't even work at the company that would make money if we DID manage to find a way to send the company money for them. (And, based on my admittedly limited personal experience with the actual creators, they're usually just thrilled that people want to play their old games, and could care less about getting the $2 that Donald Duck's Playground might retail for today.)
If the companies start selling the games again, then they're no longer abandonware and the download links are removed and replaced with links to places that sell the software. If this is piracy, then it's the most benign form of piracy that I've ever seen. Much nicer than things like Gameslop, who make their money reselling actively-available software, giving NO money to the original content creators.
The original point of copyright was that it would eventually lapse.
I pause here, while RIAA-types collect themselves.
Copyright law, like patent law, has the ultimate end of enriching society by encouraging people to contribute to the "idea pool". It is supposed to encourage creators by giving them a (time-limited!) monopoly on their contributions, so that they can profit from them and continue to contribute; it's also supposed to encourage others to pick up those ideas after that monopoly period ends and use them to create new works (just like patents) or at least to appreciate them long afterward instead of letting them become lost and forgotten.
The problem is that the period of copyright has been creeping up; originally 25 years after creation, some jurisdictions now recognise 75 years or more. Even more bizzarely, some have clauses setting copyright expiry at a certain period after the death of the creator; which sounds alright at first, until you consider copyrights held by corporate entities which are theoretically immortal. So when do these ideas enter the "common pool"? The question is especially murky for games.
Abandonware sites work to filling in the second half of the copyright goal, hopefully in a manner that doesn't interfere with the first half, by recirculating old games. Smart developers will recognise that and encourage the sites to keep their public profile up at no cost to the developers, long after the developers have stopped expecting revenues. Some even release their copyright hold on old titles with an eye towards the free PR bonanza.
I don't condone piracy of current releases, because that violates the first half of copyright's aims and will eventually dry up the pool of new ideas by making creativity too costly, but I also don't condone the "perpetual copyright" mentality that keeps games in forgotten boxes years after the last obsolete disc was sold. Information doesn't have to be free right away, but we're all better off (developers included) if it does become free after a few years.
-- Steve
I pause here, while RIAA-types collect themselves.
Copyright law, like patent law, has the ultimate end of enriching society by encouraging people to contribute to the "idea pool". It is supposed to encourage creators by giving them a (time-limited!) monopoly on their contributions, so that they can profit from them and continue to contribute; it's also supposed to encourage others to pick up those ideas after that monopoly period ends and use them to create new works (just like patents) or at least to appreciate them long afterward instead of letting them become lost and forgotten.
The problem is that the period of copyright has been creeping up; originally 25 years after creation, some jurisdictions now recognise 75 years or more. Even more bizzarely, some have clauses setting copyright expiry at a certain period after the death of the creator; which sounds alright at first, until you consider copyrights held by corporate entities which are theoretically immortal. So when do these ideas enter the "common pool"? The question is especially murky for games.
Abandonware sites work to filling in the second half of the copyright goal, hopefully in a manner that doesn't interfere with the first half, by recirculating old games. Smart developers will recognise that and encourage the sites to keep their public profile up at no cost to the developers, long after the developers have stopped expecting revenues. Some even release their copyright hold on old titles with an eye towards the free PR bonanza.
I don't condone piracy of current releases, because that violates the first half of copyright's aims and will eventually dry up the pool of new ideas by making creativity too costly, but I also don't condone the "perpetual copyright" mentality that keeps games in forgotten boxes years after the last obsolete disc was sold. Information doesn't have to be free right away, but we're all better off (developers included) if it does become free after a few years.
-- Steve
I herd so much good about System Shock 2 that I searched high and low for a used copy of the game. When that search turned up nothing I look to the internet to find the game. Finally I found it at some abandonware website, downloaded it and went through the process of making it work for Win XP. All said and done I finally managed to play the game, but after about an hour I realized..."Hey, this is like Bioshock but with blocky graphics and bad guys that move in slo-mo." So I stopped playing SS2 and instead fired up Bioshock again on max difficulty.
On another note for those who still love pinball you can download emulators of your favorite pinball tables complete with the original ROMs.
On another note for those who still love pinball you can download emulators of your favorite pinball tables complete with the original ROMs.
Half the fun of Home of the Underdogs for me was reading the description of the added titles back when it still updated. I didn't even download the games, but still, I was introduced to titles I'd overlooked or just plain didn't know about.
I openly celebrate pirates because I do buy games legitimately. Half the time I need a hack to play the game I bought because they don't have a fix for whatever problem ails me. I own Star Control 2 for example, but play a hack/remake because the original will not work on any of my computers (I had to retire The Rust Bucket). Even with newer stuff I find that some retarded protection measure stops me from playing a game I legitimately purchased from the store. I can spend several days troubleshooting with the company with no real guarantee of success or I can go to hackers and pirates and be up and running in a download.
I love hackers and pirates even though I buy all my games. I figure if a game is worth playing it is worth owning. The problem is sometimes I need their help to actually play a game I have purchased, which is totally lame, but at least it is a little more fair to both the company and me.
I love hackers and pirates even though I buy all my games. I figure if a game is worth playing it is worth owning. The problem is sometimes I need their help to actually play a game I have purchased, which is totally lame, but at least it is a little more fair to both the company and me.
Steam's release of the X-COM series potentially sounds the death knell for abandonware. The reason abandonware existed was because the maintenance of retail channels was prohibitively expensive, as there's only so much shelf space and formats become obsolete.
Thanks to a third-party handling the technical side of it (DOSBox, which exists only because Microsoft can't be bothered to cook up its own DOS emulator for its advanced operating systems), it is now possible for a publisher to release its entire back catalog for direct download, and the only overhead is a very minimal amount of disc space. All the up-front costs have been paid, and every sale is (almost) 100% pure profit.
Abandonware enthusiasts may celebrate this re-commercialization because it grants them the wish they've made with their sites, which is a good thing; indeed, seeing the swift and gracious deletion of anything that becomes available anew is exactly the sort of goodwill gesture required to avoid the perception of "they're nothing more than pirates." Staying on the copyright owners' good side benefits everyone.
Thanks to a third-party handling the technical side of it (DOSBox, which exists only because Microsoft can't be bothered to cook up its own DOS emulator for its advanced operating systems), it is now possible for a publisher to release its entire back catalog for direct download, and the only overhead is a very minimal amount of disc space. All the up-front costs have been paid, and every sale is (almost) 100% pure profit.
Abandonware enthusiasts may celebrate this re-commercialization because it grants them the wish they've made with their sites, which is a good thing; indeed, seeing the swift and gracious deletion of anything that becomes available anew is exactly the sort of goodwill gesture required to avoid the perception of "they're nothing more than pirates." Staying on the copyright owners' good side benefits everyone.
Abandonware will still be up, I should think. A good number of game companies have closed down, after all -- I'm really not sure who would still hold the rights to some of those games. I also can't imagine some of the games that I'd only play for nostalgia purposes to be released for a cash fee -- it's not so much the fee that would be the problem, it's the implied promise that the games would *work*. If I download something from the interwebs, I feel it's my responsibility to make it work on my computer -- if I get it from the game creator, then I expect THEM to make it work, or give me my money back. Are they going to make enough profit to justify that cost?
Gametap is a more likely service to destroy Abandonware -- but even there, it's not going to be able to do much about games that no longer have owners.
Gametap is a more likely service to destroy Abandonware -- but even there, it's not going to be able to do much about games that no longer have owners.
It's still active but posting strong might be a bit of an overstatment.smallharmlesskitten said:
There will always be abandonware, some games just didn't sell well the first time round, though a developer can release them again at little to no cost for themselfs on the net and try to get some money for it, alot of them probably wouldn't bother.zoozilla said:
I have yet to buy a direct download game from any service, I mainly worry what happens if the company goes bust or something happens and they lose the data telling them what games you have bought.
A few comments from the author:
To paraphrase Yahtzee's "Fable 2" review, the mentality for companies may be "You can! But why would you want to?"
I think if they (abandonware sites) think of themselves as pirates at all, it's only in the sense of digging up buried treasure.bkd69 said:
Home of the Underdogs is still active, though posting has been absent from the site. Having acquired System Shock 2 through it earlier this year, I can confirm that the majority of downloads are still serviceable.smallharmlesskitten said:
The key here though, and why I don't believe abandonware's going to be killed as a movement by these services, is that a lot of companies may not see the profit in doing this. Yes, some games are particularly popular (LucasArts taking back its adventure games is feasible) but if you looSimuLord said:
To paraphrase Yahtzee's "Fable 2" review, the mentality for companies may be "You can! But why would you want to?"
Author comments continued:
And here's the main point of abandonware - it treats these games like they've become public domain, providing them free to those of interest. And the community is fully aware that they're not public domain, so if there's any protest they take them down. I agree with the point of public domain personally, and the argument that if something is left alone long enough and no one's going to touch it others have the right to do so.Anton P. Nym said:
Great to see my experience isn't an outlier in the the abandonware world.RAKtheUndead said:
I'm a long time member of Abandonia, so I do love old games. Anyway...
Abandonware is a tricky question. It's illegal but not illegal. It's a kind of a grey zone between piracy, corporate theft and free entertainment. Because, how can you steal something, that is not sold, not in circulation and, well, obsolete in many other ways. Simply put, it's worthless to many people, including the makers of the game, that's why they don't sell it anymore, right? They "abandoned" it. If you see a discarded piece of hardware near a dumpster, but you think you can use it for something, pick it up and take it home, is that stealing? Didn't think so...
The main point of abandonware sites is to preserve and make old games generally accessable and playable. As I said before, companies who don't give a flying V about their old games, generally don't really care what happens to them. Abandonware sites work on that same "don't care" principle, because as long as the owner of the game doesn't care, they can continue to work. If all the old game's owners were to rise up and claim back their titles, that would be the end of the abandonware scene, but that won't happen, ever. Why? Because people don't care. Companies don't care, at least most of them don't. They are both busy with Halo 3, and Far Cry 2, and don't care about Mine Bombers, Shadow Warrior or Commander Keen. But because we care, we preserve them.
People should thank abandonware sites, not condemn them. Those people preserve history, our history, and like it or not, video games are a part of it. I, for one, am proud I was there to witness those awesome games in their full glory when they were released, and I'm proud to be able to play them now and many years later I can show them to my kids "see Junior, this what your gamer Daddy was playing when he was your age" and it will be AWESOME!
Abandonware is a tricky question. It's illegal but not illegal. It's a kind of a grey zone between piracy, corporate theft and free entertainment. Because, how can you steal something, that is not sold, not in circulation and, well, obsolete in many other ways. Simply put, it's worthless to many people, including the makers of the game, that's why they don't sell it anymore, right? They "abandoned" it. If you see a discarded piece of hardware near a dumpster, but you think you can use it for something, pick it up and take it home, is that stealing? Didn't think so...
The main point of abandonware sites is to preserve and make old games generally accessable and playable. As I said before, companies who don't give a flying V about their old games, generally don't really care what happens to them. Abandonware sites work on that same "don't care" principle, because as long as the owner of the game doesn't care, they can continue to work. If all the old game's owners were to rise up and claim back their titles, that would be the end of the abandonware scene, but that won't happen, ever. Why? Because people don't care. Companies don't care, at least most of them don't. They are both busy with Halo 3, and Far Cry 2, and don't care about Mine Bombers, Shadow Warrior or Commander Keen. But because we care, we preserve them.
People should thank abandonware sites, not condemn them. Those people preserve history, our history, and like it or not, video games are a part of it. I, for one, am proud I was there to witness those awesome games in their full glory when they were released, and I'm proud to be able to play them now and many years later I can show them to my kids "see Junior, this what your gamer Daddy was playing when he was your age" and it will be AWESOME!