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[Hugehead]

Abandonware is good, I get to play the old games that I'm to young to have played when they were new for free.

Bottom line: Any company whining about abandonware, GoG it or stfu.

[Biag]

Asking if abandonware is right or wrong is kind of like asking whether it's right or wrong to borrow a friend's car when they're out of town. They're not even going to notice, so long as you refill the gas and don't crash, but they would be well within their rights to be pissed that you did it without asking. And no matter what anyone says, there are going to be people who are uncomfortable with it and people who don't have a problem doing it.

I don't think it's really piracy, though. Technically, it might be considered that, but if the copyright holders aren't going to care, then what does it matter?

[Paul]

Thats not really a good analogy. If you borrow a friend's car while hes out of town, your using it means the friend will lose some usage out of it since he will still want to use it when he gets back and it won't be the same as before you took it (wear and tear, etc).

It would be more like going into an abandoned museum without buying a ticket when the ticket stand is closed and all the doors are left open. Nobody will notice you're there, and just walking through looking won't hurt anything - but its still trespassing.

While getting abandonware is not legal, morally it's a grey area. I'd be okay with it if there was no way to legally obtain the game, since it's a shame to see classics just disappear because nobody is selling them - although if you acquired it and played it while it was unavailable and the owners later put it up for sale again I feel you should buy it to support them.

[MrWiggles]

Though I think most of us could agree that the 75 year copy right for software, is stupidly long, even if we disagree on the legality and morality of Abandonware.

[Vattic]

My brother for example will NOT touch a game from outside the PS3 era because of the graphics. The issue is that he isn't really alone.

A friend of mine tried to get his niece to play a load of his old SNES games and she asked "why is everything made of squares". I figure this is partly a problem with higher resolution screens as I remember reading that our current obsession with pixels comes from playing games on emulators. The original images would have been much blurrier over a standard TV. Not sure if this applies to old PC games.

There is nothing grey about abandonware. You don't forfeit your copyright or intellectual property by not selling it.

In case you are referring to my post I'd like to point out I meant morally grey rather than legally. My mistake.

And when they release it on Steam or as part of a retro compilation, you're going to pay money for it, right?

Your comment wasn't in reply to me but at someone saying something I might. If I've downloaded a game and enjoyed it enough to keep it on my system after the first time playing it I'll happily pay for it if it comes on the market. I haven't failed in this yet; Finding GoG was expensive for me.

[MrWiggles]

My brother for example will NOT touch a game from outside the PS3 era because of the graphics. The issue is that he isn't really alone.

A friend of mine tried to get his niece to play a load of his old SNES games and she asked "why is everything made of squares". I figure this is partly a problem with higher resolution screens as I remember reading that our current obsession with pixels comes from playing games on emulators. The original images would have been much blurrier over a standard TV. Not sure if this applies to old PC games.

I don't think this is just for computer games, its just something found with media in general. I've known and met several folks, who won't watch old movies, and they consider a movie old after a few years.

[silhouette]

Though I think most of us could agree that the 75 year copy right for software, is stupidly long, even if we disagree on the legality and morality of Abandonware.

Thats why i follow the original guide lines which they set for the copy right, 10 years.
But there was a loophole, they didnt think that people would re-copyright the thing after 10 years.

But fuck that, i follow the original way.

I don't get why people wont touch or play "Old" Media. It's stupid really, missing out on so much.
Sure, you don't get some "AWESOME GRAPHICS" But the graphics shouldn't really matter.

I am the only person i know who actually likes and still plays the great old games that were genre defining.
Abandonware and other places do keep these great things from fading away forever.

[MrWiggles]

Though I think most of us could agree that the 75 year copy right for software, is stupidly long, even if we disagree on the legality and morality of Abandonware.

Thats why i follow the original guide lines which they set for the copy right, 10 years.
But there was a loophole, they didnt think that people would re-copyright the thing after 10 years.

But fuck that, i follow the original way.

I don't get why people wont touch or play "Old" Media. It's stupid really, missing out on so much.
Sure, you don't get some "AWESOME GRAPHICS" But the graphics shouldn't really matter.

I am the only person i know who actually likes and still plays the great old games that were genre defining.
Abandonware and other places do keep these great things from fading away forever.

Where do you get this 10 years thing? The oldest modern copy rights, are for authors and painters, which they held the copy right for 70-75 years after they died.

[lordcooper]

I have no qualms with abandonware.  If there's no way to pay for something, I'm not gonna.

[Tellemurius]

I currently think the market is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too graphic based.

No not games I mean people.

My brother for example will NOT touch a game from outside the PS3 era because of the graphics. The issue is that he isn't really alone.

i prefer the ps3 over the xbox360, least i have more power and my graphics don't suck, also hacking it so i can put a Wine system in XD

[poca]

Before I say anything else, I want to very strongly recommend that people abandon abandonware based only on the fact a modern indie game will probably be less hassle to obtain, install and run. You will also only be able to talk to the one other person on the internet who is also playing this game and you don't speak their language.

Now with that out of the way, I'll suggest that abandonware can be a slippery slope because I think you can apply almost identical reasoning to justify unauthorized use of abandonware to brand new games with caveats that mean you won't buy them. I'll skip expounding my personal opinion and instead concentrate on outlining a decision I think people need to make for themselves.

My first example is the most obvious example of nearly-abandoned-ware. I happen to know of a game that cost $20-$30 when it came out in 2001 and it now costs $77.48. Actually, it cost 75.00 CHF in 2001 and it still costs 75.00 CHF now but the exchange rate has made the game comically overpriced.   

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Colobot Website:
http://www.ceebot.com/colobot/load-e.php

Click buy and it takes you here and asks for 75.00 CHF
https://www.epsitec.ch/games_payment/cart.php?product=colobot&lang=e

Google will convert "75.00 CHF in USD" to  77.8410 US dollars
http://www.google.com/search?q=75.00+CHF+in+USD&btnG=Google%2BSearch

A couple other related pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colobot
http://www.mobygames.com/game/colobot

My second example is much farther down the slope. Spore was effectively abandonware to me while it was still in pre-release because its DRM meant I would never buy it.

It might be argued that my Spore determination at pre-release is insane because you believe that EA might have removed or changed the DRM to make it more acceptable but you're missing a couple things. One minor detail is that I've seen enough to know they wouldn't really change anything that really mattered. The major thing you are missing is that I get to decide whether I will buy something based on weighing the criteria I decide are important to me.

My final example is the one that I believe takes this concept too far. I've noticed one thing about many people playing games with an online component: a surprisingly large portion of the game public seems to think that video games need more penises so you can be sure at least one person will want to change the main character in the video game into their own penis and have the sidekick turned into Clint Eastwood's penis. I think a "YOUR PENIS HERE" game would be have to be a niche game designed for adolescent boys and the angry closeted republican LGBT crowd because you can't just fir that concept anywhere.

[lordcooper]

Dude...the last two examples had nothing whatsoever to do with abandonware.

[freeformschooler]

Dude...the last two examples had nothing whatsoever to do with abandonware.

Yeah, what?  I was with him until he started on Spore, that has absolutely nothing to do with Abandonware. I think he meant to say pirating the game, or something.

[poca]

Dude...the last two examples had nothing whatsoever to do with abandonware.

If the first is abandonware because it is insanely expensive why can't the second be abandonware because it is insanely riddled with DRM?

The central idea behind abandonware is that the game is not available for purchase; my examples are designed to illustrate that "not available" isn't as clearly defined as people might think by successively moving farther and farther away from a strict interpretation and so I think that warrants some thought on how far is too far.

[lordcooper]

Not available = you can't buy it no matter how hard you try.

Come to think of it, your first example isn't really abandonware either if it's still for sale.