Say that to the other bunch of people making the forums worse. Has it been not for the second, there was bound to be some of those games unavailable for sale on GOG, optimized for modern systems as you said yourself (abandonware sites will more often than not fail to provide DOSbox with a DOS game), and given tweaks to fix bugs and offer more functionality, compiled with countless extra goodies, as much as can be found. This is a better package than the typical abandonware download, and THE definitive method to make people stop uploading your game to abandonware sites and even buy them again.

It's much better than the method of calling people thieves and assholes.

I've seen some devs say that you can pirate their old games bc they aren't sold.

I'm in the pro-abandonware group. I don't see it as stealing at all. It's redistributing important historical documents.

The law was crappy when it came to licenses of software because it doesnt work well with historical /retention/archiving purposes.

If you play a game that isn't sold anywhere for the purpose of experiencing a historical record, then I don't think you're breaking any US laws. That's how archive.org gets away with putting up it's software. There are archival allowances. I'd have to research more to know for sure. I'm no lawyer.

If it's not illegal, then its certainly not immoral. I'd argue it's not immoral already. The only immoral implication would be if it was illegal because you would be breaking a law, not because you were doing something immoral.

That said, sometimes abandonware isn't abandoned at all. So it is important to know if the publisher has truly abandoned the game.

Licenses licenses licenses. We get it, the game is not yours because you do not have a license. Doesn't mean I'm going to fork hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the arbitrary concept of having a 'license' to a game, especially if in either case, the publisher sees no money.

...so if I don't have a license, why is pirating a game from publishers who say that's okay an okay for you then? I clearly do not have a license, so it's not okay, but the publisher says you're okay, so suddenly I'm okay to you despite being license-less?

I've also seen devs say you can download their old games. To me that is the dev offering up the rights. But I think it behooves the downloader to make sure this is what the devs want, not just to assume every game not being sold is free to download.

My main problem with the vast majority of so-called abandonware sites is that they are filled with titles which clearly are not abandoned. Every time I've seen someone link to such a site, I've gone there and found games like Oblivion, Morrowind, Starcraft, Warcraft, Warcraft II. I've seen some of them include links to GoG right alongside a link to a pirate copy of the same game.

To me, that is not abandonware, that is piracy. Now, if a site is truly acting in good faith, that's a different matter. Archive.org seems to honestly stick to the straight and narrow. If one checks, you'll notice they have the Captain Claw demo on their site but not the game! They seem to be doing it right by using their own diligence to make sure a game is legally obtained. They also link the copyright holders such as Monolith to the demo.

But besides them, the typical PC abandonware site --- is just outright piracy. They don't care about the rights and they certainly are not non-profit...

By the time a game is not for sale, there's nothing 'immoral' about playing it for free. All of the available methods to buy the game are non-existent. And this is not counting DIGITAL GAMES, wherein the mere act of activating the game makes it no longer trade-able, or there's the fact that there's no such a thing as a 'second-hand' market digitally even for the collectors who are willing to spend obscene amounts of cash for a collection.

I have the right to abandoned games because I want them to live on in some form or another. I want them to remain for years to come into the future, to show us what games were like back then, how its evolution occurred, what these games are like compared to today's. I'm not going to lose sleep because I have a copy of a game that is no longer for sale. Say what you will about how "it's all about me, me, me, mine, mine, mine" and other assumptions and insults of yours. You failed to convince me how abandonware is bad. What you did do in fact was encourage me to love abandonware even more than I already am.

This is getting drawn out, so I'll close my doors on you.


End of the story.

You are a thief taking what doesn't belong to you. End of story.
You aren't helping the "game live on". Bullshit. You are downloading it so you can play it for free. Quit acting like you are doing some great service to humanity...

If you were, then you would stick to legitimate sites like archive.org which provides any number of historical demos and freely released games.

Parallel to this:

If it's sold somewhere at a reasonable price, then I'll legally buy or download it.
If it's not available anywhere, I'll pirate-download it.

---

Also, I bought a copy of GTA:SA several years ago on DVD, but do avoid having to deal with the DVD anymore, 2-3 years ago I pirated a copy and a CD crack. (Perhaps it would have been better to use the DVD and a CD crack, rather than support piracy statistics.)

You know that's total BS, archive.org host every rom and abandonware game, and even allow upload of modern cracked games.

Well some of us take a higher road...

If it's sold somewhere at a reasonable price, then I'll legally buy or download it.
If it's pretty clear the developers support a free download (Hotline Miami devs for Australia). Direct links from the corporate websites to fan sites with old downloads of the game. I'll download it. (But I do my research).
If I own an old damaged copy, I'm fine with pirating it because I have a license.
If it's not available anywhere, I'll play something else. There are way more games around of every type and genre to make it worth stealing someone else's work.

I don't download anything and everything just because...

I stand corrected, guess they hide things in other categories. A quick search of the software category looked legit, but some of the other category are full of shit.

Clearly nothing wrong with abandonware sites when they link to Resident Evil 7 torrents, right? (sarcasm)
Clearly abandoned, right? (sarcasm)
The site must be on the up and up because they say so, right? (sarcasm)

Where do you see an abandonwaresite linking to re7? Haven't been in one lately.

RW is mad and he isn't going to take it anymore!

Suffice it to say, but archive.org lets anyone upload anything.

Te_lanus is completely correct...it's a pirate site. Unless you think it's "historical preservation" to promote cracked copies of AAA titles released this year...

And don't tell me it isn't their fault, that it's the fault of the users...those uploads have remained up for weeks...

This is exactly what I mean when I say that abandonware sites cannot be trusted.
People like PookaMustard claiming its okay to download anything because the site calls it "abandonware" shows he's particularly clueless to the concept...

How about someone show me a "abandonware" site that truly limits itself to "abandoned" titles...
Because every site I have ever looked at, are promoting pirated copies of games which are still on the market...

Man, why does this get your knickers in such a twist? Why can't we relax and have civilized conversation? You're hurling insults and profanity at everyone and I don't get the vehemence. You are spewing vitriol and it really isn't called for. It weakens your actual significant and legally accurate points. I'm not telling you you're wrong, nor am I agreeing with you. What I am saying is I reiterate what zeogold has said; dial it back a bit.... Or stop the circular arguing. Pooka and you are gonig in circles, and neither one is advancing the discussion. I chose to address you because you're the one being abusive in all of it.

I have no authority on here, obviously, I'm just trying to be a voice of reason.

Here is an addition to the ongoing debate:
The Devs of Dear Esther announced that the upgraded version (the recently released Landmark Edition) will be for free for ALL owners of the original. However they only did this for the steam release of the game. I asked the devs friendly if the non DRM-free version I bought on humble would also be upgraded (meaning if they would add the new version to the account of everybody who already owns the original) which they refused telling me that they don't plan to do this for DRM-free versions because it would be too expansive. Even though I don't understand why giving DRM-free customers the same thing steam customers would get (and no, if I want to have a DRM-free version of my game using the included steam key would NOT be an alternative) could make thinks more expensive (the devs of Read Only Memorys did exactly that just a few weeks ago without any problems and they are no big studio either) I wrote to them again asking if they could at least remove the steam DRM from the steam version so that you could at least play the game without steam AFTER you have downloaded it via steam (I know for most no DRM purists even this would not be an alternative) and they did not even answer this. I told them in my mail that it would be days until this woould be cracked anyway and so today the "no steam patch" was out and I have to admit I have no problems using it. I tried the nice way but in the end I paid for the game and the upgrade (again) was offered to ALL owners.