Sponsored advertisement in front page news
 

Please note that you may find sponsored ads in the front page news, posted by "admin". There is now such a post titled "DOS Casino Games". This contributes to funding the maintenance of Abandonia.

To clarify, this initiative is not related to us, the volunteer crew. It is carried out by the corporation that actually owns and funds Abandonia since many years ago, Abovo (abovomedia.com), who control the "admin" account. You can learn more about the history of Abandonia under the "Navigation > AB's History" entry in the website menu.

To send feedback and questions to the volunteer crew, you can use these forums, as always, as long as anyone is online.

To send feedback and questions to Abovo, you can use the "Navigation > Contact Us" menu entry. Abovo is not likely to answer or notice the forum.

Humm... Thanks for the clarification...

I thought someone was trolling... :sick:

I guess there is nothing we can do about it... *shrug*

That's a shame. My condolences.

Unfortunately, nothing in this world is really free to use. *shrug*

Any and all products and services need to be maintained either through donations, through advertisements or other ways of earning income (Hello, Facebook and Google! $$$$$)...

Well, I think it is better to be pragmatic than dogmatic... *shrug* In other words, we should fit the circumstances in the best possible way since we cannott fully control events... *shrug* Money rules this world! *shrug* That is the life! *shrug* And it is just my opinion.

:lame::lame:

While you are right in general, Mystvan, there are some fine details.

- Site have the long list of ads at the right side of the page. Almost every page, actually.
- Site have nag screen on the every download with "please support us with money".
- After Wikipedia decided to ask for donation, many years ago, someone found it a brilliant, and added the same nag screen at the Abandonia. Wiki removed the ad after one week. Abandonia keep it.
- And now we have the news that are not a news, and looks like your neighbourghood spammer decided to hack the site.

Ok, let it be. Site is semi-dead anyway. Full dead is close, it seems.

Would it be possible to edit the news to add in links for the free DOS games on this site. Maybe the taste wouldn't be so bad. I mean for all the ads I see over the internet and forums, this is one that actually fits with the site. At least there's nothing about Peepee enlargement or golf.

The post is part of a deal closed between Abovo and the advertiser, and we can't change it.

We are allowed to post any other news though. According to Abovo, the deal includes no obligation to leave this post on top for any length of time.

Yes, in that case, I agree with everything you wrote above. Including the post of the Latest News on the Homepage.

Quoting your post, “even if it has not much with old games in general. Seems, this the way to support the site, so we have to accept it.” :oh: *shrug*

I feel sorry for this site. :( I haven't logged infor years, but started to visit again few weeks ago, and found that even the founders left it. Abandonia became AbandonEDia in a way. I remember the days when we had good conversations in Hungarian translations forum a lots of years ago. :)

It's understandable though. The generation who played with these games became old, has family and stuff. And also, on smart phones there are games which are much more easy to play, look better, don't need to use DOSBox, and so on... But still, I miss the times when Abandonia was full of life. :)

Well, main reason is that Kosta sold site and left ten years ago. Then some part of community left as well. Then Abovo decided to "improve" the site - and badly damaged translating base and functions in process. Then some more usuals left... Old generation, just like you, haven't time for this anymore, and younger haven't interest... So we are here. Some of us, at least.

The website was remade at the same time and as part of the deal when Kosta sold it, so it became as broken as this at that time, and the very moment the deed was done, no more work would ever be allowed for developing bug fixes or enhancements. The buyer was not Abovo but another company called Studentis, iirc also Swedish. A couple of years later Studentis went bust and Abovo bought it out, or something like that, it could've been just a rebranding, I don't know the legal details.

Afaik they wanted to remake the website because it was considered dated and the new one would be an improvement. The only things wrong with the old website were: content management was too manual; and the layout didn't scale to wide screens. And it looked old/retro, as opposed to this "nice" white-on-white theme we now enjoy. But this website doesn't scale wide either -- which is of course an opportunity to stylishly cram ads to the right. And the attempt to build a proper content management system based on Drupal was apparently aborted early, so we now have at least as much manual file management work, and many more bugs and pitfalls.

People have been leaving continuously, long before and after these events, more or less regardless of them. It is normal and expectable that people leave. The reason why the community has shrunk is because there haven't been enough replacements. Part of that can of course be blamed on the bad state of the website, but it's likely also because many fewer people are now interested in abandonware. The games that still fall in our turf amd haven't been taken by GOG.com are now too old to generate traffic.

remember how they initially claimed it was a non-profit site? at least they removed THAT bit of ... creative reality... *ahem* ;)

Japo, what I mean is that there are too many "shrinking" events, but close to nothing "expanding" ones. When engine was changed, we lost ton of non-standard-ASCII translations that never was fixed afterwards. Hardly working tag system added to this too. So, I believe, we own a lot of translators loss to that.

When most contributors/editors left (soon after that), it added to the site visibility too. I dunno why it happened, but it was negative.

Site owners totally _could_ improve state of it. Participating, fixing engine, communicating with admins, etc. Instead, they considered site as crumbling house: let's use it for advertising, and what's good else in it?

So we have archaic site, close to none new reviews, no translations and almost extinct community. *shrug* Well, I am still here, and you too, so at least it's not our fault, right? :)

Do you think they're so evil...? :p They were just so lazy that they copy-pasted the Wikipedia blurb literally. Kind of dishonest, but if God favors the prepared, it makes sense that the Devil favors the lazy. :p

Indeed, I did not mean that disaster had no negative consequences in traffic too... I mean not 100% either way... anyway never mind what I said.

In my paranoid opinion, Studentis had the idea to turn the website into an advertisement billboard from the very beginning, and they care nothing about anything else. Likely the only problem they saw with the old website is that they couldn't fit enough ads into the every single page. So that's why they invested work in changing it, but after they were done hanging the ads and the website became non functional, they or Abovo never saw any need to spend a cent in fixing it.

:mhh: But if WE are around and the place is shit, maybe it's OUR fault? :bleh2:

https://i.postimg.cc/Zqh97J1V/Shrug.jpg

Um, I am always over-optimistic, and always give second chances, until I have any hope in it. So while site is still alive, it's hope!

Yes, yes, I know. :|

Fun meaning aside, you've got to admit, that every regular member who stopped logging in years ago, basically inspired every other regular member to stop to log in, as well.
Not to put blame on anyone, it just happens, life and what not. But it's also a responsibility of all of us, to what happened to the site over the years, not just on those who are seen as carrying the main load. There's been so many people active at one time, but earlier or later, everybody thought, oh well I stop logging in now, others can still carry it.
Thing is, others felt compelled to follow that example and left as well. Now what we've got, is that no one is there anymore. It's just the fact, that everyone of us matters, making up the community. Only most choose to forget that.

Yes of course. And at some point so much momentum is lost, that the whole thing stops. But also the same people are in different times of their lives, so even if they don't leave completely, they don't spend as much time posting as they used to. And the Dissidents' stunts, as much as they added thrill and drama, didn't help to keep one friendly community together...

In any case a community needs some rate of replacement to stay alive. It can't be a private club of the same pals forever. Already one or two generations of regulars and staff had left while the community was still growing. And even after the website remodeling we had a good community and strong staff for a long time.

And again the remodeling of the website did not help... And as bad as it is now, at least everything works as well as we can expect. There were times when the website or the forums were completely or practically down for weeks and months (database error...)

Users can't submit reviews because the system is broken... at least, I can't submit reviews.

Users cannot submit "proper" reviews directly, right. Just because this ability reserved for the staff.

But you can:
1. Found the "safe" game (get it from "safe" list on site, or ask about your one).
2. Write the review about it and make several screenshots.
3. Contact Japo and request ftp access. And upload all above. Maybe with game, but not always (FTP have it's limits, so most CD-version will need to be hosted somewhere else).
4. Give sign that you did all of that somewhere in the forum.

After that someone will put this review on site. I can, for example.

I was referring to the review form at the bottom of the pages. Trying to submit reviews as a user review doesn't work.

I had no idea. It used to work, although not many people used it. On the other hand it used to be attacked by spammers, so I wonder if Abovo blocked it to prevent them.

As Spectre says, you can always review a game or request that's not yet on site...

I agree with the posts above that explain the current lethargic state of Abandonia.

In short, I think the current state of Abandonia would be due to several factors below:

• Several unfixed bugs that stopped various activities - we could attribute to the inactivity of members due to Abovo’s lack of interest in fixing old bugs;
• Lack of interest of new members to replace missing inactive members;
• Abandonware is no longer a hot topic as it has been with others such as Bishoujo Games, Anime, Manga, Tokusatsu, etc. Of course there are still people interested in them, but their “marketshare” has shrunk a lot... *shrug*

Also, I think it is better for the Forum to be less active, but with pertinent posts than some crazy spammer troll posting regularly rude and nasty personal remarks. After all, better alone than in bad company!

Ummm... :umm: By the way, to the great relief of the Moderators and Users, I am less active lately... *phew* *whew* I firmly believe their precious ears (Grand Emperor Japodeis :king:, WebSpace God of Hollande *bzzz* *beep* :sos:, Grandmaster Spectreman *checkmate!*, Capotain :poke: :awitch: *salute*, Paco :paco:, Chair-man :chair: Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Cyber-Bonk :kuger:, Golden angry axe :butcher: :titan: :pwnd:, MiLady of the Rings :frodo:, Iron Lady :bruce: :boxing: :link:, Miss Lulu_Jane Marple :lulu:, £₤!@ηƐ ∫αŋƸ ωαƗ$фȠ :paparazzi:, etc.) stopped itching :ouch: and getting red... :hihihi: :whistling:



I appreciate that optimism, and I try to be that way too! :OK:

I think it was a correct decision, because if you want to comment something about the game, just post your comment or text in the Forum. In addition to making life easier for Moderators...

There is a serious potential legal issue with those ads and the owner being a Swedish company.

Swedish law doesn't allow ads that are made to appear as if they are not ads. For instance make up bloggers have been fined previously. The law is also very strict about gambling ads, but that part might not be relevant in this case.

Looks like they dropped the oldgames theme and went back with "CASINO GOOD BIG MONEY WIN" :ouch:

It's unfortunate that the site promotes casinos instead of staying true to its original goal: abandonware games. It's a shame.

I'm in agreement with you... I kind of wish we could reclaim the website.

Reclaim? That would be interesting. But has the site being taken before? You wrote "reclaim" instead of "claim".

Correct: to retrieve or recover. The Abovo in control today seems to be nothing like the Abovo of approximately 2010.

And the situation keeps getting more outrageous since they ask for donations! Donations so that they can go on promoting casinos in an abandonware games site.

I don't think Abovo's attitude has changed much... I'd say it was just as bad in principle. It's just natural for the website to deteriorate as no maintenance has been done from the beginning, as the original redesign at the time was harmful rather than the intended improvement, then as traffic decayed, both because of declining public interest in abandonware in general, and because of the website's deterioration, as volunteer crew got tired and left and were not replaced, and as the ones who remained can't do much to fix things, and as decaying traffic motivates Abovo to look for fringe sources of income.

It wouldn't be so much about reclaiming this particular website or domain. The value of Abandonia, at least for us users and crew who don't make money out of it, was the community. We could have taken that elsewhere and rebuilt our own website. There were some discussions about it, but nothing came out of them eventually.

Nowadays that games can be sold online instead of on disks, most of our visitors are serviced by GOG and others. We people who are interested in games so obscure that even GOG doesn't offer them, are also older and more hardcore, and as Spectre says there are other torrent etc. websites where we can retreat.

Brief history: Kosta created the site, then, about 2010, he lost interest and went to freeware games (abandonia reloaded, if I am not mistaken), selling Abandonia to Studentis. Studentis was absorbed by Abovo soon, and Abovo mutated to what we have now. So it was claimed at least twice. :)

Kosta didn't go to Reloaded, he went on to his job and couldn't keep dedicating so much time to hobby websites. Reloaded had been founded earlier, from the same community. And it was sold to Studentis together with Abandonia, and now Abovo owns both. The only difference is that Reloaded didn't get the redesign amd reimplementation that Abandonia got.

Supposedly Studentis went broke or something and Abovo bought Abandonia off, but at least from our point of view there's been precious little difference between them.

Ah, sorry, I came into this site after Kosta departed, but I had impression that he visited Reloaded some time after Abandonia was left. Can be wrong, of course. *shrug* No matter to history of acquisitions anyway. :)

I donated to the site a few years ago, back when I was already skeptical to do so because the website is entirely unencrypted. (Asking for money and then not encrypting traffic is a really bad idea.) Now, after skimming through this thread, I understand why: it completely fell out of use and has now been taken over by a business that has no real desire to handle the website properly. I would have said "why not move?" but with the lack of site maintainers that seems difficult.

It's sad to read what happened and it's sad to have seen things deteriorate. I'm glad there are more abandonware websites out there but sometimes I do only find a thing over here so in a way I am still grateful that this place still exists.

eXoDOS discord is some good place for me, if you are after old games. https://discord.gg/AyrzSngx