«

[Ghost Pig]

Sadly, I'm not paid to link to GameTap - nor do I earn lots of money by posting on internet forums, life is cruel.

I see your point about Games on Demand fixing most of the problems about games not being available, have you (or anyone) actually used any of them before?

I'm wary of saying anything positive about any particular service in case I'm accused of perverting the opinion of the internet for monetary gains.

[Ghost Pig]

Someone has submitted this to Digg - under the title:

Abandonia's Campaign:Make old games Freeware or Purchasable

It's not the first time that the petition has been submitted (a search on digg for 'Abandoned' shows that), but so far it has been dugg the most times!

[guesst]

Originally posted by Ghost Pig@May 5 2006, 12:04 PM
Someone has submitted this to Digg - under the title:

Abandonia's Campaign:Make old games Freeware or Purchasable

It's not the first time that the petition has been submitted (a search on digg for 'Abandoned' shows that), but so far it has been dugg the most times!

What the... this isn't Abandonia's petition. How did we get credit for it?

I don't know if I should feel please or disapointed with this.

[Quintopotere]

Originally posted by guesst@May 5 2006, 09:16 PM
What the... this isn't Abandonia's petition. How did we get credit for it?

I don't know if I should feel please or disapointed with this.

I choose for "disappointed" :not_ok:

Stealing the petition of other ones sounds not so kind...

[Ghost Pig]

I don't know; the Digg link goes to the Exiled Gamers page which displayed a selection of titles.

So, a rather confused news item submitter.

I'm not too concerned that the item is submitted under Abandonia's name, although I could understand if Abandonia weren't too happy with their name being associated with something that they had no say in, I'm just happy that it has had so much interest.

[Tom Henrik]

I am pleased that people think that we would be the site behind something as important for our gaming-history as this. It shows that people have a really good image of us and what we stand for.

What dissapoints me is that it makes us look like thieves once the truth is out. Like someone from this forum posted the news, in attempt to take all the glory. That makes us look bad.

[Shrek]

Hum, then shouldn't someone from here make a post or reply in order to inform the guys that we do not have credit for this petition? I thought about doing it, but I'm not registered at that site and to be quite honest, I don't feel the need to do it, but maybe someone from here is....

[Ghost Pig]

Personally, as the person behind the article itself, I'm not too bothered who gets credited with it, any potential end result is much more important than who wrote the thing.

Plus, the article has sat on 19 diggs for a while now, I don't think it'll make the front page (this time)

[Ghost Pig]

Hi all,

A brief update on this (if anyone is interested), after speaking to some media-types that I half-know with in the industry, I've changed my tactical approach on this. Instead of a blanket call to all publishers to listen to the plea, I've begun to target specific games and try to get answers about those.

I first picked System Shock 2 and Alien Breed, although System Shock 2 is going to be very hard work, and my research into any possible contacts continutes, I was able to get an answer from Team17 regarding Alien Breed almost instantly:

Originally posted by Team17 - Martyn Brown a.k.a. Spadge
Due to certain things in progress, this cannot legally occur I’m afraid. I’d suggest tentatively that far from abandonware, they’ll soon be available for new players to enjoy on a much wider level.

And today, I had a reply from Ubisoft:

Thank you for your email and for bringing our attention to the Exiled Gamers Abandonware Campaign. We appreciate your interest and enthusiasm for these classic games, as well as the passionate support that you are receiving via your petition from the gaming community who grew up playing these games.

I hope that you can appreciate that Ubisoft’s intense focus lies in the creation of new games, especially in this period of transition for the gaming industry. It is our goal and strategy to invest all of our energy into renewing our current titles, while also creating 3 new brands every two years.

This forward-looking focus is shared on the part of retail outlets, who rarely accept to commercialise back catalogue products, due to the lack of demand.

While we certainly share your enthusiasm for classic games, and are aware that there is a community who shares your passion, we simply do not have the means to implement a business model that would include continued commercialisation of these products for which popular support does not exist.

I hope this proves that I am dedicated to the cause (it was questioned in an earlier post), and I've found the main problem with GameTap is that they're only available to people of the U.S. - and haven't answered my question regarding any plans for international expansion...

[guesst]

Originally posted by Ghost Pig@May 19 2006, 04:54 PM
I hope this proves that I am dedicated to the cause (it was questioned in an earlier post), and I've found the main problem with GameTap is that they're only available to people of the U.S. - and haven't answered my question regarding any plans for international expansion...

But it's a place to start.

You know the idea that I have always thought would work if someone had the money, time, and business sense to make happen? Some sort of automated machine with a massive hard drive with hundreds of titles all engineered to install and run on new systems (some sort of DOSBox wrapper or emulation front end). For a fee it will burn you a copy and print out a manual of some old game that companies no longer want to be bothered with. They get a nickle for every copy of their game sold, and we can't complain that these game can't be bought any more. Plus we get actual copies of the game. Ownership, not rental. These software vending machines could be installed in supermarkets, mall kiosks (sp?), anywhere people are.

The overhead alone on making this work is prohibitive, but think of the money that could be made.