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[humorguy]

Well, this is the first of many games that will be coming off of abandonware sites I fear, depending on the success of the Good Ol' Games site (http://www.gog.com/en/intro). All the positive noises for G.O.G. has prompted this sale of X-Com titles I believe. I also believe the more successful G.O.G. gets the more retro PC games you are going to see for sale rather than as abandonware. Either games will be licensed to G.O.G or the publishers will do deals with STEAM and others, or make the titles available themselves at a low cost.

We may, in fact, be seeing the end of abandonware as we know it because of this new trend, because if most or all the classic games are not available on abandonware sites, the number of hits will drop dramatically.

[TheChosen]

Originally Posted by humorguy

We may, in fact, be seeing the end of abandonware as we know it because of this new trend, because if most or all the classic games are not available on abandonware sites, the number of hits will drop dramatically.

Id say no. Judgin by the site (the front), most of the games that will be available are the most populars ones like from the Lucasarts, which we arent allowed to host whatsoever, and the other popular ones from years 1997-2001, which isnt even a proper year for Abandonware games. I doubt we will be seeing games like Floor 13, Captain Blood or Starflight available on that site, not to mention anything in cga.

When the "ESA-crisis" struck, many tough it was going to be the end as most of the popular downloads had to be removed. However, we still had the "leftovers". Later it turned out that there's lots of leftovers. And there's still tons of leftovers to pick up.

[Quintopotere]

I think that is a positive thing!
I prefer buy for a fair price an old masterpiece game (better than many nowadays games), revised to be played on XP and Vista (without any DRM protection), instead of illegally download an abandonware.
My only desire is to save the old games from being abandoned, so that could be the right way... so, I'm already registered at gog.com and I'll buy something for sure!

[dosraider]

If you're thinking that AW sites are sites where you can get 'as much as possible' and 'as big as possible' and 'as recent as possible', then yes, the end is near. :notrust:

But if AW sites means the love for old games, even unknown smaller gems, then the future is bright.

[_r.u.s.s.]

it's not like they owned every old game out there, they are picking specifically the most famous ones. i barely think they'll own every single game downloadable on abandonia

and like dosraider said it's not only "OMG FREE GAMEZ" but also people loving those games, discussing them, giving some tips, etc

[humorguy]

But my point is take away most of the classics, like X-Com, that bring people here and you may have a problem. I am sure the later VGA games here are downloaded a lot more than the CGA games. And I didn't just mention G.O.G. - I said that maybe the X-Com's going on STEAM was because of G.O.G.'s very positive word of mouth and that could mean more games that are remembered with now go on sale. Even older ones.

I am just saying that with the X-Com's on STEAM and G.O.G. you can see things are changing, and that those changes may have an impact on AW sites.

And all it takes is a slightly stronger virtual PC with built in Win98 - which is bound to come along eventually, and with the likelihood of one day having DOSBox built into DOS games so it's 'invisible' and configured specifically for that game so it's install and play on XP (maybe what G.O.G. are doing?!) and you could practically sell them in shops for $2.99 in a CD sleeve!

Times they are a changing.