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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.

[Eagle of Fire]

Time are not changing. We had the exact same discussion a few years ago.

Thing is, they are doing what we really want. What do we really want? We want to save the memory of those old gems which, in many aspects, are way better than the new crappy games they dish out regularly now.

By selling the game again, they keep that game alive. It's spirit, it's vision, it's playability, it's greatness.

Mission accomplished. And we'll always be here to watch things run over until they tire of it and stop selling the game again.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Yeah, when you buy Doom on Steam and realize it's incredibly difficult to play any custom WADs that prospect quickly goes out the window. And no fan patches can be used for Jagged Alliance 2, which means you get the broken financing that plagued the Gold release.

To be frank, Steam is a shoddy piece of shit in regards to older games, all they do is slap some form of compatibility on it and make it nearly impossible to alter the source material, therefore they're selling broken products that the community had fixed years before without the possibility of manually applying any fan patches.

Steam may help indie gamers, but as far as old games are concerned, dropping them into a vice grip with no possibility of editing them or fiddling with the configurations is unbelievable. These games were not playable for me until I could mess around in config files, play my own custom WADs, or be able to find someone's convenient file that fixes many problems.

It's the worst way to present older games, GoG might do a better job of it, but so far Steam is just grabbing anything it can get and giving it a shoddy release.

[TheChosen]

Originally Posted by 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.

This isnt a popularity contest. This is abandonwareis'm. Like Eagle said, the main mission of the site is to store old games. If someone else starts selling those games, good. Our job is half-done then.

Sure. People do come here because we have game-x here, maybe even as downloadable. However, billions of online users means billions of different x's, so we aint gonna die or vain anytime soon.

And as years go by, we get even more stuff that nobody dont care to even sell anymore.

[humorguy]

Bloody-Piggy: from your post to STEAM's ears. Couldn't agree more!

Only time will tell how things change. With STEAM and G.O.G. and DOSBox and Virtual PC there may well be another clampdown on AW, as publishers think about publishing all their old product to earn extra cash, and their first step will be to come after AW Sites.

I say all this, by the way, with no axe to grind. As I am a hobbyist, no a past-timer when it comes to PC games. I still have my X-Com's (all of 'em!), I still have my Ultima Undergrounds and Ultima VII's and Pirates and Civilization II (the best!) and Command and Conquer and Fallout 1 and 2 and all the Looking Glass games every released, etc, etc. So I won;t really need G.O.G. that often. Think the forums could be interesteing though. Where I do need AW sites is where patches are difficult to get, so for example, I have the original boxed Darklands by Microporse which is version 1.0 of course, and very buggy. The version available on AW sites is 7.0 with about 5 patches included. This has meant that in my Darkland box I now also have a burnt CD with the 7.0 version on it and that's the version I play.

This is why what Bllod-Piggy said was so important. If nort handled correctly these games will go 'undergoriund' and will be downloaded illegealy again, so that patches and mods can be applied!

Someone needs to start getting all the demo's that were made that had gameplay or no-interactive scrolling, because I think there will be a demand for those in this new world of retro gaming! I know I have the two demo's from Terra Nova: Task Force Centauri, that between them have four new missions not in the original game!

Only time will tell, but with the X-Com series on STEAM and G.O.G. starting up at the end of September, things may never be quite the same again!