When I said "we have worked with publishers before". EA was one of them since they are part of ESA and we got to an agreement with ESA about which games we could put on the site and how old they had to be. These numbers depended on the publisher - some publishers didn't allow it full stop, others allowed it after a number of years - EA was one of those and NFS has aged enough for it to be allowed to be put it on the site according to the agreement we had with them.

It's nothing official, nothing on paper (for obvious reasons - it wouldn't be legally possible) but it's a gentlemen's agreement and we have always held up our end of the deal, and in return they have turned a blind eye towards us. It's really not all that iffy as some of you make out and I think Abandonia is one of the few abandonware sites that has had such a deal.

In the end, it means we can offer oldies to everyone and keep IPs alive which can only benefit the publishers. Take Syndicate or X-COM for example - both receive sequels and a lot of people have been coming to Abandonia to try out the classics after hearing the news.

Just my two cents: I prefer games on GoG but those which are not available commercially ... I feel that abandonia or other sites have a moral justification for conserving these lost gems and offering access. Of course when they are offered somewhere for buying, they should be removed from abandonia until they go out of supply again, but if the copyright holders choose not to offer a game for say longer than a year, for me this means that these holders voluntarily abandon any profits and therefore abandonia has an important function in our world.

Nothing against buying things, but the availability of products is even more important than copyright. Copyright should not foreclose all use of a product. I know, the ice is thin I am walking on, but maybe it's understandable what I mean. Basically not selling a game is sign of a market inefficiency and under these circumstances one always has to balance all interests. Then there is no white and black anymore, only gray.

For example I could download from abandonia and at the same time send some money (6 or 10$) to the copyright holder. How would that sound morally?

Need for Speed is an interesting case, and the reason why we probably will never see the older NFS games on GOG is the same reason that Colin McRae 2005 was pulled - namely that the third-party rights, in these cases the rights to use the brand names and likenesses of the cars concerned - had expired, and the publisher was therefore unable to continue to publish the game.

It's the same reason you'll never see film licence games republished, older FIFA titles republished and games like Grand Prix 2 republished.

For that very same reason, I don't think EA will care (privately at least) if Abandonia or other abandonware sites carry the game, as they have next to no way of exploiting it for profit and are not permitted to release the game into the public domain.
I'm perfectly sympathetic to your cause, and in the majority of cases I agree with and support you in your endeavours. I've downloaded a few games from Abandonia (including Ultima Underworld, which I promptly deleted and bought off GOG) and I will continue to with games that I cannot obtain legally or original elsewhere.

However, I should perhaps advise you that UFO: Enemy Unknown is on Steam.

(Just noticed now that you do have a link to the site, so people are going to be sorely disappointed if they want to download XCOM for free. I'm quite glad that I managed to buy a legal PC version of it after relying on abandonware for such a classic title).

If you read the whole thread (which I do not recommend), you could see how those who speak the loudest against you tend to object to the whole notion of a public service on political grounds and make stuff up and/or parrot falsehoods on this topic as well as unrelated ones. So really, you shouldn't be offended by the likes of them.

Fun fact. Here are two scenarios.

1) Game X has been out of print for a decade, and Person Z pirates it from an abandonware site.

2) Game X has been out of print for a decade, and Person Z buys it from eBay/a flea market/Gamestop.

In both cases, the developer of the game is making the same amount of money from Person Z's acquisition.

I don't really have any issue with abandonware for that reason. If a game's out of print, the only people you're hurting by pirating it are people that are trying to re-sell used copies. However, I personally like hunting down physical copies of used games because, at the least, I can pretend that I own them, and that I didn't just buy some "right of access" or whatever.

I have to hand it to CD Projekt. They do the same thing as abandonware sites except they charge $6 to $10 per game!

I agree with your reasoning. I think Abandonia is a good responsible site. They never have games that are available at retail. Just look at drug patents, they are only good for about 7 years, long enough for a manufacture to recoup R&D and make a nice profit, but after that anyone can make a generic for the benefit of society.


You make a very good point, I agree.

Drug patents are actually 20 years, just like all other patents. However, the clock starts ticking as soon as the patent is filed, and in the case of drugs it's then typically another 7-10 years of development and clinical trials before the drug actually hits the market. For some drugs targeted at smaller populations ("orphan" diseases), or drugs targeted at small populations of an already crowded indication (e.g. anti-infectives) the time remaining often isn't enough to fully recoup the costs of research and development, but I think the solution there is things like subsidies or accelerated approval (if it's determined that more drugs for an indication is something that's actually needed), not longer patent lengths. Some of the big pharma companies (like Pfizer) have been slashing R&D left and right as it is, and with longer patent lengths they'd be all too happy to completely give up on R&D and just focus on marketing drugs while channeling resources to buy up additional patents. Definitely wouldn't be a good situation for the general populace, or even the pharma industry in general.

This is bad for any industry. Remember that time EA did this with EVERY GAMING COMPANY in the 90s? Not to diss them because they're pretty cool again NOW, but there was a time...

Also a lot of IT companies are doing this now which leads to things like IDK releasing a tablet PC and then killing it two weeks later.

Actually, not to totally derail the thread, but I notice a lot of 4X games work on that principle, in terms of expanding your empire. What if there were 4x games that focused on having smaller empires with really directed productivity?

Minus the paperwork, phone calls, meetings, etc :P

It's kinda like how HOTU is a whole different animal now. It's still got a tonne of entries for old games, but the "Where to get" links direct you to Amazon or eBay. That and the fact that the population of RPGMaker 2000 games and GameMaker games outnumber the commercial entries.

Thank you for your reply. In this case, I think I am glad site like your exist. Now I know you guys try your best to agree with publishers. As you say, it's not fully legal though. But it's better than nothing.

And respect for efforts guys.

Yeah, in a way it's kind of a shame. Most of the prices charged by these traders on Amazon and eBay are rip-offs - pure and simple. If you're a collector like myself then fine - a good quality copy of a well-known game is always worth a bit of money. But most of the copies sold online have tatty boxes, manuals that are missing, have been scribbled in or are looking tatty - and these people have the nerve to claim that the games are worth in excess of €40-50 in this condition.

Whoever just wants to play the game would be better served with the abandonware solution - after all, the publisher/creator isn't benefiting either way.

Er?... Fixed compatibility issues, bonus material, integrated dosbox, modern installer, licencing... Oh, and don't forget, most abandonware sites have videos and music cut out to minimise bandwidth costs. And most abandonware sites barely cover those as is with the little contributions they get. Legalizing game download is always preferable.

But you're just being sarcastic, right?