Abandonware

To:  Game Publishers

We, the undersigned, would like to make a plea to game publishers everywhere.

You may remember such classic games as Strider, SWIV, or Dungeon Master. Or perhaps more recent titles such as, the Freespace and System Shock series. Care to guess what these games (and many other older titles) have in common?

The one uniting factor for the eclectic list of games above is that you have little to no hope of picking up a copy at retail these days. In fact, your best bet would be to search for these titles on eBay - and even then, the chances of you managing to find a copy are very slim indeed.

Past classics are now almost impossible to come by in the standard retail market, yet can be obtained from the darker corners of the internet free of charge, where the webmasters can lay claim to have undertaken the noble task of stopping these classic titles slipping into obscurity. Despite the fact that publishers no longer derive revenues from these games since they have stopped selling them (and any revenues from retailers that still sell them were gained a long time ago, at the time of sale), it is illegal to distribute them so long as copyright holders have not released them into the public domain, and 95 years after the games' release have not elapsed.

We’re not demanding the release of thousands of back catalogue games for free as such things would require time and effort from the company that currently owns the rights to the titles. However in these days of high-speed internet connections, surely those companies could make their games available online, and have gamers pay a small fee to cover the cost in order that they might recapture the glory of a particular retro title?

Alternatives could include specifying a retailer where gamers can buy these old titles cheaply, and/or download them (devoid of box, instructions, technical support and any kind of warranty) for their own use – it may not give gamers the chance to play old games for free, but it would guarantee that the games are not lost forever. In no way do we want the Company to relinquish their copyrights – the game, characters, artwork, music and anything else related, will still be entirely theirs – all we want is a chance to play the games again.

A further possibility would be for companies to announce the release of their titles as ‘freeware’, and then leave it up to gamers to locate a copy of the title and host it for download – or perhaps gamers could send their (now freeware) game to sites such as Liberated Games who are dedicated to hosting all games that have been released by the company and made free in a playable form to the public - sites which are separate from the entire ‘abandonware’ issue.

Any of the above suggestions would be an improvement over the current situation, where gamers who want to play such classic games from the past have to scour eBay for the title or search the internet for one of the many Abandonware sites that are in operation, regardless of the legality of such things.

With this campaign we intend to highlight the plight of these ‘Abandoned’ titles, if we can rescue just a few of these titles from their current obscurity it would be worthwhile.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Abandonware Petition to Game Publishers was created by and written by Adam Leach (admin@exiled-gamers.co.uk).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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