I always find it hilarious when people argue against abandonware. It might technically be in breach of copyright law but to argue that it's morally wrong to copy or distribute games that are not for sale any longer is absurd.
I don't argue against abandonware, but I do point out the occasions where/when people are being stupid and thinking it's perfectly OK to discuss their copyright breaches and piracy
of particular titles, especially old games. I also slam anyone that tries to define abandonware as a perfectly valid legal term, when in truth it isn't. It's not likely to get anyone into trouble, but that doesn't excuse stupid people when their behavior could bring down trouble, be it upon themselves or others.
The "morally wrong" argument is, as you said, absurd. Like I mentioned previously, gamers made a mockery of the copyright laws when their intent was merely to archive and preserve software, you can guess what the others were thinking that were literally out to steal and pirate the games. ("Low moral fiber" doesn't begin to describe that.)
Phantasmal said:
Paying for roms and Amiga games, good one. Who bitch this is.
And here we have the argument of the entitled gamer, and where we reach a point where I draw a line in the sand in regards to what I've written previously.
I don't mind the illegal copying and distributing of old games that are out of print, but ROM sets (and operating systems in a few cases) are a different kettle of fish. In those cases you are dealing with code that is a cornerstone of the platform, you can't do
anything on the platform without it, gaming or otherwise.
That is a copyright that should be upheld, even when we've reached the point like today when the Amiga (as an example) is all but history, memories and digital code floating about online. I can picture it being easy to have like an "Amiga Starter Pack" that's just the emulator + ROMs that costs something as little as $5, then follow that up with various software bundles. Who wouldn't want the Amiga Bitmap Brothers Bundle, for example?
But what about the emulators? Well, aren't emulators reverse-engineered technology? That's a valid term when it comes to copyright and such, but in the case of the Amiga they either couldn't or wouldn't reverse-engineer the roms. If they could resolve that problem then that would be one less obstacle to worry about.
But then we come to another point of note. If I may play devil's advocate for a minute here and put myself in the shoes of a fictional developer that created Awesome Quest 2* back in 1994 for Digital Fat Cats, which have since gone bankrupt. Let's say I get asked by a fan of my game "How come you aren't supporting your game anymore?" my first response will involve the word "copyright" somewhere, even if I had gone through all the work of finding and securing the copyright for myself. This has been mentioned previously in this thread, but when I and others are saying that copyright laws are retarded and stupid, we're not speaking as "entitled gamers", but as rational-thinking people. Copyright laws
are stupid. What started out as a tool to ensure that content creators would benefit from their work has all but become its exact opposite; there are far too many instances where content creators are denied the royalties they deserve. Most of the time the reason for that is squarely on the shoulders of the content creators themselves, which signed draconian contracts with publishers that gave them quick cash instead of ownership of their intellectual property, but we've reached a point where copyrights to various works are in the hands of financial and corporate entities that don't exist outside of a filing cabinet, with no real people being owners of the copyrights. Copyrights should never be allowed to leave the hands of the content creator, with the exception of scenarios of contractors whom create content for another entity (most often a corporation) and even then it should be for a limited period, like 10 years for example. That would all but kill the copyright laws of today, and strike a heavy blow against corporations, which is why it's not likely to happen anytime soon.
Finally I would like to bring up a developer/publisher that IS actively supporting their older titles - in a way. Mostly I bring this up to give people an idea of how maintaining older titles can be (ab)used in the worst possible manner. I am speaking of Nintendo. For close to 30 years they've been releasing the same titles over and over again, with mostly only minor leaps forward. But if you create a side-scrolling platformer in 1985, you're only gonna be able to make money off of that for so long, even if it becomes an all-time classic like Super Mario Bros has done. But if you ride on the coattails of new technology to update and revise that game, to make it stay relevant and modern...why shouldn't you? Compare SMB1 to SMB3, then again to Super Mario World, then to Super Mario 64, then to Super Mario Galaxy. I know that they aren't technically the same game being constantly updated, but they share so many similar traits that they can be used as a frame of reference. The biggest change the series went through was the addition of the third dimension, beyond that they're all games involving ethnic plumbers hopped up on shrooms running and jumping through turtle-infested locales. Where the problem lies with the Nintendo example is how Nintendo sells the games: By forcing players to first buy an expensive console, then forking over more money for the game itself. We're talking amounts high enough to make people feel some sympathy for the entitled gamers who believe they should get everything for free just because it's old enough.
We can have developers, publishers and consumers get together for all the talks in the world, but copyrights will always be the elephant in the room.
*
If anyone's wondering, there IS a game with that name, a Super Awesome Quest on the mobiles released in 2014. I'm surprised it took that long for someone to use the name.
