Good Old Games (Download distribution for old games!)

[Darkflame]

Sounds like it could be an excelent service;
http://pc.ign.com/articles/888/888042p1.html

Old games, made to work on XP/Vista, DRM free for $5-10.

[Kitarii]

Sounds great, maybe they could fix LBA2!

EDIT: I actually emailed the guy, suggesting this to him.
I'll let you know his response, but if anyone else feels like dropping a line I'm sure that would help too...

[Darkflame]

I'm guessing they will be doing deals with various publishers, but showing demand cant hurt

[Fireball]

Seems like a good idea to me. I like the idea of DRM-free licenses on games. Hopefully they can make it work.

[Lightwing]

This is excellent. The only thing about that article that bothers me is that " Freespace 2" is a freeware game. They shouldn't charge for it.

[Kobold]

They wouldn't be allowed to sell freeware games as far as I know.

[ChaosFish]

Nice idea, but at the end, how many people would use it and for what reasons?

This actually smells like scam.

[Darkflame]

Anyone that wants to play old games legaly, and working on modern OS's, duh.
Personaly, depending on the game, I rank among them.

If this catchs on, it could actualy lead to a good trend; It would show value in old games, potentialy helping encourage developers to makes sequals, or (more likely) simerla games inspired by them.

As for saleing freeware, that isnt really the issue.
They have to do legal deals with publishers who hold the rights over the games they distribute. In this case, Interplay.
If a publisher previously gave something away for free, theres nothing to stop them decideing to charge for it if they wish.
Its only illegal if you profit from someone else's work. (eg, you break a "non-comercial distribution" clause in the lisence agreement).

[ChaosFish]

"Play it legally" is not a reason, unless the very fact you're not breaking a government law makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

So if I buy Fallout, will Black Isle get any money? (they're already dead so I doubt that)
No, I support them just as much by downloading it without giving money to someone who doesn't deserve it.

[Kitarii]

They're providing you with a service, that of making the game run on newer machines.
Plus it's not like an unreasonable fee, more of a forced donation towards their business.
Everyone needs to make money, I don't really see what you don't like about this?

[ChaosFish]

Everyone needs to make money, but I don't see any reason to donate them anything. Do they really make games run on newer machines? Something tells me they just add DOSBox to the package like all other companies. Or other open source software. In that case, DOSBox team deserves a donation much more than they do.

[Kitarii]

If that's true then yes.
I'm just guessing of course, but it sounds like they work on individual games.
Perhaps they've made their own dosbox replica.

[Darkflame]

Actualy, yes, I do get a fussy feeling for paying for other peoples work

Companys come and go,merge and devide all the time. Your never paying for a game you just bought...companys rarely take out loans like that....your effectively paying for future games.

GoG wont be getting their games for free.
In this case, you pay this service, which pays the publishers, which should pay developers to make more games like what you bought.

Now, not that its a perfect 1:1 ratio or anything, but I dont see any difference the age or distribution of the game makes.
This is just like, having a game store where items never vanish because they arnt the latest thing.

[ChaosFish]

Yes, fuzzy fuzzy, what I meant was that "legally" doesn't equal "morally".

I don't know, there's something that feels very wrong about willingly paying to a publisher while knowing that money won't go to the developers. If you're forced to do it, I understand. But with digital stuff you can just pirate it, and no one gets hurt except for blood thirsty publishers.

You actually want support a game, download it for free and donate money to the developers. This seems like the most reasonable way.

[Darkflame]

But you ARE paying for developers, your paying the developers making future games.
Just because it isnt 1:1 dosnt mean the money going in isnt dosnt correlate to the games going out.
In this case, Fallout is getting a sequal anyway. But in the case's of old games that arnt, this could strongly enourage publishers to invest in sequals. (assuming the previous sale well online, that is. Just because its old and there dosnt mean its good, naturaly.)

And if it dosnt, the money will be paying developers for other games.
Sure, publishers are probably gready and will keep too much ect.
But thats the same as always.

You actually want support a game, download it for free and donate money to the developers.

Well, yes, if you have the names of everyone that worked on it and their PayPal details

Personaly, I think an ideal system would be one were fans can invest in a games development. Thus fandom will directly correlate to the chances of a game behind made. You would be paying for the games directly then, rather then just putting money into the publishers pot, which then goes to developers for a a non-correlated future game.
Legal nightmare and impossible to get that system safe for both sides though.

[Fireball]

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

Yes, fuzzy fuzzy, what I meant was that "legally" doesn't equal "morally".

I don't know, there's something that feels very wrong about willingly paying to a publisher while knowing that money won't go to the developers. If you're forced to do it, I understand. But with digital stuff you can just pirate it, and no one gets hurt except for blood thirsty publishers.

You actually want support a game, download it for free and donate money to the developers. This seems like the most reasonable way.

I agree that publishers often take too much money and do not leave enough to the developers. However, I think it is also worth noting that publishing and marketing a game is an expensive process. I'm not sure how much developers rely on royalties in terms of income, but, afaik most developers are paid a fixed salary, and thus do not heavily rely on the success of the game (in contrast to the publisher). That is, by the time the game is shipped, the developers would have already made most of their money.

Having said that, game sales will certainly influence whether or not a sequel gets made (which would ensure further employment for the developers), in which case you are hurting the devs by pirating games and donating money to them directly, as you do not show up on the game sales statistics.

[ChaosFish]

Yeah yeah yeah, good philosophzics. But in the bottom line, it feels better to pay the developers directly (don't need to know all their Paypal accounts, just the one Paypal account of the developers team). And in this case, I trust that feeling.

Screw publishers, they are vile creatures that shall be brought to extinction. Unless they start being moral and stop being thirsty for money, screw them.

[Darkflame]

I dont think you can generalise quite like that.
Id say purhapes 95% of publishers thats true, but not all

Yeah yeah yeah, good philosophzics. But in the bottom line, it feels better to pay the developers directly (don't need to know all their Paypal accounts, just the one Paypal account of the developers team). And in this case, I trust that feeling.

Well, Sure.
But that set-up dosnt exist.


The only simple answer I see would be to ask sites like this to show planly where the money goes as a pie-chart.
Try to enourage that as a standard.
Then, you could clearly see what games have money going to the developers, publishers ect, and choose your purchase's based on that.

GoG in this case has done deals with two publishers, but they arnt restricted to just those two. I'm guessing if a developer owns their own rights, they would be just as willing to help distribute that too.

[ChaosFish]

I remember reading once on an old Fallout forum something like "You'd think I'm crazy, but I love Fallout so much that I've been donating a great amount of money to the developers team."

So I guess it's possible somehow. In other words, the setup does exist, they just haven't made a GUI yet

[Darkflame]

Well, its happened once. Kinda.
Its what Steam is.
Valve managed to set up, effectively, their own "pay us directly" system.

[ChaosFish]

Steam is loaded with "DRM crap" though, shame.
Are you sure what you buy at Steam goes to the developers team?

[Darkflame]

Yes, Steam = Valve.
They are self-publishing.
At least, when it comes to online stuff.
I dought they make physical disks themselfs.

Of course, this only applys when your buying Valves own stuff, they distribute other peoples stuff on Steam too, and I'm sure they take a cut of that but I'm not sure how much.
And even with their own stuff, part of the money will go to the upkeep of the steam system, the admin, bandwidth ect. So it wont be all going to the developers.

But I'm positive Valves developers is getting an order of magnatude more from each game sold on steam then if they used someone else to publish their games.
Same goes with "publishers" like TaleTall games. I dought Sam & Max would have been profitable at all if they wernt doing it themselfs.

Annoyingly, its very hard to find information on how much developers get from digital distribution systems.

Microsoft's Xbox Live service did give developers around 70%, but that crashed to 35% not long ago.
Nintendo's WiiWare is unspecified, but they did quote "more then microsoft" (but more then the 70? or the 35?).
Sony's PSN I have no idea.
Steam I cant find either, despite googleing.

Wish they were more upfront about this stuff

Still, I think Steam is pretty much the best consumer<>developer path we have at the moment, despite the DRM and its other imperfections.

[Darkflame]

I'm bumping this because,aside from the other thread, they had a nice update on their site;

Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, eh?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and even re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

http://www.gog.com/en/intro

[Ravey]

Doesn't help that every game in their banner already runs fines in XP.

[Echomote]

Originally Posted by Ravey

Doesn't help that every game in their banner already runs fines in XP.

Even Fallout 1/2/Tactics ran on Vista for me, no problems.

I loved that game!