Abandonware Campaign Options

[The Ghost of Inept Pig]

Abandonware - software titles that are no longer being sold or supported by the copyright holder. Should you wish to play a title that has fallen into this category then you'll either need to search eBay relentlessly - or download a copy of the game from one of the darker corners of the internet, entirely illegal, but what other option do you have?

We've put together a campaign in an attempt to provoke a response from game publishers regarding this issue, maybe they could re-release the title at a budget price in a downloadable form (no instructions, box or technical support) - or perhaps they could release the title as 'freeware', and let the gaming community find a copy and distribute it through sites such as Liberated Games. 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.

You can view a sample of some of the 'abandoned' games that we'd like the chance to play again.

Then maybe read through our entire Abandonware Campaign article, and then, if you should happen to agree with what we're trying to achieve you could sign the online petition we've set up.

To help further, you could post about this campaign on other forums you frequent - the more support we get, the more likely we are to attract the attention of the people that can actually make this happen.

Edit: Following an email suggestion - I'm going to try to keep tabs on the games people want to rescue, the list so far (I'm not checking to see if I can find these games personally, just keep tabs on other peoples suggestions):


Arkanoid
Alien Breed - Revival coming? - Also try the Alien Breed - Obliteration remake
America's Greatest Arcade Hits 3D by MacSoft
Archon
Burger time
Chaos Engine - Bitmap Brothers are to patch their games to run on XP, and then sell them on their website
Close Combat series
Codename: Iceman
Conquests of the Longbow
Daggerfall
Day of the Tentacle
Discworld point-and-click series - ScummVM Team have negotiated this as freeware, keep an eye on their site (ScummVM) for further details
Dungeon Master
Eye of the Beholder
Fast Food Dizzy
Flashback
Freespace
Freespace 2 - Open Source - Free-Freespace 2
Grim Fandango
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Jane's F/A 18
Karateka (precursor to prince of persia)
Kings Quest series
Lemmings
Lands of Lore
Might and Magic series
Monkey Island series
Pinball Dreams, etc
Police Quest series - Can be played on GameTap (US Only)
Prince of persia - Can be played on GameTap (US Only)
Populous - Can be played on GameTap (US Only) or can be bought via Sold Out Software - (Currently out of stock)
Quest for Glory series - Can be played on GameTap (US Only)
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
ReVolt
Rise of the Triad - Download the Source Code at RemainInPlay.com
Sam and Max
Sensible World of Soccer
Space Quest series Can be played on GameTap (US Only)
Star control II - Open Source - The Ur-Quan Masters
Star Wars: Supremacy
SuperFrog
Syndicate
Syndicate Wars
System Shock 2
SWIV
TIE Fighter (also X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, etc)
Total Annihilation & expansions (Core Contingency and Battle Tactics)
Warcraft i and ii
Z - Sold Out Software - Direct Link