I love old games.

There’s something about an old game that just makes me a very happy geek. Maybe it’s the graphics – despite the reality of the latest graphics cards, there’s something compelling, even amazing, about older 3D, or even pre-3D graphics. Developers did the best they could with what they had, and what they did do blew me away back then. Even now, looking at older graphics, I marvel at what they could do with so little hardware.
Maybe it was the DOS prompt. I’ve always had a close relationship with the command line, and event though the years have separated us, I still enjoy popping in to visit, and running a good “chkdsk,” or maybe looking in on some files with a “dir/w” and getting to do some “ren.” There’s something visceral, that brings you close to a machine, when you speak to it in its own language.
Maybe it was those charming Sound Blaster sounds.
Maybe it was the stories, each lovingly built, taking a greater majority of production time in games of the past than they do today.

No matter the reason, I love old games.  I love finding long lost favorites, and I love playing games that I was either too young or too poor to own and enjoy. And when I can, I buy them. I get them at tag sales, from specialty merchants, or off of E-Bay.

But sometimes, it’s impossible to buy them properly. Perhaps there’s not enough money in the budget this month for an old game (which is notably true in recent months). Perhaps the game was a limited release, and the people who own the copies either aren’t selling or are asking collector’s prices for them. Perhaps the game is so old, the media you used to play it with doesn’t exist anymore (say, a 5 1/2″ floppy). And perhaps the game has just disappeared into the sands of time.

Before the modern Internet, problems like this would be simple – you don’t get to play the game. Period, end of paragraph. But nowadays, there are many ways to find old games. Some of these games can be classified as Abandonware, as the companies that own them have abandoned any production or support services for them. For Abandonware, there is a multitude of websites that offer free downloads of games that now no longer “exist,” and can easily be found through a savvy Google or Bing search.  Some of these older games are not abandoned, but are extremely hard to find.  Collectors love getting their hands on old, beloved, rare games, and as a result some of these games are not available on the market anymore.  Games like this can be found through services like Bittorrent.

However, the legality of all of this is very much in question.  Because of copyright law, game companies still own the rights to sell their games for years after some of said companies have gone under.  This does not change of a company abandons a game – even if they don’t offer it any longer, no one else can offer it either.  So, by the letter of the law, possessing a downloaded copy of a game that you don’t already own (and therefore have the licence to play, considering you purchased it way back when ) is illegal.

My Issue this week is not about legality, but morality.  I was spurned on to wonder this as I was recently scouring the web for old Star Trek games.  When is it okay to download a game of free?  Does the game have to be a certain age before a player has the right to download it?  Does it offically have to be cast asside by the creator, thus becoming abandonware, before it can be downloaded?  Or should a game be only purchased, at any cost or effort required, making downloading a game never okay?

True Believers:  When is okay to download a game?  DISCUSS! (GwI United Link)