Abandonware - Illegal to download?

[Omaeka]

I know that piracy is a big no no to discuss on here but I'm not sure if this falls into that category, so I was wondering if anyone on here knows whether it is illegal to download Abandonware such as Resident Evil 1-3 that are no longer obtainable on PC anymore through any legitimate means.

Cheers.

 

[jsmoke]

Looks like it's still technically illegal but chances of anything happening very slim.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-abandonware-and-is-it-legal/

 

[IronWarrior]

It's abandoned, they don't care for it anymore and in the end, you ain't going to get into trouble.

 

[Omaeka]

Looks like it's still technically illegal but chances of anything happening very slim.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-is-abandonware-and-is-it-legal/

I should really Google this stuff huh, figured it'd be so niché that a search wouldn't yield results

Thanks!

It's abandoned, they don't care for it anymore and in the end, you ain't going to get into trouble.

 

[Dis86]

I'm curious about this as I'm after battle for middle earth 2 and its expansion.

 

[IronWarrior]

It's silly really, since they losing an source of revenue for these old games. People still play them and would pay for them.

Even if they didn't host the games on their own stores or websites, they could allow GOG and other websites to host the game and sell it and for them to get their cut from it.

Could even go a little further and release HD versions of the games and port them to Steam and iSO or Android like others have done.

Also it seems a lot of these games can easy be played in a browser too.

I been thinking of playing Dino Crisis, I own it on my Playstation, but I saw that it was also released on the PC.

 

[LeMson]

You can buy RE hd on steam if you fancy it

 

[MrWhippy]

I've never really understood the whole abandonware idea. Can't see how it's legitimate to claim a piece of software has been abandoned just because it is no longer available for purchase.

Now if the rights holder actively declares that they revoke their claim to the IP, then that's different, fill your boots time.

 

[Yaayuh!]

I've never really understood the whole abandonware idea. Can't see how it's legitimate to claim a piece of software has been abandoned just because it is no longer available for purchase.

Now if the rights holder actively declares that they revoke their claim to the IP, then that's different, fill your boots time.

Completely agree.

 

[ryhoper1]

I'm curious about this as I'm after battle for middle earth 2 and its expansion.

I loved these games and wish you could buy them on steam or origin.

There are sites where you can download them and servers so you can play online. But I cant be bothered messing around with ISOs and cd cracks.

 

[TNA]

Dino Crisis. Certainly would be great if they remade that. But I do worry that it would not be the same game after they would have to dumb it down and butcher it for current audiences.

That and I also remember enjoy Parasite Eve.

 

[Semple]

Could even go a little further and release HD versions of the games and port them to Steam and iSO or Android like others have done.

Remastering games or porting them to a different platform will still cost a lot of money in development/testing resources, to the point that they probably wouldn't cover those costs from game sales (unless of course it's one of those classics that everyone would buy again).

I've never really understood the whole abandonware idea. Can't see how it's legitimate to claim a piece of software has been abandoned just because it is no longer available for purchase.

Now if the rights holder actively declares that they revoke their claim to the IP, then that's different, fill your boots time.

Agree with this as well. Copyright works based on the ownership of the rights to that content, doesn't matter if it's no longer for sale.

I work for a big tech company who regularly buy out smaller companies who come up with new IP, half the time we don't even use this IP and it gets stored away. Infact our new product line has some IP that was shelved about 20 years ago, but is now of some use to us. In the scenario above, you could argue that this content has been abandoned.

 

[Armageus]

It's silly really, since they losing an source of revenue for these old games. People still play them and would pay for them.

It's not necessarily as easy as that though - over the years the rights pass between different publishers/distributors as companies merge or are dissolved.

E.g.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ve-it-owns-the-rights-to-no-one-lives-forever

Can even be the case that whilst a publisher obtains rights to the "brand", logo and relevant IP, they don't actual obtain rights to any of the older games. Games with licensed music soundtracks can also be problematic, as re-releasing them normally involves renegotiating deals with whoever holds the rights to the tracks featured.

 

[IronWarrior]

Dino Crisis. Certainly would be great if they remade that. But I do worry that it would not be the same game after they would have to dumb it down and butcher it for current audiences.

That and I also remember enjoy Parasite Eve.

There is rumours of them wanting to bring back Dino Crisis, last year Capcom Dev 1 posted asking people if the people wanted it back then they might bring it back.

Remastering games or porting them to a different platform will still cost a lot of money in development/testing resources

You thinking big AAA titles like Skyrim. A lot of these games are really small for example Dino Crisis is only 600mb. That means the sound and texture files are pretty small, repeated a lot to make the game.

If they wanted to remastered that game, turning the textures into higher resolution isn't really a problem, fans do that all the time, fanpacks are available for a lot of games. Audio will be a little harder and more expensive.

Regarding Dino Crisis again, there is already a patch that does a lot what HD remake does, fixes glitches, fixes and increases performance, adds modding tools, adds support for new computers and gamepads, widescreen fixes and all done by one guy.

This happens a lot in Japanese games, games without English support are often fan supported and released by a small team, in the last few years, these small teams are being legally hired for official releases.

There is a few games on Steam that have been remastered and are selling for £25-30.

AAA titles wise, take the recent example of Resident Evil and Resident 2 remakes, they selling that for a full £35-40 and that's going to sell bucket loads.

The real problems if they wanted to do it the correct way is finding the source code and if it's still available and possible the IP and even then it doesn't stop it, back to some recent Japanese games being brought to the West with English releases, the source code has been unavailable or denied to the western team and they been forced to pretty much hack it.

IP wise, well, since the games have been abandoned, the chances of someone making a complaint can be slim.

 

[Omaeka]

It's silly really, since they losing an source of revenue for these old games. People still play them and would pay for them.

Even if they didn't host the games on their own stores or websites, they could allow GOG and other websites to host the game and sell it and for them to get their cut from it.

Could even go a little further and release HD versions of the games and port them to Steam and iSO or Android like others have done.

Also it seems a lot of these games can easy be played in a browser too.

I been thinking of playing Dino Crisis, I own it on my Playstation, but I saw that it was also released on the PC.

Sadly it isn't as simple as it being on PC means you can play it on PC. I own RE2 & 3 on retail disc as well as PSX copies and event a RE2 copy on the N64 *SOMEWHERE*. Those retail discs wouldn't work back on Vista with any fix and it's the same on 10, just forces the resolution of the computer into 640x480, goes black and closes itself. No workaround or fix has worked.

RE3 however has a very high quality 'port' done by a... less than reputable group of individuals on the seven seas and it works flawless, has even been given higher resolution support and every costume in the game unlocked from the beginning. The graphical bugs have also been completely fixed like zombies appearing infront of the environment when they're dead behind it, like a desk. It's hands down the best 'remaster' I've seen and it was done by a pirate!

If they can do it for free, I really don't know why companies do not just port all of their classics to Win10. I'm sure there's weird reasons here and there but I think it's mostly down to them not realising an audience exists for them. There's no end of GOG requests for Capcom to bring classics like RE Dino Crisis Maximo etc.

You can buy RE hd on steam if you fancy it

Played REmake and Zero to death on Steam

 

[TNA]

There is rumours of them wanting to bring back Dino Crisis, last year Capcom Dev 1 posted asking people if the people wanted it back then they might bring it back.

Good to hear. They should remake that and resident evil 3

 

[Martini1991]

I've always just bought stuff like this..
Can be costly like

 

[Rozzy85]

I've never really understood the whole abandonware idea. Can't see how it's legitimate to claim a piece of software has been abandoned just because it is no longer available for purchase.

Now if the rights holder actively declares that they revoke their claim to the IP, then that's different, fill your boots time.

It's made under assumption. The games are still protected by copyright and the original EULA still stands. The big difference is that no one is really going to try and actively enforce it due to cost and there being little interest in these games. If for whatever one of these games suddenly sparked a huge amount of interest you can be sure it'd be picked up on Capcom's radar and they'd react. They'd certainly re-release the title again to meet the demand assuming they do still own the full rights themselves.