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Publishing things that are still available for purchase from storefronts (like steam and gog) seems to be stretching the definition of "abandonware". While man
by kimixa 4mo ago
Publishing things that are still available for purchase from storefronts (like steam and gog) seems to be stretching the definition of "abandonware".
While many people would likely justify their piracy with the idea that "The people who made it don't receive that money" - that isn't always true, and even then they did get the cash from selling the rights.
It's not as it playing that one specific game is a human right, after all.
- turpentine 4mo agoIt's a Russian warez website, fishing for donations in crypto to bypass sanctions because of their invasion? Pass.
- tokai 4mo agoNot worse than using Kagi.
- elevation 4mo ago> Not worse than using Kagi. Kagi was founded by Vladimir Prelovac. But it is incorporated in Delaware, and subject to any sanctions the US imposes. It is not a sanctions bypass.
- tokai 4mo agoThey are buying Yandex data for 2% of their revenue. Money that goes directly into the Russian economy.
- bobim 4mo agoTrue, but in defense of the author site and from a personal perspective, the copyright laws are very skewed and allow for being paid for life for a craft that has been made once. Even heirs benefit from it for life. Isn't that wildly unfair for all the other jobs where you are paid for your work once for all? And irrespectively from the fact that what you designed has been produced by the million and still running...
- alberto-m 4mo ago> allow for being paid for life for a craft that has been made once It costs on average 7$ to buy a craft that took maybe 2 years for a team of 10 developers (since we are speaking of DOS era games). Are you suggesting such works should have been paid 7$ just once by one person? Reasoning like this is why most gaming companies pivoted to either use Denuvo or to make pay-to-win, ad-filled products. I cannot blame them, seeing people that are wishing to spend hours on a game, but not to pay the rightholders the equivalent of 5-10 minutes of average SWE salary.
- bobim 4mo agoMy opinion is that work should be compensated fairly, that's all. I was just highlighting that copyright is a strange exception, the patent system is more fair even if not perfect. 25 years to make money on an idea seems good enough to me.
- realusername 4mo agoLet's not pretend any of the original developers from the early 2000s or even worse, from the 90s get any money from these old games you buy.
- alberto-m 4mo agoThe site pirates games that are still being sold by their original devs, like “Ports of Call”. Even for some games published by bigger companies, some of the original developers get a small cut on lifetime sales. So I don't need to “pretend” anything.
- realusername 4mo agoThat can happen yes but it's rare, usually they just got their salary and the rights were sold/re-sold/sold again to larger media conglomerates merge after merge.
- armchairhacker 4mo ago
- ktallett 4mo agoGog and Steam often release versions years later, sometimes items are well abandoned for a decade plus with no interest in release and people fairly download to play. If you then decide to monetize that, I don't think morally you can really blame those who downloaded it and shared it when it was abandoned. The whole copyright system needs a huge overhaul as it is taking away the ability to share what is the art and creation forms of today.