An Abandonware Section On Steam ?

[Abiji]

There's many abandonwares on PC, and some of them are cults/good games.
I am aware that most of them can have compatibility problems with the current machines but it's not so expensive and difficult to make a patch to correct this kind of problem.

I think that is the idea is popular, it can be made ! It could be nice to find games that made history of video games and for some of us, our childhood, isn't it ?

So, everybody, would you like to see an "Abandonware Section" on Steam ?

[Fox]

Originally posted by Abiji:

There's many abandonwares on PC, and some of them are cults/good games.
I am aware that most of them can have compatibility problems with the current machines but it's not so expensive and difficult to make a patch to correct this kind of problem.

No, but it would be illegal to do so : abandonware doesn't mean that the product is in the public domain, but that the current rightholder doesn't bother to sue for copyrights at the moment.

The minute one of them does sue, this would fold : the rightholder is guaranteed to win, the game is removed, and others may follow suit. This is more likely to happen than other abandonware websites, since Steam will not fold on the first financial loss, hence it being a very juicy target if you hold an IP hosted on the Steam Store.

The only option to make it legal is by securing the rights to sell and modify the game with the current rightholders. This is what GoG is doing, and Valve has shown that they don't want to meddle with other developers' code.

So, in short, this would be too much work for it to happen, and it would also mean directly competing against another force on this market, further reducing the appeal.

[2$hort]

Dungeon keepr 1, gold 2 lot of good abandondware game out their.... vavle could make a killing remastering them, specially since those games us old folks would by out of nesolgia, just don't go changing a classic game that would cause backlash

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by 2$hort:

Dungeon keepr 1, gold 2 lot of good abandondware game out their.... vavle could make a killing remastering them, specially since those games us old folks would by out of nesolgia, just don't go changing a classic game that would cause backlash

That isn't abadonware!

Dungeon Keeper series is owned by Electronic Arts and they still retain the license for the game.
You can purchase the game from them directly via Origin https://www.origin.com/en-gb/store/buy/dungeon-keeper/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition or from other companies such as GoG.com

Valve can't remaster someone else's work!

[wuddih]

you could either try establishing a group that looks for such games that are broken on newer operating systems and together you could make a list of those and create a reasonable usertags that you can add to the storepages of those titles. then everyone would have a place and the possibility to find such games in the search by those tags. this could potentially lead into more user-created patches and solutions for those titles.

and it mostly is not cost efficient for the dev to create such patches and sometimes user-end ghetto patches are enough and sometimes had the ability to revive games even completely dead mp games.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Abiji:

There's many abandonwares on PC, and some of them are cults/good games.
I am aware that most of them can have compatibility problems with the current machines but it's not so expensive and difficult to make a patch to correct this kind of problem.

There is no such thing as abandonware. It's Either freeware, Public Domain or Retail. Chances are Someone owns the rights a nd the truth is Ever since Digital distro came out we've seen the resurfacing of many formerly abandoned titles. What had kept many of those games out of print was the procjected market size was never enough to warrant the cost of another run of the media.

So yeah. No such thing as abandonware. The othe rthing that happens is that as Companies get merghed, bought, etc, people honestly just lose track over who owns the rights to what.

[2$hort]

Originally posted by ⎛⎝ KARR ⎠⎞:

Originally posted by 2$hort:

Dungeon keepr 1, gold 2 lot of good abandondware game out their.... vavle could make a killing remastering them, specially since those games us old folks would by out of nesolgia, just don't go changing a classic game that would cause backlash

That isn't abadonware!

Dungeon Keeper series is owned by Electronic Arts and they still retain the license for the game.
You can purchase the game from them directly via Origin https://www.origin.com/en-gb/store/buy/dungeon-keeper/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition or from other companies such as GoG.com

Valve can't remaster someone else's work!

the editor is broken from cogs,
and EA games ruined that name with that stupid free mobil app.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Abiji:

but it's not so expensive and difficult to make a patch to correct this kind of problem.

I assume that's why none of those games run in an emulator like SCUMMVM or DOSBox.
There is are hundreds of sites in the internet which specialize in providing such games and have a rule - if it is available somewhere for retail, they do not offer it. If you would make them available on Steam, why not just add it to the backcatalogue of the rights holder?