/vr/ - Retro Games

Foolish goyim-cuck this is how the classics were meant to be played.

You don't want to be a terrorist... do you?
Now buy today!

I hate nightdive so much its unreal

>>10775617
>Now buy today!
Unfortunately I already did a while ago. I initially wanted to support the practice because I didn't realize how shitty it was.
>I hate nightdive so much its unreal
Didn't know they were behind a lot of this stuff. I think I hate them too now.
It sucks too that a lot of companies didn't have any interest at all in preservering their old works, dedicated gamers and archivists came along and did the legwork and now that the companies know there's a market they've just flipped the table.

>>10775632
Second part was meant for >>10775618

>crappy myabandonware site pulls games that are on GOG and links directly to them
>actual preservation groups like no-intro and redump leave the original disks in their archives
>THIS IS HURTING GAME PRESERVATION U GUIZE!!!
No dumb fuck, your favorite shitty romsite losing games isn't hurting game preservation. No-intro or redump or some other actual game preservation group shutting down would hurt preservation. A rom site shutting down has no effect.
>Companies taking an interest in selling their older titles was supposed to aid preservation, not hinder it.
It has worked though. Back in the 80's and early 90's, it was standard practice to throw away or overwrite all the old material from games since they never thought they would have any use for the stuff again once the sales window passed. Now big companies hang onto that shit for future remakes/remasters/rereleases. Thanks to finally being convinced that people still wanna buy their old games, companies aren't dumping the old shit in the trash anymore. I'll bet in 25 years time you can find more production materials and original artwork for games in the past 10 years than you can find for every game released prior. That is a win for preservation, even if it doesn't mean free games for you.

What the fuck

>>10775604
I know right. If only abandonware.com wasn't the only website on the internet.... fuck life, bro. Oh well

>>10775651
>No dumb fuck, your favorite shitty romsite losing games isn't hurting game preservation. No-intro or redump or some other actual game preservation group shutting down would hurt preservation. A rom site shutting down has no effect.
Maybe I'm not as good at sourcing games as you are but even I know that having fewer sources for these increases the risk of them disappearing forever, especially since they exist in a legal gray area that could become black very quickly if the companies decided to kick up a stink. And the practice of removing older games to push remasters still makes it a lot harder for the average gamer to access those originals.
>It has worked though. Back in the 80's and early 90's, it was standard practice to throw away or overwrite all the old material from games since they never thought they would have any use for the stuff again once the sales window passed. Now big companies hang onto that shit for future remakes/remasters/rereleases.
Now that's a fair point that I will concede.

>>10775663
I know other sources exist, I initially asked for help but it's not the right board for it.
Aggressive culling of original versions is still an extremely shitty practice, even if pockets exist where they can be found.

>>10775632
Lemme tell you about Nightdive and the System Shock community.
>System Shock fans keep interest in the two games alive
>facing issues with bugs and whatnot on modern platforms, they come up with fan patches to keep the games playable
>culminates in creating a new game engine that is more stable and has some additional features
>new engine leads to increase in custom mods for the game, Fan Missions multiply
>Nightdive comes along and buys up the IP to sell the games on GOG
>immediately throw C&D's against the fan community, demanding they take down so much as links to downloads of the System Shock games
>start selling System Shock 2 with the fan patches and fan engine included, don't ask for permission or even offer a dime to the fans who created the patches or the new engine
>do the same with original System Shock with fan-made mouse-look mod
>never attempt to reach out to or speak with the fan community, just throw C&D's at them if they suspect they got a free copy of the game
>fan community has no money to hire lawyer to sue Nightdive for stealing their work and profiting off of it
>large portion of fanbase leaves because they don't wanna make stuff for free for some company to come along and profit off of while treating them like criminals in the process
>games have smaller fanbases now than when they were considered abandonware
Nightdive are retro game rent-seekers. They look for abandoned games with fan patches, go buy up the IP, then sell the game with the fan-made patches. They know full well the fans are the least likely to be able to afford legal action against them for stealing their work, so they steal the fan's work as a rule.

>>10775719
I had no idea it was that bad. That's truly vile.
As usual there are people in this thread who think it's their personal duty to defend asshole corporations but this shit is clearly indefensible.
Corporatism and (extended) copyright are blights on society.

>>10775604
>game preservation
The biggest pirate cope ever invented.

>>10775815
>The biggest pirate cope ever invented.
So we should just let them disappear, then? Corporations aren't going to do shit to preserve games. Their interest in them ends the moment they stop turning a profit.

>>10775719
Retro games are free real estate

People who pay for retro games are the problem

>>10775815
Sorry to double post but I already own the game, by the way, twice. I'm interested to play the original version and it's terrible that it's so obscure to find and forced into a legal gray area whose continued existence relies so heavily on the benevolence of IP owners it might as well be put on the endangered species list.

>>10775719
Fuck that company.

>>10775719
Source? I tried Googling about this and could not find anything, even when specifically Googling about system Shock mods and Nightdive. In fact, the results I got were from fan mods that came out AFTER the Nightdive remasters.

>>10775719
B-but now more people get to enjoy System Shock, right?

>>10775719
Is this true?

>>10775604
These old games are way too expensive to justify. Especially when it's just a digital license and you don't get a box or anything. It makes no sense how easily one can obtain decade old console ROMs but they want you to pay $15 for a 20 year old PC game. Just fuck off.

Tell me a single reason why games shouldn't enter the public domain after 10-20 years. You can't.

>>10775842
Based.

>>10775849
Best I can recommend is to look around for the old fan forum where the New Dark engine was originally posted. I don't remember the exact name, I haven't been there in ages. I just remember about a year or two after I finally convinced a friend to try co-op SS2 with me I got the urge to play again and went to get the game, only to see a sad message on the forums about Nightdive buying the IP and sending them C&D's over the game downloads and links. I remember people complaining about Nightdive stealing the New Dark engine when they released SS2 for sale, and the dev saying Nightdive never even asked him if they could use it, but he had no money or time to fight it. After that I drifted away for a while. A few years later I got the urge again and went back to the forums, and they were a ghost town.
I can't point you directly to a source since I didn't read it somewhere online, I just witnessed it when it happened years ago. I don't know if the forums still exist, can be found in the wayback machine, or if any evidence still exists. I have the same issue with a certain eastern european who ruined the M:tG Shandalar community. I know I witnessed him harassing the guy making the modern cards work in the game, leading to him ending development on the project and pulling all download links, but I can't point to any proof of it.

>>10775916
>Best I can recommend is to look around for the old fan forum where the New Dark engine was originally posted. I don't remember the exact name, I haven't been there in ages.

This isn't sounding very reliable. Do you remember the name of the forum? I tried looking for it but could not find anything.

>only to see a sad message on the forums about Nightdive buying the IP and sending them C&D's over the game downloads and links

So they took down the links to download the game itself?

>I remember people complaining about Nightdive stealing the New Dark engine when they released SS2 for sale, and the dev saying Nightdive never even asked him if they could use it, but he had no money or time to fight it. After that I drifted away for a while. A few years later I got the urge again and went back to the forums, and they were a ghost town.

I would love to find a source on this is true. Really sounds like a lot of "he said, she said" though. I want actual proof. FUCK Nightdive if this is indeed true, but I would need more than a dev like claiming Nightdive stole their engine without permission and somehow NOBODY found out about this or even complained about it. I have seen people raise a stink out of smaller things before, even complaints about GoG stealing fan-patches, but I have both never heard of this or could find a single mention when trying to look for it.

I tried looking up about this engine alone, the engine in relation to Nightdive, and multiple variations but absolutely nothing came up.

Many fan forums do also eventually die out. I used to be active on a Chrono Trigger and Breath of Fire fan forum, but when I last checked them years ago same thing, total ghost town. And there was no remakes or re-releases to cause it.

I'm just going to need SOMETHING to see as proof before I believe it, anyone can just make this up.

>>10775959
Alright, but I really don't care if you believe me or not. I'm never giving them a dime because of what I witnessed, you do you. Here's this bit on wikipedia about Nightdive's stance on the situation.
"Shortly after getting this approval, the NewDark patch had been released, and Kick attempted to contact "Le Corbeau" to discuss the use of their patch, but the user was impossible to contact."
The patch being the New Dark engine. Their story is that they found it impossible to speak with the most popular user on the forums, shortly after he just released his biggest project. If you believe that, I've got a bridge for sale at a reasonable price.

>>10775604
Yeah, I went to download Princess Maker 2 again after 10 years and the download was gone because the remake is on Steam. Fuck them.

>>10775907
>Tell me a single reason why games shouldn't enter the public domain after 10-20 years. You can't.
No, I agree. I said I don't mind paying, which is true in principle, but the prices are ridiculous. They should be charging a couple of dollars and, if I remember correctly, when GOG first came into existence that was the case.

>>10775719
Holy fucking kikery.

>>10775780
>>10775869
It's not, that anon is retarded.
>>10775849
Like I said.

There's really not much point in paying for retro games. If you buy Theme Hospital, its not like the money goes to everyone at Bullfrog who made the game. It goes to EA and CD Projekt, giving tiny chump change to corporations made up of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the game you're buying. The only real reason to buy it is to show these companies that there's interest in a revival. But as we now know, most things are better off dead.

>>10775604
uhh, anon, old game monetization isn't preservation, gog releases are all kinds of modded

>>10776003
Same. You used to be able to buy old games for under $5 and I don't mind paying a little bit for the convenience but they are asking so much.

>>10776036
$30 for Turok 3 is fucking laughable.

>>10776029
>If you buy Theme Hospital, its not like the money goes to everyone at Bullfrog who made the game. It goes to EA and CD Projekt, giving tiny chump change to corporations made up of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the game you're buying.

That's a lot of assumptions, unless you specifically know the contracts for that game, which you probably don't.
If a dev was owed royalties at release, then he's still owed royalties from sales of the game happening 30 years later, unless said dev specifically changed his contract himself. It doesn't matter how many times the rights to the game changed hands, the contract carries over.

With that said, thinking only in terms of royalties/money directly made from sales in a stupid take. In a lot of cases, probably most cases even, individual devs will not get royalties from game sales even when it is new, does that mean you shouldn't buy the game? There is a much more complex system in place and a lot of devs are perfectly fine with not getting money directly from sales.
People also forget that royalties are only owed if the budget is recouped, and that it can take months after to get anything if anything at all. A dev solely paid in royalties may simply not be owed a dime if the budget is never made back.

>>10776039
It is a retail product where employees were paid to port the game to a new engine. It is perfectly fair to charge 30 dollars for it.
It is also perfectly fair to just play the original in an emulator though. I only support remasters and ports because they keep old games in the public eye for new generations of fans.

>>10775993
I'm not trying to defend Nightdive or pick sides here, nor trying to tell you to buy it, I could not care less if you do or don't. I just want to find out the truth, especially considering the damning story you painted that you insist is true. If this is true I want to spread it, but I don't want to spread around something false.

Mentioning "Corbeau" helped me find a few leads, I found what I believe is that forum and even the post about it:

http://ariane4ever.free.fr/ariane4ever/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4287&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=5fb30e2ac9f6a8491c14c973b7176eb1

Problem is that forum is in French, and I don't speak croissant. I tried using a machine translation. Nightdive announced the remaster on August of 2019, and the last page (page 17) has posts from 2018 to 2023, so it's the only page they would have talked about it. I don't see a single mention of the remaster or Nightdive on all of page 17, just people reporting bugs. The last time he posted in that thread was June 2019 (same date his opening post was last updated), two months before Nightdive;s announcement. Also it says he posted a grand total of 10 times on the entire forum. From 2012 to 2019, he only made 10 posts, and stopped posting on June of 2019. I would hardly call that "The most popular user on the forum", there were people reporting bugs who made more posts in that thread than every post Corbeau ever made in seven years combined.

It does appear that after seven years, he left. I have no idea if that forum shows you when someone last logged in but it won't let me view his profile without an account. I admit him disappearing 2-3 months before Nightdive announced the remaster is odd, and Nightdive claiming they believe they own the IP to the engine after failing to contact him is a little fishy, but it doesn't confirm that they just flat out stole it and said screw you to the dev. They even thank him in the patch notes, not something you would do if you are trying to bury this.

>>10775719
Just took I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream off my steam wishlist because of this. Fuck them assholes.

They can't destroy piracy they can just make it inconvenient so I think a healthy equilibrium has been reached. You can still find and pirate all old games you just can't do it on "big" websites that try to be legit and search engines so normies and retards like OP are filtered and those people are better off paying for the privilege of convenience anyway

>>10776194
>retards like OP
I found what I was looking for and I did it on my own, but yes I am pretty retarded about this kind of thing
I actually had paid the price of convenience a while back but the point was I couldn't play the version I wanted because of this copyright shit

>>10775815
I generally dislike piracy (especially of small indie games still on the market), but it's literally the most valid reason in the world to want to preserve it. When data disappears from the internet, it's gone forever. Companies only preserve data under the premise it will make them money later. But they often mishandle it, lose it, or overwrite it with shitty remasters (thanks George Lucas). Keeping that data out in the world and accessible is super fucking important. Don't undermine that.

>>10776165
Based truthseeker. We need more people to actually care about facts enough to look into this kind of shit instead of a bunch of anons running off on personal crusades on pure hearsay.

>>10776116
My job doesn't pay me decades after I stopped doing the work. Why should these guys continue to get paid when they already had the privilege of working on something they love, unlike the rest of us working bullshit jobs.

>>10776370
This, I put a huge amount of sweat into a successful project at a chemical plant and receive zero royalties even if chemical flows through there for 50 years. Developers half ass some shitty game decades ago and sneed if they aren’t getting royalties years down the line despite working in a way easier industry with a much lower overall cost of living. They can get fucked, I’m not paying for some gay rent seeking remaster, get a job faggot.

>>10776442
based

>>10776442

>>10776442

exactly, the fact copyright holders milk IPs for decades without creating new content or improvements and expecting money to flow in indefinitely is what ruins all media.

if you aren't innovating or moving forward you don't get paid.

>>10775719
This is how IP is theft from the commons.

>>10776035
That really varies. For old DOS games, more often than not they're provided as is, just with a preconfigured DOSbox. Some existing community patches/fixes might be included at times for games which actually struggle to run on modern systems, on rare occasion they have provided a fixed .exe when the community actually hasn't, but that was a long time ago.

>>10776526
He's fucking lying.

>>10775907
IP needs to last forever so the great grand children of the ownership class can keep living off renting the work of others!

>>10776535
>>10776526

>>10776523
Copyright should expire after 20 or so years, it would have caused a massive industry purge and REQUIRED innovation otherwise these companies would have all gotten fucked by now

>>10776036
5 dollars 20 twenty years ago is like 30 today.

>>10776637

Funny how the discourse went from "you shouldn't buy because devs get no money" to "devs shouldn't get any money at all"... and that bitterness because you hate your jobs, wow.

>>10776697
/vr/ is a board for old people.

>>10776697
No artist should have an easier life than me, I mean that with zero irony

>>10775907
>Tell me a single reason why games shouldn't enter the public domain after 10-20 years. You can't.
If i was making a long franchise, i would be kinda pissed to see that happen in my lifetime. If i stop caring about the IP though, then i guess thats fine.

>>10776116
devs don't get paid royalties.

>>10775719
Mods are legally owned by the holder of the IP.

>>10776697
There needs to be equal hate back at them. I'm not of the mind they shouldn't get paid but they are coddled badly in today's industry. Everytime a game is shit or fucked up the whole studio comes out of the woodworks for excuses, if not belittlement of the userbase, and that's always blown my mind because no other field does that.

Copyrights when the law first went into effect in 1790 lasted 14 years, in 1909 it was revised to 28 years... then Disney had to Disney and now copyright law is all sorts of fucked up, it lasts for the life of the author PLUS 75 years.... what the FUCK? Life of the author is bad enough, but 75 years after? What possible use is there for that? It's literally so others can mooch off of their work after they are gone for almost a century! For corporations is lasts either 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever one is shorter.

Also to keep in mind though, in the late 1700s people had a life expectancy of somewhere in their 40s, it wasn't until around 1925 that life expectancy started to rapidly rise.

>>10775907
>Tell me a single reason why games shouldn't enter the public domain after 10-20 years. You can't.

To play devil's advocate, people would be less inclined to create something, especially for something long-term or if it would be a huge investment, if they would lose it in a short amount of time, as >>10776897 stated.

>>10776897
>If i was making a long franchise, i would be kinda pissed to see that happen in my lifetime. If i stop caring about the IP though, then i guess thats fine.

Although the thing with that is you would not lose rights to the entire franchise, just the works which expired. If you have a still-running game franchise from 20 years ago and the first game hit public domain, that doesn't make all the later games also public domain, just that one.

And thanks to the estate that owns the rights to Sherlock Holmes they were also able to successfully argue and set precedent that only the version of a character in the works that entered public domain counts and that if the character had been updated or changed in later works that rendition counts as a separate copyright and does not also enter public domain until it's time is up.

>>10776727
100% this

>>10776946
>people would be less inclined to create something, especially for something long-term or if it would be a huge investment
One of the reasons modern games suck so much is their enormous budgets. Big investments have really ruined video games.

>>10776530
Do you know he's lying, or can you not see evidence it's true so you assume he's lying? I won't ask you to prove a negative but if you have compelling reasons to think it's a lie I'd like to hear them.

>>10776535
>the great grand children of the ownership class can keep living off renting the work of others!
It's worse than that, they actively oversee its ruin, like with Rings of Power.

>>10776727
I understand your frustration but I wish for you to live easier rather than them to live harder. I don't resent people who get to make money living their dream, however when they start phoning that shit in and extracting money in the laziest way possible, that can be kind of disgusting.

>>10776946
>And thanks to the estate that owns the rights to Sherlock Holmes they were also able to successfully argue and set precedent that only the version of a character in the works that entered public domain counts
This sounds reasonable. If I created something like that I wouldn't mind the work itself going into public domain for free use but it'd be fucking annoying for some company like Disney to come along and make a shit version that replaces the awareness of the original and is considered authentic, or even worse, definitive.

>>10775651
>It has worked though. Back in the 80's and early 90's, it was standard practice to throw away or overwrite all the old material from games since they never thought they would have any use for the stuff again once the sales window passed. Now big companies hang onto that shit for future remakes/remasters/rereleases.

They might hang on to it, but that's not the same as preservation. The moment they don't see potential profit in it, its gone.

The only true way to preserve games or any digital media is for as many copies of it to exist on as many harddrives as possible. If profit is the motivation, then ots temporary and they won't release it to anyone anyway.

>>10775604
All GOG games are free
https://gog-games.to/

>>10776946
I will use this as an example, i know nor a great one since all the shit that the series became, but just as an example:

If say George Lucas was still making Star Wars stuff, then the copyright on the first piece of media lost its copyright, you would instantly have others trying to profit off remakes or i imagine distinct sequels based on the original. Free fan stuff is one thing, but once stuff is being sold as "technically legal", it can degrade whatever message or meaning you may have put into the thing you originally made which could have the longterm effect of tarnishing public perception of the ongoing continuation of that work you are doing if suddenly 10 other "technically legal" adaptions start showing up every year. It could absolutely be a degradation of the original product and what you are still making based on it.

I personally think it should last for the lifetime of a creator, if they wish it, or maybe with the asterisk that after 10 years beyond the last entry/updated re release, you have to prove you still want to work on your creation. The creators wishes should trump corporations.

I will say i also personally have no problem with a "100 year rule". The stuff that is in the public domain is mostly all from over a century ago and exists as such that its become cultural icons and stories that have transcended what may have once been a simple product for sales. Imo you need around a century for stuff like Alice in Wonderland or Frankenstein to reach that kind of milestone. Of course that is probably totally different then just wanting abandonware, im just merely referring to intellectual creations.

>>10777434
Noted but the GOG version is still the DOS version, the original Apple II version was taken down from sites and not made available for sale.
It's not the same as a whole game disappearing (or becoming harder to find) but different versions are important too, especially originals.

>>10776946
>And thanks to the estate that owns the rights to Sherlock Holmes they were also able to successfully argue and set precedent that only the version of a character in the works that entered public domain counts and that if the character had been updated or changed in later works that rendition counts as a separate copyright and does not also enter public domain until it's time is up.
So if i make a jrpg starring a character nammed Sherlock Holmes, i can put him in a fantasy kingdom, but not 1800s Britain?

>>10776527
lol no even the dos ones are cracked to remove the outdated drm bullshit

>>10777405
Shitty companies would have less monopoly on entertainment if people had free access to popular IPs.

>>10777489
At the cost of tons of low effort shit that could tarnish the future reputation of the original work if there are now 50 legal adaptions using the same name and characters.

Corps should not have full say either though. They shouldn't be able to hoarde something just because the creators were under their payroll over 120 years ago or something.

I will play devils advocate and say this though. In theory, copyrights should produce more original content since it forces originality instead of purely adaption of something with name recognition. I also think a century is a point something truly becomes "public domain", as in something recognized across generations to the point its like a fable and it transcends the very nature of being a "product". I personally couldn't take Mickey Mouse seriously as a public domain character, probably because Disney shills him as their mascot and has never been given time to settle as a character not tied to a modern product.

>>10777469
I'm an artist and I want copyright to last 15 years. Artists don't make things because its an investment or their is profit to be had. Artists make things because that's what artists do.

Honestly all it would do is take the money grubbing assholes out of the artistic industries, which is a good thing. There will still be money to be made, but not enough that they're willing to pump absurd amounts of money into it, which means investors/producers/executives will feel less inclined to take control over a project for fear of losing their investment and more likely to throw a bunch of shit at a wall and see what sticks. Which is how things used to be, and then art can be soulful again.

It also means that they'll have to fund new projects instead of purchasing old IPs and regurgitate old stuff just to turn a profit. Sony bought Bob Dylan's back catalog for something like 200 million. Imagine how many first albums that could have funded. They'll let the artists write instead of paying a team of songwriters too. I'm bringing up music because its the industry I know best, but the same principles apply to all media industries.

>>10776697
>they don't need to get paid 50 years after the fact, aka unequal treatment = they don't get money at all.
reading comprehension fail?

>>10775604
Just pirate the gog installer you autist

>>10775653
>want to play game
>no longer being sold
>rights holder removes uploads
>choose not to sell it anyway
It's not 1995 anymore, piracy is 100% ethical.

>>10777386
NTA but look at >>10775959 and >>10776165

I have been trying to find the truth about this, and while there are a few things that are suspect (namely the timing of the remaster being announced and Corbeau no longer posting and Nightdive claiming they would own the IP rights to the mod anyway) for the most part it does seem like he just simply left rather than Nightdive just stealing his work and trying to bury it. If nobody has any idea who he was and he wasn't using that account anymore then there is no real way to contact him, nobody in that forum even talked about the remaster much less the claims that Nightdive was just stealing mods then slinging C&Ds to shut them up and strongarm with money to prevent lawsuits.

The part where he claimed they "Didn't ask for permission" is flat out wrong, since they tried but could not contact him, and even still thanked that anonymous person in the patch notes. The person who made that claim also tried to argue that he was "the most famous person on the forum" to try to defend his stance that Nightdive was lying about not being able to reach him, but it you actually look at his account he only made 10 posts, between 2012 to 2019, all in the same one topic, and then was never seen again. Hardly someone who is the most popular person on the forum.

He made a lot of claims he has zero proof for, claims the proof was on a forum he forgot what it was, and then when I found that forum it had zero mention of any of this and his claims don't add up (such as claiming Nightdive tried to just sling C&Ds to steal it) or were just plain falsehoods (claiming he was the most popular user on the forums and thus impossible not to be able to contact when he has less than a dozen posts active in the 7 years there and disappeared a few months before Nightdive ever announced the remaster.)

>>10777653
I am begging you to comprehend my post.
The GOG installer, even if pirated, will still be the DOS version. My complaint is that monetizing DOS versions makes other versions (Apple II, Commodore 64, MSX, Amiga, etc) inaccessible or very hard to find because only the DOS version gets sold. And sometimes even that version has been edited or fucked up in some way.

>>10777661
I agree that piracy is ethical now, and becomes even more ethical as time passes, I just worry that the legal ambiguity puts game preservation in a precarious position. Even if a game doesn't disappear entirely it still becomes more and more obscure as ROM archives have to go further underground to escape scrutiny.
It's entirely possible that there are some rare games, or versions of games, that only exist in one or two databases (and a few personal collections) and could be lost forever if something goes wrong.

>>10777693
I have to echo >>10776326 on the "based truthseeker" comment. I was ready to accept the accusations against Nightdrive at face value, and while I wouldn't have spread them without evidence (or disclaimers about the lack of evidence), I would have gone away thinking it was fact. I'm a bit concerned that I didn't question it at all. Thanks for doing what you're doing.
For what it's worth I don't think the guy is lying per se, I think maybe he got the wrong impression and has internalized it as fact. But that's irresponsible too.

>>10777482
>So if i make a jrpg starring a character nammed Sherlock Holmes, i can put him in a fantasy kingdom, but not 1800s Britain?

It's how you depict the character, not the setting. Basically they argued that in the earlier Sherlock Holmes books he was a flatter character and not as fleshed out, and that this version is the one that went into public domain, not the later ones we know where he has more of a personality.

>>10777469
>>10777512

You're literally arguing for LONGER copyrights by insisting on a 100 year rule. Current copyright for corporations is 95 years. I personally think it's absurd that a copyright can last the lifetime of a person who experiences it new, and especially for longer than that. Lifetime of the author PLUS 75 years? There is zero justification for that, It's literally so next of kin can mooch for the rest of THEIR life over what their father did. Absurd.

>>10777693
nice debunking, upvoted!
I like how asking for something and getting no answer means "yes"

>>10775604
this is why if you're going to pirate
you GO ALL IN
you buy several TB worth of external drives
you have redundant copies
you hoard the data
you keep it all offline\separate from your real rig
when you want to access it, you make a burned copy

you HOARD BACKUPS OF THE BACKUPS
you will never have enough storage for it all but you should still try

things will only get worse from here
& during a global conflict the internet is the first thing to go

>>10777826
>Lifetime of the author PLUS 75 years?
Corporations are already legally people, how long until lawmakers are 'nudged' into legislating that they count as authors too and copyright can last for as long as the corporation does?

>>10776697
The devs should have their hands cut off so they can never again create such wonders. Alternatively so they can't fuck it up a few years later with a shitty cash grab sequel. Either way I've never paid a cent for video games and I never will.

You know, for all of their flaws I think it's cool that Bethesda continue to allow their older games to be distributed for free.

>>10777620
>they don't need to get paid 50 years after the fact, aka unequal treatment
Why not?

>>10775604
>It's like how games are taken off Steam and replaced with shitty remasters
>I HAVE to consoom!
>pirating??
>thats immoral!

>>10778682
Isnt pirating still consooming? I think you forgot what "consoom" means

>>10778682
I didn't say it was immoral to pirate. I just think games should not be taken off the market and become unavailable to 'legitimately' acquire just so greedy assholes can sell their shitty low effort remasters instead.
I also feel bad for gamers who aren't savvy enough to pirate and have to pay a premium for what is essentially a worse version of decade+ old game.

>>10777826
Im merely talking about intellectual property. Media products like abandonware and movies should probably be based around if the rights holders are still willing to support it. If a game hasnt been available for 25 years, then the company really shouldn't care about profits from it if they have no intent to provide its availability.

Purely on things like characters or stories though, i do think it should be 100 years, the lifetime of a creator + however many years after to reach 100. That's not to say they should be profiting all that time, nor their families or corporations. I just think that is a more then reasonable amount of time to give a creator the chance to make their entire lifetime omnibus of works without others trying to tarnish the original impact, meaning or public perception via cheap cash ins on its popularity.

Ideally, it should be down to the original creators wishes. If they want to let their content fall to the public domain earlier or in their lifetime, let them. That should over turn corporate wishes. If a creator dies without that blessing, i still think the rights should last till that 100 year mark, not that a company could still be profiting from it, but because i truly do feel you need a full century before something goes from product to cultural cornerstone.

Like, I understand product availability being an issue that should have stricter limitations, but I just dont see why the creative content should be available so early. These same rules go for companies too. They should have to wait until something enters the public domain before they make adaptions of it. I think if there was a period of time between a creators death and the 100 year mark where no new content was coming out, would further cement the public desire for that content once it was in the public domain as a well of content anyone could adapt.

It feels like every time I watch a review of a retro PC game, the first five minutes of the video is a soliloquy about the eighteen different hoops you have to jump through to get a legal copy and the nineteen big spiky hoops with flaming razor blade dildos you have to jump through to get that copy working correctly on modern systems. No matter how positive the review is after that it just makes me not want to play the game.
Why the hell would I want to spend ten hours installing a five hour long game when the entire library of every retro console and handheld is as simple as
>Step 1. Download game file
>Step 2. Drag game file onto emulator.exe

If I was in charge of one of these giant conglomerates that inherited the rights to hundreds of old PC games, I wouldn't sell them one at a time with a post-it note on them that says "hope this works lol ;)"
I'd give away a virtual machine with, like, three good games on it for free, and then sell packs of, say, ten games you can plug into it for $60. Everything would be set up for you so that it would be as easy as "Start VM, click game.exe, play."
I want to play more old PC games but when my success rate at getting them running is less than 50% it just isn't worth the effort. WHY has it gotten to the point that it's easier to play CONSOLE games on a PC than PC games on a PC!?

>>10777845
>if you're going to pirate you NEED to become a preservationist!
Nah, I'm just gonna play the games I want for free.
Thanks though.

>>10779374
>>Step 1. Download game file
>>Step 2. Drag game file onto emulator.exe
Nine times out of ten, that's what you're paying for anyway. Companies love to bundle an outdated build of DOSbox with their games just to avoid porting it.

>>10777469
>it can degrade whatever message or meaning you may have put into the thing you originally made which could have the longterm effect of tarnishing public perception of the ongoing continuation of that work
Thank goodness nothing like that ever happened to Star Wars.

>>10775618
I don't understand why they use their engine. I don't wanna use a new engine for older games. I already know it applies on top of existing stuff.

>>10775604
Play the new versions, you fucking tools.

>>10775618
Is not nightdive you gigantic retard
MyAbandonware became this shitshow after troons took over the administration, i think one is friends with "Abandonware is a crime" DosFreak, the admin from VOGONS.

>>10775719
Nah fuck System Shock
They fixed Quake 2 and that is all people wanted.

And ALL MODS are owned by the owners of the IP, always was, always has been since the days of Amiga.
And Modders are fucking primadonas who sees themselves above gamedevs because they changed a fucking line of code or texture.

>>10781846
>They fixed Quake 2

>>10782138
>Error literally caused by the Compiler with the old maps, not even Nightdive's fault but EricW being a quake1tranny enabler who only now under gunpoint he cared to make a better compiler than kmq2 fork of arghrad2
>Error also present even on sourceports like yamagi who had to release map fixes during one of the early builds
>All map light issues were fixed on the next patch as many improvements
try again zoomer nigger, because you never played quake 2 at all and this remaster was a blessing alongside HL25th

Why don't you just play the superior RTX version of Quake II?

>>10782159
The new unit was alright, but that's all I will ever use the remaster for. (Also find any mention of lighting in the patch notes, you can't.)

>>10782186
>Literally a ebay bought Cd
>Literal third world level camera full of grain
how to spot a russian, the post.

>>10782159
>this remaster was a blessing alongside HL25th
Having to use Steam for anything is not a blessing. Feel free to call me a faggot if it's already been surgically removed from Steam and repacked

>>10775849
Nta. The closest thing I could find was when Nightdive asked the SS portable dev to take down any full game downloads from systemshock.org

https://archive.vn/kJATS#selection-1165.0-1165.126

>>10783052
Interesting, I wonder if this is the forum that other anon was talking about. There is no mention of Corbeau here, and it's from 2015. It does mention the takedown of downloads for SS1 and 2, but seems like Corbeau's engine was unaffected?

Also a lot of fighting there, a lot of posters seem to support Nightdive, some are pissed at them and others are supportive (one of them flat out says it's the friendliest takedown they have seen). But in the initial e-mail that was posted there Nightdive is saying that they have an issue with it being a pre-modified iso (at least if I understood it correctly) and that they are willing to work with him if he just makes it a patch:

>If you were to offer just a patch that installed those mods, I am sure that we could figure out a way to point back to you once System Shock is released.

Also interesting in that you used an archive of that post. The original forum and thread is still up, but that archived link you posted contains some deleted posts.... namely someone involved in the mod going on a rant about Nightdive. That archive only goes up to Mid-August 2015 of though and the tone drastically changed after that.

In the current non-archived version that rant has been removed, and the person who made the rant as well as another who backed him up made follow up posts where they are basically apologizing for going on the rant. The majority of the thread seems to be in support of Nightdive strangely enough, with the biggest concern being that they just bought the rights and plan to do nothing with it. I see a few people complaining about Nightdive over this... and then in September of 2015 a link to the GoG page to download the remaster was posted... even the person who made that rant later seems to be happy with the way things turned out, namely in that the person who made said patched version of the game was able to work with Nightdive to release a standalone version of the patch for free that does not include the ISO.

>>10783052
>>10783098
Thing is... this doesn't all add up to what the original anon (Assuming the one who made the original accusations was also the same one who mentioned Corbeau) said. His initial accusations match up with the thread you linked to... at first, but only if you stopped following the thread around mid-August, since later in that same month the people who were against it took down their rants and admitted they were in the wrong, and then in September Nightdive released the remaster of SS1, and a month later in October voodoo was able to release his patch stand-alone. He (again, assuming this is the same anon) said that the forum had turned into a ghost town later... but it was barely a month after this whole ordeal in that same thread that the few who were against Nightdive actually switched to being in support of them, the last few who were still angry changing their minds once the remaster was released and once the patch was made standalone, and that forum is still very much alive to this day.

Corbeau released his engine in 2012, on a completely different forum. Checking that thread again in 2015 (again, machine translation since it's French) I see someone in January of 2015 quoting Nightdive saying:
>And just in case the author of NewDark ever reads this, please get in contact with Night Dive. We'd love to have a chat with you and it would be kept completely private and confidential.

>>10783052
>>10783102
But he appears to have just ignored them and kept posting updates to the engine on the forum, of which Nightdive does not appear to have issued takedowns. Corbeau's posts are where the machine translation really seems to falter, he appears to be speaking in riddles or just trying to be cryptic, which probably goes in line with this tidbit I looked up:
>Corbeau is also a French expression for a person who writes anonymous poison pen letters

Basically, he's intentionally trying to be anonymous and "mysterious" (some mentioned worry that Nightdive was just trying to "trap" him to sue him, maybe that spooked him into not wanting to reveal himself and contact them, but I doubt that was the case considering how they handled the SS1 fans and how they still thanked him in SS2). He appears to have just stopped posting and disappeared in June of 2019.

So that anon's claims (assuming it was the same person) appear to be a mix of things that happened with SS1 and SS2 on two completely different forums, one in English and one in French, both of which are still active. Nightdive did issue takedowns of the ISOs and pre-patched ISOs, and some of the people involved were pissed but the majority was in support of Nightdive, but those same people that complained then retracted their posts and Nightdive said they were willing to allow the patch to be distributed without being embedded in the ISO, which they did. On the French forum Nightdive tried to contact Corbeau, who appears to have ignored them and just kept working on his engine, which Nightdive did not sand takedowns for but did start using it in their remasters with a message thanking Corbeau, and then Corbeau stopped posting in June of 2019, having a made a total of just 10 posts, and all in that thread, from 2012 to 2019.

Mind you I am hardly some professional investigator and I just spent about an hour looking into this, I am not saying I could not have made mistakes or misunderstood something.

>>10779207
>without others trying to tarnish the original impact, meaning or public perception via cheap cash ins on its popularity.
You mean what has been happening since the beginning of time? Are you not aware of the countless parodies and legally distinct copycats of Star Wars for example? Anything even remotely popular will find itself being copied within months of release, legally too. Nothing is tarnished by that.

You know what is tarnished? Lord of the Rings, despite being protected, because of the shit games and movies made. Wheel of Time, despite being protected, because of the shit show. Holy hell, anon, I know it's /vr/ so we can't really talk about it, but you are aware that basically every major franchise that exists that gets new games sucks fucking ass right? Sonic, Mario, Final Fantasy, they are all trash and destroying the reputation of the older games. Froniters, Wonder, and XVI are proof that they need to be public domain for the greater good.

The entire 2008 to 2024 era was one of endless remakes/throwbacks, from movies to music to games. And it all sucks ass and destroys the reputation of old franchises way worse than being public domain would. How many FAN-MADE versions of Pokemon are infinitely superior to the diarrhea served by modern Game Freak, yet get taken down? Same with the Metroid fan game. If those were public domain, retro games would be flourishing.

>>10775604
https://www.old-games.ru/
You can download old games, patches, fixes etc on this site. Make sure to click English in top right corner to switch UI language. Games are available in multiple languages, too.

I must say GOG is absolutely atrocious. In many releases of old games it doesn't do anything - it may sell games with disabled audio/cutscenes or which don't run from the start at all.

>>10777742
Then pirate the version of the game you want, it's not like myabandonware is the only fucking place on the internet where you could find the rom of it.