History Main / Abandonware

Compare KeepCirculatingTheTapes, when films, videos and music are involved. See also DigitalPiracyIsOkay, though if the creator disapproves it may overlap with DigitalPiracyIsEvil. Contrast MissingEpisode, when the source media itself has gone missing.

Compare KeepCirculatingTheTapes, when films, videos and music are involved. See also DigitalPiracyIsOkay, though if the creator disapproves it may overlap with DigitalPiracyIsEvil.

->''"A nice sounding but legally-meaningless term for games no longer sold and thus deemed fair to download for free. Respectable abandonware sites will remove any that return to the market, such as via {{Website/GOG|DotCom}}, even if their current rights-holders had nothing to do with the original and ambitiously think a game that nobody actually liked back in 1995 is now worth $10 and nobody involved with its creation should get a cut."''

Since about 2005, publishers have taken an interest in the desire for old games and have begun actively meeting customer demands. The rise of digital distribution has seen publishers put their entire back catalogue on services like Platform/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom, and on several occasions either the original developers or their new sellers even go as far as to develop their own upgrades to them so they'll work on modern computers.

UsefulNotes/{{Emulation}} is a related topic, with related problems. The current owners of the Platform/{{Amiga}} brand, for example, have been keen to stress that the "Kickstart ROM" needed to boot an Amiga (or an Amiga ''emulator'') is ''not'' abandonware, thank you very much. Amstrad have said that the ZX Spectrum ROM, on the other hand, ''is'' perfectly acceptable for emulation purposes; and even if it wasn't, plenty of people have hacked their own version together after some crazy nutbags managed to document the function of ''each and every last one'' of the 16384 bytes that forms it, and patched it to deal with the (remarkably few) bugs.

* [[https://winworldpc.com/home WinWorld]] has a very wide selection of old software of all stripes.
* Emulators exist for old consoles like the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, which allow users to play old favorite games (such as ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'') on their smartphones and tablets. Note that while emulator software is often legally kosher (excepting the system BIOS files for newer consoles), ROM images of the games themselves rarely are.

->''"A nice sounding but legally-meaningless term for games no longer sold and thus deemed fair to download for free. Respectable abandonware sites will remove any that return to the market, such as via {{Platform/GOG|DotCom}}, even if their current rights-holders had nothing to do with the original and ambitiously think a game that nobody actually liked back in 1995 is now worth $10 and nobody involved with its creation should get a cut."''

Since about 2005, publishers have taken an interest in the desire for old games and have begun actively meeting customer demands. The rise of digital distribution has seen publishers put their entire back catalogue on services like Platform/{{Steam}} and Platform/GOGDotCom, and on several occasions either the original developers or their new sellers even go as far as to develop their own upgrades to them so they'll work on modern computers.

->''"A nice sounding but legally-meaningless term for games no longer sold and thus deemed fair to download for free. Respectable abandonware sites will remove any that return to the market, such as via {{Website/GOG|DotCom}}, even if their current rights-holders had nothing to do with the original and ambitiously think a game that nobody actually liked back in 1995 is now worth $10 and nobody involved with its creation should get a cut."''

Since about 2005, publishers have taken an interest in the desire for old games and have begun actively meeting customer demands. The rise of digital distribution has seen publishers put their entire back catalogue on services like Platform/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom, and on several occasions either the original developers or their new sellers even go as far as to develop their own upgrades to them so they'll work on modern computers.

Additionally, many of the companies that produced such games have gone completely defunct in the years since creating the game in question. There is essentially no one to speak up for or defend the rights to the game. A large number of these companies produced games during The80s and were victims of UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. Others produced games for personal computers of that era. Because of the cottage industry nature of software and game production at that time, there were many "fly by night" companies producing forgettable games.

UsefulNotes/{{Emulation}} is a related topic, with related problems. The current owners of the UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} brand, for example, have been keen to stress that the "Kickstart ROM" needed to boot an Amiga (or an Amiga ''emulator'') is ''not'' abandonware, thank you very much. Amstrad have said that the ZX Spectrum ROM, on the other hand, ''is'' perfectly acceptable for emulation purposes; and even if it wasn't, plenty of people have hacked their own version together after some crazy nutbags managed to document the function of ''each and every last one'' of the 16384 bytes that forms it, and patched it to deal with the (remarkably few) bugs.

* UsefulNotes/{{Macintosh}} users can find applications in [[https://macintoshgarden.org/ the Macintosh Garden]], once directly part of HOTUD but now just link to each other.
* [[https://www.macintoshrepository.org/ The Macintosh Repository]] is another site for old Macintosh applications. Also, both this site and the Macintosh Garden are also useful for UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows users looking for certain games they may have trouble finding on other sites, since a number of "Classic" Mac OS titles happen to be Win/Mac hybrids, meaning that they used the same disc/ISO for both [=OSes=].

Since about 2005, publishers have taken an interest in the desire for old games and have begun actively meeting customer demands. The rise of digital distribution has seen publishers put their entire back catalogue on services like UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom, and on several occasions either the original developers or their new sellers even go as far as to develop their own upgrades to them so they'll work on modern computers.

Additionally, many of the companies that produced such games have gone completely defunct in the years since creating the game in question. There is essentially no one to speak up for or defend the rights to the game. A large number of these companies produced games during TheEighties and were victims of UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. Others produced games for personal computers of that era. Because of the cottage industry nature of software and game production at that time, there were many "fly by night" companies producing forgettable games.

* [[https://www.retro-exo.com/ The Retro eXo Projects]] feature massive libraries containing various emulated classic games and applications released on older Microsoft and Apple [=OSes=]. They are organized into dedicated custom [=LaunchBox=] instances containing metadata for all the games in these collections, allowing players an easy and organized way to get their favorite classics running. There are currently five released projects, four of which are infrequently updated:
** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/exodos.html eXoDOS]] for MS-DOS games.
** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/win3x.html eXoWin3x]] for games released for the Windows 3.x platform.
** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/scummvm.html eXoScummVM]] for SCUMM games that are emulated on [=ScummVM=].
** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/rlp.html eXo's Retro Learning Pack]] for educational games and applications that ran on either MS-DOS or Windows 3.x; this one was made during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic as a one-off.
** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/appleIIGS.html eXoAppleIIGS]] for games released for the Apple II series and the Apple II GS.

** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/scummvm.html eXoScummVM]] for games that can are emulated on [=ScummVM=].

* [[https://collectionchamber.blogspot.com/ The Collection Chamber]] is a blog that features a relatively small number of abandonware titles (as it's managed by just an Englishman). However, the blog makes up for the small selection by putting the programs in specially-compiled and easy-to-use executables. All the end user has to do is download a program put into a special installer[[labelnote:*]]although sometimes they may have to be downloaded in multiple parts[[/labelnote]] and run said installer to install them on their PC. The installed program is run through a virtual machine specifically-prepared and automated for the program, so end users can just start the program and the virtual machine will do the rest to get them running.
* [[https://www.retro-exo.com/ The Retro eXo Projects]] feature massive libaries containing various emulated classic games and applications released on older Microsoft and Apple OSes. They are organized into dedicated custom [=LaunchBox=] instances containing metadata for all the games in these collections, allowing players an easy and organized way to get their favorite classics running. There are currently five released projects, four of which are infrequently updated:

** [[https://www.retro-exo.com/scummvm.html eXoScummVM]] for games that can be emulated on ScummVM.

Since about 2005, publishers have taken interest in the desire for old games and have begun actively meeting customer demands. The rise of digital distribution has seen publishers put their entire back catalogue on services like UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom, and on several occasions either the original developers or their new seller even go as far to develop their own upgrades to them so they'll work on modern computers.

Paradoxically, the rise of the internet has seen the creation of a new breed of abandonware. Games which require access to online authentication or which store game-critical data on company servers are entirely reliant on the developer keeping them running. In the event that the company takes the servers down or is shuttered, it is entirely possible for a game to become unplayable. In cases where the servers hold part of the data required to run, this can render a game permanently dead. For examples of this particular phenomena, see DefunctOnlineVideoGames.

-->-- Magazine/PCGamer [[http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-gaming-terms-and-their-true-meanings/ describes Abandonware]]

* Emulators exist for old consoles like the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, which allow users to play old favorite games (such as ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'') on their smartphones and tablets.

->''"A nice sounding but legally-meaningless term for games no longer sold and thus deemed fair to download for free. Respectable abandonware sites will remove any that return to the market, such as via Website/GOGDotCom, even if their current rights-holders had nothing to do with the original and ambitiously think a game that nobody actually liked back in 1995 is now worth $10 and nobody involved with its creation should get a cut."''

* UsefulNotes/{{Macintosh}} users can find applications in [[https://macintoshgarden.org/ the Macintosh Garden]], once directly part of HOTUD but now just link to each other. In both HOTUD and Macintosh Garden, SturgeonsLaw takes effect, and how!

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1651532558051866600 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

Over time, things get old. It happens to everything; DOS was taken out by its shiny new big sister, Windows, and Windows NT was taken out by Windows 2000, and from there NT's upgrade of XP and so on.

* [[http://www.myabandonware.com/ MyAbandonware]] another site dedicated to DOS games, with a nice IF catalog.

->''A nice sounding but legally-meaningless term for games no longer sold and thus deemed fair to download for free. Respectable abandonware sites will remove any that return to the market, such as via Website/GOGDotCom, even if their current rights-holders had nothing to do with the original and ambitiously think a game that nobody actually liked back in 1995 is now worth $10 and nobody involved with its creation should get a cut.''