complained that they may have rights to it and may sue over it.
Sueing over papers they can’t find? Meaning, without any proof?
It’s mostly a poker game: you need to call with money to keep playing, otherwise you “fold” and they win… even if the winner got shitty (“no papers”) cards.
It’s possible that their proof is a paper contract buried in a warehouse someplace. They would presumably have motivation to search for it if someone remastered/remade the game and it got popular.
Same with Freelancer. The Urquan Masters was a miracle that happened even back then, and its a testament that just having old games available can foster interests into future sequels. It did have one distinct aspect - open source maintenance allowed it to continue functioning well into current day. Maybe that should be an answer more publishers should look into instead of shoddy remasters, since it will keep the interest alive for IP that they own.
The “So?” is basically the entire reason behind Stop Killing Games.
SKG address a different issue than NOLF’s IP hellscape.
When a game is killed it doesn’t mean either is free or random shops can sell it without agreement with the right’s holder: only people who bought it previously are (and must be) allowed to play.
Please stop defending horribly stretched IP laws, a game several decades old has had plenty of time to make profit. If you don’t think Stop Killing Games is appropriate, how about Stop Killing Classics?
I am not defending IP laws, I am avoiding people making confusion about what’s SKG scope. I am completely in favor of a similar initiative that addressees IP craziness; but it need to be appropriately represent on what the initiative is about.
Broadly spreading the scope of an initiative is a hostile technique to sink the initiative down: I don’t know if you’re aware of the PirateSoftware fiasco: he tried to say that the initiative would force companies to keep server online forever… just to basically spread the idea “this is impossible, so SKG is impossible”. Luckily SKG initiative was appropriately (and painstakingly patently) readdressed by Ross Scott calling on PirateSoftware, de facto, BS.
Bad example, there are plenty of sites that make abandonware freely available. I just think that the core reason is the same, to Stop Killing Games, but you are right that SKG focuses more on services that stop.
This was one of the first two games including an accessible level editor that I ever encountered. I loved the game on its own merits, but I also loved creating multiplayer levels (not that anyone was playing it multiplayer back then).
My favorite level that I created for this game was based on the Mexican hotel shootout from Way of the Gun.
… So?
You can’t buy yo noid either
You can buy it on ebay or alike: a PC/PS2 dvd is basically a license (even if it’s broken: once bought the disc you can download the same exact version of the disc you own…under the EU laws, not sure about elsewhere but nations in the British commonwealth have strong customer protection ).
