The abandonware is an Anglo-Saxon word (formed by abandoned Y software) that defines all digital software that even being under the umbrella of copyright, it has been discontinued by its authors.
Any type of application can be included in this group, although it is mostly applied to games and that is where we are going to focus this special, with the aim of being able to enjoy those great classic titles (or relive them if you had the opportunity to play them back in the day). , with a level of graphics and sound that shows the passage of time, but with a playability and fun that many of the current ones would like for themselves.
Legal Issues Around Abandonware
In this section say that the abandonware is in a little legal limbo, halfway between the shareware and the free software, because on the one hand they are still subject to copyright, but on the other hand they are not applied in practice. Thus, it is not recognized as a software distribution method nor does it have any type of legal support.
And you may wonder, if a studio has discontinued a game and is supposed to no longer do business with it, why can’t it be used freely? The question is answered in the questionable copyright regulations that allow copyright to be maintained forever and ever, even if no one takes advantage of it. In the case of this group of software, they may be in several legal situations:
- The owner ceased to exist without ever transferring the copyright to another entity.
- The owner is still in business, but he no longer sells the software and spends no time or money defending his rights.
- It is unclear who the current copyright holder is, making it impossible for anyone to buy, defend, or claim the copyright.
In practice, most producers don’t bother and this group of software is tacitly allowed because it simply doesn’t pay for a producer to take legal action against the pages that offer to download it, which we’ll see later. Of course, until the games do not enter the public domain or the owners do not open them as open source or freeware, they can demand rights and on some occasions, when it is of interest for commercial reasons, they do so, as happened with the -incomprehensible- battle of Nintendo against ROM portals.
Abandonware, where to get games?
That said and at your discretion, while you can enjoy these great games to the fullest. Personally, my PC does not lack an emulator and some classic tales that I relive from time to time and that I enjoy almost the same as when I played them 25 years ago. Of course, don’t expect visual effects like ray tracing :D. The relentless passage of technological time affects, but I’m sure you’re going to have fun.
There are web pages that fortunately keep them alive. Not all of them are equally updated, but there are hundreds of them that can be downloaded. We leave you the main ones:
Abandonware Two
A portal dedicated especially to DOS games, although it also has a section on games for Windows. Each title has its rating, legal status, release date, screenshots and most, a video of the game itself as a trailer that is a joy in itself. It has a search engine to find the game by title, genre or release date and links to the offers of classic games from the GOG.com digital store, which, if you really like them, you can buy at low prices to have them legally and as a thank you to developer. A very complete and perfectly updated site.
abandonment
Perhaps one of the first portals dedicated to this group of games since it was created in 1999. After a period of inactivity it came back to life coinciding with the increase in interest in retro games. It offers an index of “abandonware” titles dedicated to classic games that were published for the MS-DOS operating system. Some are no longer supported by the publisher and some less, the copyright has expired. It houses about 1,200 downloadable games, most of them reviewed, with screenshots and ratings from the publisher and users.
GamesNostalgia
A site totally dedicated to retrogaming, abandonware and old classic games from the past. You can browse by genre, year, platform or developer and download them for free. Most are DOS or Amiga games, but they also have Windows, Commodore 64, Atari ST and other systems. Note that administrators test, configure and package all games with the appropriate emulator. Well updated, they add games frequently.
RGB Classic Games
The portal offers a wide catalog of classic DOS games, unpublished titles and even some “modern” DOS titles. the whole site is “dedicated to the preservation of classic games from defunct computer operating systems”such as DOS, CP / M-86, OS / 2, Win16 and Windows 9x, as well as to facilitate its execution on modern systems.
MyAbandonware
We have not counted them, but they say they have about 14,000 games. Most are classics from the 80s and 90s and cover a lot of platforms, from DOS to Sega, Genesis, Commodore or Atari. Like the previous ones, it allows you to select them by name, genre or year of publication.
Remain In Play
Another website that offers a good collection of DOS, Windows and other games, but focused on commercial games that were intentionally released as freeware. It doesn’t have the best interface on the planet, but it does have good games like the rest of the portals, a search engine, top-10 and top-250 with those considered the best. The portal has not been updated for years, but they have a good collection.
The Internet Archive
The non-profit digital library dedicated to file and content preservation is a must to finish, as it also includes a good collection of MS-DOS titles. They cannot be downloaded, but thanks to the built-in emulator they can be played directly on the Web.
How to Run Abandonware Games
The vast majority of these games were published for DOS systems and for them there is a perfect application: DOSBox. It is a complete CPU emulator that recreates a DOS-like environment on modern computers. It is open source, free and cross-platform softwarewith support for Windows, Linux, OS X, FreeBSD and other alternatives.
Of course, there are others capable of running this type of game on all platforms, such as FreeDOS and others that can be played without installing anything from a web browser, as is the case with The Internet Archive, which has its own integrated emulator.
Another possibility is to use virtual machines with applications such as Oracle VirtualBox, VMware or Windows Virtual PC. There you can install, for example, an MS-DOS or a copy of Windows XP. Professional versions of Windows 7 also included a special feature called “Windows XP Mode,” which functioned as a virtual operating system and a means to open older programs within Windows 7.
In all cases and bearing in mind the legal issues that unfortunately continue to weigh on many of them, we can only tell you Enjoy those games!
