since the most interesting threads are closed, i have to start a new one.

since I am a new user, I have to say hello to everybody: Hello!

since I'm a serious user, I read the rulez and the pinned posts in request. and quess what? I dont know more than I did before. this site tells me several abandoned games are protected by *SA, while several other sites distribute the same games for free download. They did it for years and are still doing this. nothing happens to them. so what is the truth about abandoned stuff?

too much sinces ? ok, I'll stop for the moment, but



I'll be back ...

Hello natas, I'm glad to see a serious user ;)

You have to know that downloading abandoned games (I mean EVERY game that isn't released for free) is actually ILLEGAL.

But there are some developers that don't care if we distribute their old games and others which are just closed and Rest In Peace (so, they definitely don't care).
These are the games we host on Abandonia :ok:

Other game developers don't want their games distributed for free and exercise their legal rights (and ESA is a company which protect the rights of some of those developers)

I hope I wrote a clear enough answer :bye:

Those other sites are usually just lucky to not have been found by ESA.

When they are found, they will receive a simple "cease or desist" order, and if they fail to comply, they will be totally and permamently shut down.

We used to have an agreement with ESA where they allowed us to host some of the games they protect, but someone in here has overlooked the fact that a couple ESA-protected games were uploaded without ESA's permission.
They ordered us to remove the games within 24 hours or they will terminate the site. We had no other choice but to comply.

This was about a year ago.

We try to be the most legal illigal site in the abandonware-scene :)

ESA is not an lawenforcement-agency, but a private groupe of companies, and they DO have the law on theire side, so a lawsuite against the site would probably end to theire favour. And no... the donations haven't been so generous so we could cough up a few mil. US$ to pay the fines ;)

I hope you see WHY we chose to avoid some games (some of the BEST games unfortunally). And that you can see it from out PoV.

But thank heaven there are still some very great games left on abandonia :)! For instance if your a fps fan I here the new cyclones game posted recently is good and Blood is definatly a no brainer. If you are into games with more mind into them I definatly reccomend the UFO and the Civ 2 games. And if you are a adventure fan the adventure section even with the ESA limitations is very large. Have fun and enjoy your (hopefully) linkthy (if that is a word) stay!

That is well said :D

<!--QuoteBegin-Titan@Apr 14 2006, 02:10 AM
ESA is not an lawenforcement-agency, but a private groupe of companies, and they DO have the law on theire side, so a lawsuite against the site would probably end to theire favour.[/quote]
In which countries DO they have the law on their side? In Germany also?

I had a look at their site and got sick of reading it after a few minutes ...

Horseman told about a "cease or desist" order. What is that? - Do they get a friendly letter, asking them to remove the download, and if they do, everything is fine?

I really can't believe that. One of them is named that often with links and ip adrress in this forum, that they really must be blind overlooking this ...

Perhaps some sites sit in countries, where ESAs law doesn't work?

btw, I thank you very much for your informative answers.

Since I am mocking around with some abbandoned games and eventually release some of my work, I am very interessted in that topic.

At least one since must be ... hehe

You mean the underdogs probably, well they might have a special deal with ESA with which they can host some games that abandonia can't...
Many of the games you can't download from abandonia were available, because there was a an agreement with ESA of some sort as it was mentioned in this very topic, this agreement was broken from abandonia's side, so ESA asked to strip down every game under their jurisdiction...

May be they havea deal with esa. Do you have to pay for such an arrangement?

The main grudge I have with HOTU is that sone (or most) of their games are not in working order.

Main example: Stars! I wanted to play that game since I lost my copy several years ago, and I certainly don't want to pay for such a game. I found it on HOTU before finding it wasn't Abandonware... However, the game is not playable because they don't give the registration code with it.

I think that's their way to go around the ESA law... But in my own point of view, this force the users to hunt down actively a registration code or to hack the game themselves... And that's in no way better than warez for me.

There is a very big difference between sites like HOTU and Abandonia, and it's easy to see: HOTU strive on quantity (which is not a bad thing, mind you) while Abandonia strive for quality. And when I need to choose between the two, as well as IRL, I always go for quality if I can.

Wait, is the underdogs back?

...

Nope, still broken. It's just the way you were talking about them in the present tense and all, I thought they were back.

I mean, I know there's a work around their little problem, and I guess that's the underdog way. No ill will. It was a good site. But like has been said before, alot of the games just plain didn't work without a monumental effort on your part. And now they've gone and lost thier DNS support (or something) so if you want to visit them you have to modify your system files. Great. At least you won't get bandwidth issues now, cuz only, what, a dozen people are doing that. Not user friendly.

That's why I love Abandonia.