A replacement to Abandonware

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-06-03 01:59pm

Abandonware has long been left to the forgotten, seedy alleys of the gaming industry. Gamers looking for their fix of decade-old games have turned to so-called “abandonware” sites to download copies of questionable legality to play their favorite games. Most gamers who do this justify their actions out of necessity: since the old games are no longer supported or sold by the publisher, they should be left to the public domain of the Internet. In a move not unlike iTunes’ response to the music-sharing services of Kazaa and LimeWire, a new service was launched last year to bring old, forgotten games back into the hands of gamers with all the legality and conscious-relieving service of Apple’s hit service.

For a monthly subscription fee of $9.95, GameTap delivers over 500 games from the past twenty-five years of gaming, ranging from arcade hits like Pac-Man to some of the latest PC shooters like Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. At E3, I had the opportunity to briefly meet and talk with Ricardo Sanchez, the managing director of the new service from the cable giant Turner. Sanchez explained how their growing library of games were legally licensed from the original publishers (or their current owners), giving them access to the original source code and the ability to make old arcade platform titles and DOS-based titles compatible with their GameTap service and your modern computer. While the team of developers is still working on implementation of Windows 3.x games, GameTap’s titles already run the gamut of platforms, from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo 8-bit to the Playstation 2 to the PC.

Gone are the days of dual boot sequences and dusty consoles lodged in the back of entertainment centers. Forget blowing clean your old Nintendo game cartridges or trying to decipher that wacky Playstation emulator you downloaded. Eliminate those headaches from trying to load DOS-based games on your Windows XP home computer or praying desperately to the computer gods for assistance in loading your ten-year old scratched CD-ROM. With the GameTap service, games are downloaded directly onto the player’s computer, where they can quickly jump into the game without any installation or configuration headaches. All games have been configured to support a keyboard and mouse, and USB controllers can also be attached. The unlimited subscription of games is only limited by the number of games players have time to download and play, a daunting feat considering not only the sheer number of games, but also the pace at which they’re being added.

While browsing through the hundreds of games available on the service may reveal a collection of mostly console classics like Crazy Taxi and Street Fighter, the GameTap team has done a stellar job of locating dozens of older PC games, including many from the classic war and strategy titles. Starting at the outset of computer gaming with Oregon Trail and extending to modern times with Caesar III and Stronghold, I counted dozens of PC games from a variety of well-known publishers: Panzer General 3D and II, Age of Wonders, Empire Earth, Heroes of Might & Magic III, Homeworld, IL-2 Sturmovik, Railroad Tycoon 3, Silent Hunter II, Tropico, Destroyer Command, and many others.

GameTap’s service boasts more than 500 games and growing, as well as a notable library of music and TV show offerings. At $9.95 per month, the service is a fantastic offering for gamers looking for a reason to go legal or to revisit some of the many classic titles of the ‘80s and ‘90s long since forgotten.

BloodAngel · Post by **BloodAngel** » 2006-06-03 02:44pm

$10 per month? 500 games and growing, with infinite variety? I'd dig that.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-06-03 02:56pm

Hell yeah thats nice to see. If they get titles like Master of Orion, the X-Wing series, and other classics from the 486 era, I would definately go for it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-06-03 03:32pm

So, if I'm reading this right it gives you the right to play and download. . .but once your subscription runs out you can't play em anymore? Or can you actually keep playing at all if you choose not to continue subscribing?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-06-03 04:24pm

I would expect so. As long as you stay subscribed to Gametap you can download and play any Gametap game. Games are played within the Gametap application, rather than by providing you with the original game files.

This means that it works as a cross-platform emulator as well, and the game range includes Windows, DOS, Atari 2600, Master System, Megadrive, 32X, Dreamcast, and Arcade games.

If your subscription lapses, you have to renew it before you can play again.

The new Sam and Max game coming out later this year will be released through Gametap as well as digital distribution through the Telltale Games site.

There are some pretty snazz games on there, actually. They've got the original Baldur's Gate, Beyond Good and Evil, the first four Heroes of Might and Magic games, Homeworld 2... In fact, if you missed out on any one of those titles the first time around, there's no reason not to get Gametap. They're even working on a Mac client for it as well.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-03 06:41pm

The format doesn't work for me. I'm not paying for a 'subscription' to games I'll play once in a blue moon, when struck by nostalgia. Not to mention anybody who cares *already* has all the abandonware they want.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-06-03 08:09pm

Unlike Stark, I am willing to pay for this in the future. It will give incentive to gaming companies to sell their old game titles to places like Gametap who can then update the game to be playable on new OSs. Sure Stark probably has enough computer savy to get most old games working, but a great many of us can't.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-06-03 08:12pm

Gametap has far too few games at present. Library of hundreds? Please. When that library is tens of thousands, they can give me a call.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-03 08:23pm

It took me hours to get 'Birth of the Federation' working once, and it turns out it's shit.

I'm opposed to subscription services in general. If the client these guys provide makes playing old games easier, then wonderful, but US$10 for what? Five, maybe six megabytes of ancient games? Great deal there. If they were spoofing whatever IPX/proprietary multi system the games use and providing a matching service, MAYBE it would be worth it. Otherwise I'll spend five minutes with google and work it out, thanks.

I'd be interested to see their library, actually. I imagine many of the games I still have from the dark ages will never turn up on their service, rendering it worthless to me. I doubt I'll see Empires of the Fading Suns any time soon.

PS I hardly thought IL-2 was 'abandonware'.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-06-03 08:25pm

Indeed. Even if it did, what about mods? EotFS is half a game without the Hyperion mod.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-03 08:28pm

Half a game and *impossibily hard*.

At least they provide some half decent games too - not just Syndicate-vintage stuff - but the idea of paying just to play and losing it if you stop rubs me the wrong way. How do they expect to compete? If there was a massive crackdown on abandonware sites, or it was impossible to download every Genesis game ever, then this would be plausible.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-06-03 10:00pm

Gametap could very well offer a pay per game system as well. Give them time to grow.

Macunaima · Post by **Macunaima** » 2006-06-03 10:52pm

Seems like a nice service, but I don't think I would use it... the only abandonware that I really play on a regular basis is CivNet, and it's working like a charm in a XP Pro, very stable.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-06-03 11:05pm

I'll definately be signing onto GameTap as soon as Sam and Max episodic is released.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2006-06-04 11:00am

signed up for Gametap last night, and doing the two weeks trial at the moment.

A warning to anyone not on at least DSL/Cable, don't bother.

The Client requires minimum of DSL or Cable connection (384 jps) to even log onto the servers.

I'm finding the GUI is buggy - while the system requirements aren't much 800 mghtz processor, 256 RAM, 32mb Video Card, my laptop which is easily double those minimum requirements runs it slow as molassis. That and the annoying "draw" errors I'm coming up with, text won't come up as I type it into the appropriate fields, the drop down boxes won't drop down, text won't change when it's suppssed to, and text is even difficult to read.

The selection of games though, ah, that's nice. There's some games I haven't seen in years there, games for the Master System, Genesis, 32x, Game Gear, Neo Geo, Intellivision, Atari 2600, and Windows, 526 games are current, with more being added.

10USD a month isn't a bad price for the service, I find anyway, as long as I can get these annoying graphical problems with thier GUI cleared up. Thier Tech Support isn't very tech supporty, and thier FAQ sucks dick when you try to find an answer to a problem.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-06-05 10:55am

Alyeska wrote:Gametap could very well offer a pay per game system as well. Give them time to grow.

I would agree. It's be similar to a demo system - try it out, if you really want more then you could go there. Right now it's all or nothing - as a college kid I would not pay for a subscription until I was honestly hooked.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-06-05 07:00pm

The multi-platform aspect really appeals to me. Fallout won't even run on my machine, be nice to have a way to play revamped games legitimately.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-06-05 07:07pm

Alyeska wrote:Gametap could very well offer a pay per game system as well. Give them time to grow.

Until they start offering them as a per game download instead of a subscription, there's little incentive when it's just as easy to google for various abandonware sites yourself. Now if they set up something similar to Apple's iTunes service and you can do basically whatever, then I'll be sold.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-06-05 07:47pm

What would be really nice is if they took older classic titles that existed on a single system and made them multi system. Imagine having all the old Marathon games playable today.

Gigaliel · Post by **Gigaliel** » 2006-06-05 08:39pm

Alyeska wrote:What would be really nice is if they took older classic titles that existed on a single system and made them multi system. Imagine having all the old Marathon games playable today.

You are aware that already exists, right?

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2006-06-05 08:55pm

Alyeska wrote:... places like Gametap who can then update the game to be playable on new OSs...

This is the big selling point with me too. Getting a DOS shell to run with lots of different games is a big pain in the ass. When/if they get the bugs in the GUI people are talking about ironed out. (my roomy and I recently spent an infuriating evening getting Sindicate Wars to run well on a modern machine. He actually decided it would be simpler to set up an old 486-66 his dad had lying around in our basement.)

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-06-05 09:37pm

Gigaliel wrote:
Alyeska wrote:What would be really nice is if they took older classic titles that existed on a single system and made them multi system. Imagine having all the old Marathon games playable today.
You are aware that already exists, right?

Of course not.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-06-06 04:31pm

Aha! I see they've actually made the Marathon scenario files available.

When I last poked Aleph One you had to have your own Marathon content.

Though I'd still like to see it come to Xbox Live Arcade, so I can play it comfortably on my sofa.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-06-06 05:26pm

Vendetta wrote:Aha! I see they've actually made the Marathon scenario files available.

Been that way for a while.

I find the concept of "borrowing" games from Gametap unappealing. Yes, I want a copy of an old game that runs on my computer. But I want a copy of the game- I don't want to have to pay for it again every few months to play it again.