about 300 signatures in a day...
the abandonware petition picked up about 300 signatures since i signed up yesterday.scrolling through the names i spotted a few people i know.
for those of you who haven't signed yet here's the link:
www.petitiononline.com/oldgame/petition.html
the basic aim of the petition is this:
there are a lot of old games out there that are real classics, gems if you will. unfortunately most of these gems are unobtainable as the companies no longer sell them, but they still retain the copyrights and so copying them is illegal (even if the company doesn't care about them anymore) unless they've been explicitly released into the public domain.
this petition asks gaming companies to make these gems available again. either by freeing them into public domain, or by releasing them for download for a small fee.
They certainly aren't making money off many of these titles anymore, they will still retain trademarks (characters etc...), and most of the developers who made these games don't even work for the companies anymore so they won't be collecting any kind of royalties for the sale of these games.
it just makes sense. brand recognition and loyalty are worth millions to companies and a move like this is definitely worth it.
find articles on the subject here, here, and here.
in other gaming news: it seems that al lowe (creator of liesure suit larry and heavily involved with the creation of larry 1- 3, 5 - 7, there was no 4 and he had nothing to do with magne cum laude) may be getting back into the games creation scene after a long hiatus. gamasutra has a short report and al lowe promises to give us the skinny on tuesday (go join his cyberjoke 3000 mailing list)no-one knows how ecstasy island is involved...
the new games company? the new game? a red herring? who knows (but he's on first and he's not saying).
i came up with another tshirt design last night while watching an ad on tv.(remember: if you steal this design and actually make the tshirts i want 2 things: credit and a shirt!)
picture a pink duracell bunny with devil horns, holding a trident.
big letters across the bottom: DURAHELL
smaller lettering: lasts up to 666 times longer
random link: duracell bunny flash game (found on duracell.jp).
tell me if its any good. i don't get flash at varsity :(
"real" news: (from tonight [powered by iol])anna nicole smith has just won another step towards getting her late husband's estate.
she's been in a decade-long battle with her late husband's son about who gets the cash.
originally a texas court gave everything to the son,
then a calafornian court gave a bunch to anna,
then the appeal courts decided she wasn't allowed anything,
and now that decision has been overturned and she may now fight for the cash in a federal court.
*phew*
good luck.
i would say "i hope its worth it" but i guess $1.6 billion is worth it.
posted by zenstar at 11:46 AM
3 Comments:
Dude, the petition is a great idea but it'll never get anywhere - the big publishers are too greedy. They're worried they'll somehow lose money. And they're too stupid to see how making abandonware legal isn't a threat to them.
mr angry: i'm not going to argue with you. i'm just going to hope that you're wrong. in spite of all the evidence against me. sign anyway, that way you can hedge your bets.
and no, i don't normally sign petitions. this one happens to concern something even more sacred to me than the environment.
somehow we need to change the minds of the bigwigs involved.
if we're lucky we'll convince marketing that its good for the brand name and won't cost anything. they'll then convince everyone else that needs convincing.
check today's post... i'll chat a little about the hiccups involved.
either way signing the petition will either help convince or do nothing.
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