Kinda related, but I hate how the big studios go after old videogames and try to take them down. It looks like, in the future, this era will be called the "digital dark ages", not because all the stuff got lost to bitrot, but because all the stuff became illegal to own so that the studios could sell the new stuff again and again.
The home-computer world is especially interesting for old games. If something made it to a Nintendo or Sega console, it's probably very well-preserved, but I'd be surprised if even 1% of all video games made were released on consoles.
There's an unfathomable number of games that were released on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, and most famously DOS that were made by one or two people, self-published, and have now completely fallen into obscurity to a point where it's not 100% clear who owns the copyright and who to give money even if you wanted to, which has led to the "probably-illegal-but-not-really-enforced" term of "Abandonware".
I honestly kind of think that Abandonware should be codified into law in the same way that trademarks are; if you're not actively giving me a legitimate way to buy your game then I don't think it should be illegal for me to get it illegitimately.
Nevermind the Commodore etc. who are preserved as abandonware. Remember FLASH games? They are mostly gone already. Even if you still have a copy, they can't be run anymore. There were some efforts made, but last I checked plenty of FLASH games still didn't work flawlessly.
Flashpoint Archive now has around 200K flash games that can be downloaded and ran locally. Im sure this is nothing compared to what used to exist but basically anything of note is in there
What do you use to run them locally? FLASH doesn't exist anymore and all the emulators do not properly work. I've got an archive of FLASH games myself, but I cannot play them anymore.
Flash Player in the browser doesn't exist anymore. There's still the standalone Flash Player that game with Adobe Flash/Animate, and it works fine. It doesn't depend on browser compatibility, since it runs on its own.
A Flash game I made a million years ago actually works in Ruffle now. It's really quite bad so I don't really want to prominently display it on my blog, but I might hide it somewhere as easter egg.
Ruffle is getting good enough where I think we might be properly archive all the Flash stuff.
I end up being drawn into and wasting time on a flash video site [1] at least once a year and there's always at least a bunch of animations not working properly. But it has gotten better over the years.
javcasas · · focus · HN ↗
tombert · · focus · HN ↗
There's an unfathomable number of games that were released on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, and most famously DOS that were made by one or two people, self-published, and have now completely fallen into obscurity to a point where it's not 100% clear who owns the copyright and who to give money even if you wanted to, which has led to the "probably-illegal-but-not-really-enforced" term of "Abandonware".
I honestly kind of think that Abandonware should be codified into law in the same way that trademarks are; if you're not actively giving me a legitimate way to buy your game then I don't think it should be illegal for me to get it illegitimately.
OroPla · · focus · HN ↗
djaro · · focus · HN ↗
OroPla · · focus · HN ↗
tombert · · focus · HN ↗
OroPla · · focus · HN ↗
tombert · · focus · HN ↗
Ruffle is getting good enough where I think we might be properly archive all the Flash stuff.
OroPla · · focus · HN ↗
[1] <a href="https://z0r.de/7194" rel="nofollow">https://z0r.de/7194