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just downloaded demos of my favourite games for the old 486.
gabriel knights: Sins of the Father and grim fandango.
Two class games, i only notice now that there a clown in the second scenario in grim fandango which has voice work that sounds very like jack nicholson. amazing graphics in it too.
might try to find the full games for these online should probably be cheap enough. anyone know? even somewhere you pay to download. would be the handiest..
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no way.. class ill drop in.
ideally i want to recapture my youth and get the gabriel knight triology too.the in game music in that was infectious..
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Yup Grim Fandango is out on Lucas Arts Budget label. Should be available new in most places, otherwise you can get it from Amazon.co.uk here..
http://tinyurl.com/75u9lAlso for your perusal since you like Puzzley games check out..
http://www.the-underdogs.org/
and
http://abandonware.the-frenchkiss.biz/Most of the classics are now classed as abandonware so they can be downloaded legally without any hassle.
Some gems on those sites including Little Big Adventure 2, Blade Runner, Discworld Noir, King Quest Collector’s Edition, Toonstruck and Sanitarium.
Oh and Frenchkiss has an iso of Gabriel Knight : Sins Of The Father.
:D
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yeah i got some stuff off underdog but ill give the iso a download..
class games.cheers.
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oh abandonware, just another name for warez (and to try to make it sound legal). there is not such thing as abandonware, the only thing that comes near is public domain, and those games are not public domain… i.e. that site is illegal
edit: here is a legal publc domain site
http://www.liberatedgames.com/ -
i thought there was something about when copyright ended ? maybe steph can tell us..
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yeah copyright ends in about 70 years or so, so you can download all the 70 year old games you want.
trust me, this comes up on dcemu all the time, its illegal
we try to keep it very legal in the dcscene (well most of us), we recently got in contact with creators of (edit: classic , ground breaking 1991 game) and we have been given premission to release a dreamcast port for free, data files included!
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Well the only reason I mention those two sites is that they seem to have done it the intelligent way. They host games that are classed “officially” as abandonware (or those that are no longer for sale anywhere) and if a developer/publisher requests their removal its done immediately.
Its the same thing that the SNES site, Cherryroms have done. That way people can enjoy the old games that the creators allow without the party being ruined by the bigger guys screaming copyright infringement…Many of the games listed on Liberated Games are hosted on both of the above sites also. Although I’m still trying to find a proper copy of Shadow Warrior… :?
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In case it ever becomes relevant (we have 30 years or so to sort this out I think) but that 70 years limit on copyright isn’t explicitly for games yet.
Afaik, their copyright falls under whatever precedents have been set in court, but we’re still waiting on software (games or otherwise) to be singled out for it own laws.
Isn’t that what all the european sotware patent scandals are about atm?
Feel free to educate me on this, I can’t remember any sources on this other than the drunken ramblings of a lawyer friend
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well there is nothing official about abandonware, its a made up term. fair enough they said they will will take them down if asked, but its still illegal. it is not there right to offer those games for free, publisher release retro packs all the time.
if someone was release you work like this without you premission would you not be annoyied?
i’m not saying it morally wrong, i’m saying its illegal.
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In case it ever becomes relevant (we have 30 years or so to sort this out I think) but that 70 years limit on copyright isn’t explicitly for games yet.
[/quote:8ed092ade8]i think your right, but its the closed thing we got to go on for now :wink:
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In case it ever becomes relevant (we have 30 years or so to sort this out I think) but that 70 years limit on copyright isn’t explicitly for games yet.
Afaik, their copyright falls under whatever precedents have been set in court, but we’re still waiting on software (games or otherwise) to be singled out for it own laws.
Isn’t that what all the european sotware patent scandals are about atm?
Feel free to educate me on this, I can’t remember any sources on this other than the drunken ramblings of a lawyer friend[/quote:f681af7260]
Erm… absolutely not and you’ve just posted a right bagfull of knots that’s gonna take me ages to untangle :cry:
Software (code) is protected by Copyright (in Ireland, specifically, the Irish Copyright Act 2000). For 70 years after the author of the software code passes away. Period.
The ‘precedents’ (case law) to which you refer actually determine what types of copyright vest in a piece of software and trust me, it gets very complicated for games, because of music, dialogue, text, textures, avatars, etc, etc. each having its own copyright(s). Since this is an IGDA Forum, might I recommend the IGDA’s very own ‘IP Rights White Paper’ freely downloadable from the IGDA’s main site, to which yours truly has contributed a rather sizeable portion :wink: . It just about begins to give an impression of the scale of the problem.
Next ‘software patent scandals’. Copyright has nothing to do whatsoever with Patents (which have to be applied for, whereas copyright arises automatically). Put simply, copyright protects what you see (code, documents, etc.) and patents *might* protect how/why it is that you see it (e.g. the ‘concept/functionality’ of the code). I say *might* because you don’t get a patent just because you’ve applied for one… in fact it’s quite hard and expensive these days. And there’s nothing scandalous about software patents, let it be said – it’s a business tool used by business people, rich (old) and poor (stratups) alike.
And finally, your drunken lawyer friend…erm… the less said about drunken lawyers the better: 1) they don’t know how to get p*ssed ‘properly’ (us engineers do, however, hahaha!) and 2) IP is a very dark art to most of them,which is why they would usually come running to us with tails between their legs whenever the matter pops up.
Not a rant or a dressing down, m’boy :D
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Didn’t take at such :)
First off, by scandal I really meant fuss. Isn’t there an irsh software developers lobby over at Brussels desperately trying to affect the shape of some upcoming directive in this area? (I’m not talking about the hours per week thing)
ANd lo how I’m going to regret asking this question, but could you go over the principle ideas behind patenting for us?
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if someone was release you work like this without you premission would you not be annoyied?[/quote:9dc5f3e119]
Ignoring the legal implications and in the context of games I’d be quite flattered that ~10years after a game that I coded is released someone would still want to play it… -
if someone was release you work like this without you premission would you not be annoyied?[/quote:570256a699]
Ignoring the legal implications and in the context of games I’d be quite flattered that ~10years after a game that I coded is released someone would still want to play it… :D(EDIT) Hrm it seems I’ve doubled posted, feel free to delete it! (EDIT)
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jez i thing i started a war of copyright infringement ;) with a simple question of where i could buy online gabriel knight.
suffice to say i picked it up in gamestop on budget (gk 2:beast within(6cds)) on my way to the train. So next week, its game playing time. -
ANd lo how I’m going to regret asking this question, but could you go over the principle ideas behind patenting for us?[/quote:bcd603de83]
I’ll keep it short n’ sweet :wink:
Two main areas: what is needed to obtain ‘a patent’ & what is needed to obtain a ‘software’ patent (in Europe, incl. Ireland)
1) The invention must be:
a) new – in the sense that it has never been disclosed (i.e. fallen into the Public Domain, e.g. presented at GDC proceedings – and, more simply, that someone didn’t invent the very same thing earlier)
b) have inventive step – in the sense that it is not obvious, i.e. it wouldn’t be obvious for a programmer (assuming we’re talking software) to ‘mosaic’ bits of other technology to arrive at the invention
c) capable of industrial application – in other words, the invention has an intrinsic value and you can sell it/get an economical benefit from itThere is a whole string of subject-matter excluded from patentability in Europe (reprised in the respective Patent Law of Member countries in general, such as computer programs, methods of doing business or playing games, presentation of information, mental acts (think: asking Excel to calculate 2+ 2 instead of doing it yourself), etc.
2) So, to get around the above, in Europe (and not in the US, which has not got any ‘bar’ on what is patentable or not), your software must make what is termed a ‘technical contribution’ to the art (of computer science), and achieve a ‘technical effect’ – THAT ‘technical effect’ is what all the fuss is about, since neither the European Patent Office, nor the EU Parliament or the Council or even us professionals have an exact definition of what is this ‘technical effect’. Rather, it is a concept that has arisen through proseuction of software patent application in Europe over the last 25 years or so, by way of trial-and-error. And so at the moment I could tell you what is not a ‘technical effect’ with some certainty (i.e. distributing the contents of a database over the Interweb) but only provide you with some examples, based on experience, of what achieves a ‘technical effect’:
_say pixels were only ever processed in RGB and you come up with the ‘A’ (lpha) to achieve gradients of transparency: that is a technical effect, your software configures a computer to process data in a way which it could not before
_say data distribution in MMORPGs was only ever client/server and you come up with a P2P solution to reduce latency/improve redundancy in the overall system, obtain an easier-to-scale network & virtual environment: as above, those are technical effects provided by 1 novel piece of code
etc, etc.Patenting software in Europe is a dark art, particularly as compared to other fields of science (for patenting purposes) which have ‘certainty’ about whether there is an invention or not (i.e. new chemical compound, improved mousetrap), software always requires us (patent agents) to ‘think outside the box’ and figure ways to get around these restrictions, e.g. find out if there is any technical effect featured by the software (which the programmers/business managers can’t identify 99% of the time, as for them it’s usually all about USPs and they couldn’t be expected to think within the context of ‘technical effect’ which is a legal fiction).
There’s more (a LOT more) but I’ll not bore you on the topic any further, unless there’s enough ‘Encores’… :wink:
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