24 November 2011, 13:03 | #1 |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: .
Posts: 351
|
gog.com for retro games (wishful thinking)
Today I was browsing gog.com to check for the latest entries.
I don't know how much their business model is successful, but - provided the needed conditions - it would be interesting if same could be applied to old hardware platforms. Imagine how cool would it be to have a distribution agreement with some copyright holders to sell autorunning installers with 1 or more games. You pay $1.99 and you buy WinUAE + Populous II. You pay $0.79 and you buy VICE + Track&Field. For $4.99 you can have WinUAE with the 5 most known EA games. The cheap ticket to the memory lane, without knowing anything about emulators or games, just plug you USB joypad. Notice that since most emulators are GPL'd, technically you buy the right to play the game and you only distribute the emulator packed, all in one EXE, exactly like gog.com is doing with DOSbox. The system ROMs you say? Yes, those are a problem. In the medium term, maybe for WinUAE con be solved with a free implementation, but the others are definitively the show-stopper. Also because the hardware copyright holders are far from being open to any discussion and I'm sure I'm not the first one that imagined this scenario :-) |
24 November 2011, 13:08 | #2 |
95th User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brighton/UK
Age: 48
Posts: 3,120
|
I bet they don't donate money to the developers of emulators, considering without them they wouldn't have a business... If they do then I am all for it, but I would imagine that people that want to play retro games know how to set up an emulator
|
24 November 2011, 14:57 | #3 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: .
Posts: 351
|
Quote:
However, you raise an interesting point: emulator developers don't have the right recognition by those who should be grateful in the first place. There are a lot of business opportunities (imo) yet to be exploited. |
|
24 November 2011, 18:29 | #4 |
95th User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brighton/UK
Age: 48
Posts: 3,120
|
So it would seem that developers get exploited and so do the customers... Nice business model! I get that they aren't gonna say hey do it for free yourself, but with stuff like YouTube, forums and even facebook (seeking advice) playing old games using emulators is easy as you can find lots guidance through those channels..
Also if you owned a computer back in the day then you were considered a techie nerd, so in all likelyhood you still are, thus you would be able to this all yourself Maybe I naive, I just don't see a market for this? Edit: Looking at ebay you can buy a pre-setup Amiga emulator plus 22,000 game disks for £3.99 or you can do it the right way with Amiga Forever at £9.99 and get 40 games and 40 demos and have a legit 1.3 rom and wb 1.3 of course i have winuae... and all it cost me was time! And the real thing also! Last edited by Djay; 24 November 2011 at 18:49. |
24 November 2011, 21:46 | #5 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: .
Posts: 351
|
Quote:
And I think there could be a way to give everyone its own share. Look at the DOSbox site: they've put a nice banner sending you to gog.com (hint hint...). There will always be people pirating software, as there will always be those who think different (no pun intended), and you obviously sell to the latter category. And there will be "pro" users like us that don't need to be spoon-fed. What you can say (correctly) is that the PC market has always been double figure wider than the Amiga one, so an hypotetical gog.com oriented to retrogaming would have much less audience. Also another meaningful objection would be: look at gog.com, they're selling "Fallout 2", not the first "Test Drive": apparently there is a limit to how far a PC retroplayer is willing to go ;-) |
|
24 November 2011, 23:12 | #6 |
95th User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brighton/UK
Age: 48
Posts: 3,120
|
Maybe it could work? I am no industry expert... but your right Fallout 2 was made in 1998... Amiga games started in 1984 possibly well before the mainstream got into gaming anyone gaming at that time was (i would imagine) a bit of a nerd and was willing to invest time learning about computers and how to make them work...
also any successful business needs break america, Amiga didnt do very well in the states its biggest markets were Europe and Australia... what i object to is people making money off the back off other peoples work, i guess that they would have to supply... a kickstart replacement, which they didnt make nor invest in winUAE (or suchlike), which they probably didnt donate to a game, in which the original developer would receive no money for i suppose it might encourage more people to get back into the Amiga and hopefully increase our community at EAB i am no saint, i copied games back in the day, but i didnt try to make money out of it... i suppose time will tell as there is no financial outlay maybe anyone with a bit of spare time could do it? |
28 November 2011, 10:26 | #7 |
Member
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Belgium
Posts: 47
|
I have the impression a lot of assumptions are being made on behalf of GOG who seems the most targeted in this discussion. Did anyone check on this? They are very tightly integrated with dosbox for a lot of the games offered on their website. I would 'assume' they have a good working relationship with them. All I'm saying is be carefull with 'assumptions'.
|
28 November 2011, 10:43 | #8 |
Registered Insane
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Ununited Kingdom
Posts: 792
|
There is already a website out there who are doing all in one exe files of amiga games, cant give you a link as they are using KS and a hacked version of whload to run it.
|
28 November 2011, 10:45 | #9 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Moorpark, California
Age: 44
Posts: 1,153
|
Quote:
|
|
28 November 2011, 10:49 | #10 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Moorpark, California
Age: 44
Posts: 1,153
|
They're probably selling what they think they can sell. How do you know they're even able to obtain the rights to [insert other game here]?
|
28 November 2011, 12:32 | #11 |
95th User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brighton/UK
Age: 48
Posts: 3,120
|
indeed, in the case of gog it seems they pay for dosbox usage which is a good thing...
i lost the bet but i am still convinced about the winuae+1game idea... for various reasons |
28 November 2011, 14:22 | #12 |
Registered Insane
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Ununited Kingdom
Posts: 792
|
|
28 November 2011, 17:15 | #13 |
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Moorpark, California
Age: 44
Posts: 1,153
|
|
28 November 2011, 17:31 | #14 |
Registered Insane
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Ununited Kingdom
Posts: 792
|
|
28 November 2011, 19:39 | #15 |
95th User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brighton/UK
Age: 48
Posts: 3,120
|
|
29 November 2011, 01:49 | #16 |
Beta 1.666
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: in 1985
Posts: 384
|
I downloaded these recently and they are actually quite good! Some are kinda buggy but most good. It uses the Winuae base and works quite well. These only work in the PC windows enviroment unfortunately.
|
29 November 2011, 19:14 | #17 |
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Wakefield/UK
Age: 41
Posts: 387
|
Slightly related but has anyone ever downloaded any of the retro games off Steam. I got UFO and Terror from the deep. I still had to piss around with the dosbox settings because it wasn't configured right.
|
01 December 2011, 20:51 | #18 | |
Sending You Back In Time
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: UK
Age: 61
Posts: 986
|
Quote:
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
80's Top Games - OVER 2000 Retro games playable in your Browser! | Neil79 | Retrogaming General Discussion | 8 | 18 April 2013 02:11 |
GoG closing its doors :( | laffer | Retrogaming General Discussion | 6 | 22 September 2010 16:19 |
GOG.com, we’ve got games your 10-year-old won’t be better at | Shoonay | News | 24 | 26 September 2008 18:37 |
Games that make you say "What were they thinking ?" | Xeon | Retrogaming General Discussion | 62 | 26 August 2006 17:59 |
Are todays Games just Retro Games with a Facelift? | Miggy2TheMax | Retrogaming General Discussion | 37 | 10 February 2002 14:19 |
|
|