The Case for Abadonware

1993 was an important year in my career as a PC gamer. Sure, Doom was released, and it was great and all, but for me, the year 1993 will always be synonymous with one of the best computer games I’ve ever played, Event Horizon Software’s Veil of Darkness. Using an isometric view similar to Blizzard’s Diablo games, Veil of Darkness was an adventure game that had the player’s avatar fulfilling a prophecy in order to escape from a valley ruled by a vampire named Kairn. The combat was in real-time, and solving the prophecy required puzzle solving skills that had me tracking down a werewolf, solving murder mysteries, and returning beloved items to souls still trapped on the mortal plane. It was a great game and remains a personal favorite to this day.

Then, in 1996, my family moved. Being a true gamer, when we arrived at our new home, I opted to leave all other belongings in complete disarray while I worked tirelessly to get my PC up and running. As I rooted through boxes of games, I came across the Veil of Darkness box and got a hankering to reinstall it and give Kairn another run for his money. The problem was, I couldn’t find the disks. I searched through every box, dumping clothes, school supplies, photo albums, and of course, video game paraphernalia all over the floor. The instruction manual turned up but no diskettes.

I sat down at my computer, my heart trying to thump its way right out of my chest as I activated my dial-up Internet connection and nervously typed in ‘abandonware’ in Yahoo!’s search engine. “This is okay, right?“ I thought to myself. “After all, I bought the game. I’ve got the box and the instructions sitting right next to me. Yeah, this is fine. Perfectly legal.”

Right?

That’s quite a tricky question. Abandonware, defined by most as software no longer available for purchase, is as sticky a legal area as that of emulation. There are those–mostly game publishers–who feel that downloading any abandonware is illegal. Law states that a game is under copyright for 95 years after its release, and since no video game has existed for anything close to 95 years yet, downloading abandonware is illegal, plain and simple. However, another argument states that there are those who download old games not because they don’t want to pay for them; they see abandonware as a great way to uphold the rich history of video gaming.

I find truth in both arguments, and while I find myself leaning toward the latter belief, let’s be honest. I didn’t give a darn about gaming history while I was downloading Veil of Darkness. All I wanted was to be able to play a game I had already bought.

The preservation of gaming history is a compelling argument, though. I understand reticence from developers and publishers. After all, just because something is hard to find doesn’t mean it can’t be purchased. There are many gamers out there who cry “abandonware” simply because they’ve found a product they don’t want to pay for. I believe game developers should be paid for the entertainment they provide. Services such as GameTap offer subscription-based services that allow gamers to play hundreds of games from a wide range of systems for small monthly or yearly fees. The Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, and compilations from companies such as Capcom allow popular series such as Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mega Man to be experienced by those who fondly remember them and want to share them with others.

While there are plenty of old games still for sale, however, there are hundreds more that are not. Should genre-defining titles such as Day of the Tentacle or Dune 2 be forgotten just because newer, more advanced games have sprung up in their place? No. There is an entire generation of gamers that have grown up thinking that video gaming began and ended with Halo. Nothing against Bungie or the success they’ve enjoyed, but while the Halo series is very good, it’s by no means seminal to anyone who knows the history of the first-person-shooter genre. Titles such as Catacombs 3D deserve respect, especially for budding game designers who should strive to know as much about the history of their field as possible. Also what about lesser known titles, such as Veil of Darkness? The game wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn’t care. I bought it on a whim because it was relatively cheap, and I fell in love with the game. Shouldn’t other gamers have a chance to play lesser known games that happened to be overwhelmed by other, bigger name titles?

I personally think so. If not for abandonware, I might never have been able to find a copy of Veil of Darkness. I didn’t feel I should have to pay for it again as I had honestly already paid the publisher the price they asked once. More importantly, it was a piece of gaming history that was and is important to me as a gamer. Video and computer game history should be preserved. If more companies would realize that their past works will one day all but disappear, maybe most–not all, but most–would realize that their work is better suited as a piece of history instead of as a forgotten relic.