Hello, everyone. I’m wondering if anyone can help me find somewhere that I can buy legitimate digital copies of “old” games, preferably DRM-Free. I don’t download illegitimate versions of games if they are still available to buy somewhere, and am having difficulty with finding a few in particular. I’ve tried GOG, GMG, Steam, Origin, Microsoft… Most, if not all, of the more widely known distributors. Here are the games I am looking for at the moment (that I can remember):
Black & White 1 and 2
Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2
Champions of Norrath
SimCity 3000 Unlimited
Fable 2
I’ll be adding more as I remember them, and taking them down as I find out more information. I thank any of you for whatever help you might give me.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve tried looking on Amazon, but I don’t like buying used games, or buying from re-sellers, since the devs don’t see a penny of it. The only time I torrent a game is if a working copy of the game is not available for purchase, but I’ll keep that in mind.
Also, I understand what you mean about Microsoft. Halo 2 is infamous for not working, even legitimate copies, since GFWL was killed.
Yeah i think you’re SOL finding legit GWFL games. Some of them had GWFL removed and released on steam like GTA IV but the older titles are gone. You can torrent them freely though
Well buying old games surely dont help the devs, buying new games straight out the boat do, since the dev teams are now defunct, “and so royalties pass to the rights holder rather than the individual creators, wherever they landed up.” (rarelly, extreme rarity is when a dev gets money from a old game)
That was something I had pondered before. I’d assumed that publishers received the bulk of the revenue, but had wondered about developers after being closed down. I’d rather buy the game from the publisher, but they don’t give us much of a choice when they no longer sell them anywhere.
It reminds me of Nintendo, and all of the DMCA takedowns they issue on ROM sites. They have the legal right to do so, but they aren’t willing to sell those games. They’re basically officially erasing those games from history by doing that. If a publisher offered the service of buying their old games digitally, even buying the ROM versions to be played on an emulator, I would gladly pay for them. That’s something I would like to see: a digital distribution platform for games that are no longer available on the open market or in a retail environment.
You made a point that i didn’t thought before, probably Nintendo has some guys in charge of legal problems and they win their bread doing DMCA in times without trials
THQ is back as THQ nordic and is reviving games like crazy like GSC , most of the games you mentioned were GWFL so you gotta light a candle in name of Bill Gates so he allows the sell of them again.
That’s unfortunate. I doubt that anything would make them start selling these games again. I’m not sure that I understand why it’s such an issue for them to keep them on the market, though. It’s not exactly going to bring a lot of revenue, not like current titles will, but it wouldn’t cost them much of anything, if anything at all, to make them available. Especially considering hackers have done most of the work for them, in getting the games to work on newer systems.
Well it would cost them. Servers and all that just to keep games alive that no one buys? They would loose more then they gain that’s way they take them off market.
Not “no one”, but I get your point. I’m not savvy on how expensive it can be to run a server, but I doubt enough people would be buying those games to warrant the cost. Still, there are other distributors that would be interested in hosting them. GOG and GMG, for instance. They carry a lot of games that no one else does. The publishers would get a cut of the revenue, and wouldn’t need to worry about their servers.
, but i agree that would be awesome indeed.