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Re: [News] New Trend? Abandoned Games and Apps Go Open Source


"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:2057491.PrDBi1xaTS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It's stuff like the following which makes me wonder if every Windows-centric
game we once knew will end up Open Source in the public domain. Programmers
can easily make all of these available for Linux when the source is
available.


http://lilanglois.widge.org/hoverrace/
http://hoverrace.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=419

Quake and Descend come to mind...

It'd be nice, but unfortunately many of the big companies want to hang on to their assets. They'll usually resell them again as "classics collections" or similar:


http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=729
http://www.amazon.com/Vivendi-Universal-Games-Game-Year/dp/B00001KUII
http://www.gamespot.com/snes/action/supermariocollection/index.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060607-7009.html

From that last link, Arstechnica:
<quote>
Nintendo President Saturo Iwata spoke yesterday at a Japanese marketing event (Japanese source), revealing information about "virtual console" pricing and the Wii's relationship with the DS. Iwata revealed that games for Nintendo's "virtual console" that will allow Wii owners to play old titles on their consoles will be priced at ¥500 and ¥1,000, roughly US$4.50 to US$8.99. For reference, classic retro games for the Nintendo GameBoy sold for upwards of US$35 for some titles, US$19.99 for others.
</quote>


Selling old games is great from a business perspective. You don't have to pay programmers, artists, musicians, designers etc. (or only pay the programmer very little, in the case of porting from one platform to another e.g. NES to Wii); you just resell exactly the same content. Might have to pay someone to design a new box for the product, and maybe some marketting folks for advertising.

- Oliver


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