(re: re: re: re: re: re: Sierra Classics)
About three years ago, Sierra’s lawyers sent cease and desist letters to a bunch of abandonware sites, and the old games were removed from those sites. Many of the games have since cropped up on abandonware sites again. I don’t know how long it took for this to happen, or if Sierra has taken any further action since then.
They’re easy enough to find using google — but since Ken said he doesn’t mind, here are two good links:
http://www.the-underdogs.org
http://www.abandongames.com/
Most of the games i’ve downloaded, I did before Sierra’s lawyers requested to have them removed. (I also felt kind of justified because many of those games I did own, at one time or another, but they were all Apple or Mac games and became obsolete as technology changed, or the disks went bad…) I have also been known to buy old games even if I have a downloaded copy. In fact, I’d rather own legal copies if i can find them. The original documentation (and even the original disks / CDs) are important to me.
I would never download a game that is still sold by the manufacturer… not even some newer old games that are hard to find. If it’s less than 10 years old, the idea of downloading it makes me feel dirty for some reason…
It’s interesting, what the companies have had to go through to protect copyrights. Many of the first Sierra games I played were copies that came from my dad’s coworkers. At the time, it didn’t seem like a bad thing to do. But this seemed to peter out as the games got bigger (probably in part because Sierra, among other companies, made customers aware that piracy was illegal and was taking money out of the pockets of the hardworking developers…)
-emily