[Oscar]

I'm all for abandonware, personally. If you've searched really hard for a copy of a game to buy and you can't find it, then it's a good and fair option. The other choice is, if you like, to download it and send some money to the developers, or the people who were involved. I'd rather see consumers being inspired by playing old, obscure games than a market encrusted with antiquated intellectual property rights which haven't required protection for a long time.

Let's face it, abandonware is the main way (usually the ONLY way) of playing these 'obsolete' games. Abandonware may well have created the substantial fanbase of sites like Adventure Gamers and adventure games in general (as a dying or dead genre, commercially) by allowing these games to be played. It also encourages sales of new adventure games by allowing people to get into the AG scene in the first place. Adventure games may have died a long time ago without kids discovering the old classics through less than legal means. I know I certainly wouldn't be playing them or buying them and pre-ordering new AGs today had such means not existed. It's not like I could have got them from my local EB store even if I did have the money.

I can especially see why developers like Agustin support dissemination of the classics - it's good commercial policy for a developer to support making available as much as possible the old, no-longer-marketed games, in order to foster an intense interest in an unpopular genre and to revive the market for fresh, new games. Of course, GOG confuses things a bit, as does people lending games to friends, and 2nd hand ebay sales.