Pirating 10 years old games.

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There is this game I'd like to buy (Armaggeddon's Blade, an expansion pack for Heroes of Might and Magic 3), but the problem is, it came out in 2000 and the guys who were making it, New World Computing, went out of business, so new games like this aren't being made (obviously). But I'd really like to play it. I've been thinking of piracy, but this has moral/legal rammifications.

Where exactly am I standing with the law if I get caught on this (I live in Canada)? Besides it's not really ''unethical'' because the guys who made this already lost their jobs so... Beside it's not like you can find it anywhere else legitimately.

Nobody cares. Its like bootlegging Mozart, or Shakespeare. Imagine cornering some guy who worked on Armageddon's Blade, and telling him someone is playing it for free. I bet he won't be assembling a crack legal team...
I personally enjoy playing the original Xcom UFO Defense.

it falls under a category called abandonware.... it's a grey area. It would be a waste of resources to litigate over software out of there revenue stream. Just go for it

try http://homeoftheunderdogs.net/

My only concern is that lately ISPs have been cracking down on even that kind of pirating, which I don't think is entirely fair. Abandonware is in my eyes, pretty much freeware.

In general, BitTorrenting is as wrong as it is right. But then again, I have a huge grudge toward the media industry, especially with the near monopolization of media in the U.S. Another argument I have is also with software activation. It's more like a lease you can't get out of; you don't get to own the license. The flight simulation community is a perfect example of the abuse of software activation: FSX costs $25, including it's bugs and poor CPU usage, and you'll spend another several hundred dollars on aircraft and scenery for the sim, some of it a "once you've activated it, there's no way of deactivating it.

(If I posted this on a flight sim forum, I'd be blacklisted in the entire community, and I shouldn't even be saying it here)

You are sure to find it off eBay for quite cheap. I did a quick search and while I didn't find just the expansion. I saw a complete HOMM 3/4 for $10 shipped.

well that's good if it makes you sleep better at night. But the only reason it can be purchased is because right of first sale on physical goods. The software industry is taking that right away from everyone with online activation's and subscription models. What happens 10 years from now when you want to play a game made now?

Also, go in realizing that if you get a "legit" copy, there's a good chance that you won't be able to run it out of the package on a modern PC. Check out GoG, they may have it, and if they do, they package all of their games with the necessary emulation and tweaks needed to run it on a modern.

Or you could be like me, and keep milestone PCs around dating back to the late 80's. Go with GoG. It's less likely to prevent you getting laid.

There is nothing wrong with keeping an old DOSbox 8P

It's only $4.99 on GOG (the entire package including both expansions). No need to worry about compatibility. GOG got that covered...

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/heroes_of_m ... te_edition

Oh, and it's an awesome game, but that's Captain Obvious speaking.

Abandonware per se is illegal (not that anyone apart from Microsoft and id Software are bothered by it), but you can pick up these games very cheaply. Some are even published for free by their distributors.

I got Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Complete from Gamestop. I downloaded it for $9.99. It comes with Armageddon's Blade, Restoration of Erathia and the Shadow of Death. You should really consider it. I'm a die hard Heroes of Might and Magic fan and have so many good memories of my step dad and I playing it when I was a child. Now I get to go to memory lane

I do have a question. What faction is your favorite? I like Inferno the best, but Conflux and Stronghold are also favorites.

Keep in mind the company that made the game isn't getting any money from you when using this option though. It's still fine to buy it if you want the original packaging. I'm sort of a game collector, so I do this myself now and then for old games I want to keep an original copy of. But don't fool yourself into thinking it's a somehow better option ethically speaking. If it's abandonware, then it doesn't really matter whether you buy it on ebay or download/bittorrent it for free, because the creators aren't going to get any money from it either way. So if it isn't available from the company anymore, and you're just interested in playing the game rather than owning it, just go ahead and download it already.

The company isn't going to get any money if you buy it from GoG, either

I don't see any morality in the copyright discourse besides that arbitrarily attached. Imagine a product cannot be possibly bought anymore and you bid for it on ebay for 10 times the original price - does the producer benefit from it being resold? A download is effectively the electronic (sometimes similarly non-tangible) equivalent of this, except you don't go broke in the process. Creators of intellectual property do raise a good point that it's easy to pirate something than it was to copy something decades back, but it's also easy for them to advertise their activity and products, so I'll conclude it pays off in the end?

Well, I read on WP that Nintendo are selling the SNES version of Earthbound through their eStore.

However, when I went to buy it (even though the eStore prices are a total rip-off in the UK, frequently being twice the price of the identical game from the American version of Nintendo eStore) .... it's not there.
I guess they've decided not to make that available to buy in the UK.

They even have a trailer video , trying to encourage interest in Earthbound... but then they haven't even got it for sale.
That just seems massively douchey, to me.

Well, I'd like to play Earthbound again (I played the whole thing about 10 years ago, using ZSnes. It's a great game) ... but there's no way I'm importing a second-hand SNES, a second-hand copy of Earthbound, and a second-hand universal adapter (if people on Ebay even have those for sale, which they presently don't) , oh yeah, and one of those USA-to-UK power cable adaptors.... all just to play Earthbound .... So well, you know....

I reckon that Nintendo would do well to actually make things available for sale, which they have in the eStore.... because if they pimp a game but then arbitrarily refuse to sell it in the UK (and goodness knows why), then I reckon that they can hardly complain much if everybody from the UK who wants to play it decides to pirate the game.

The way I see if if a company stops selling a product or goes out of business then its their own fault if someone pirates the games.