Not sure what I think of this: “Games that no longer support their creators.” Muddled thoughts follow.
Computer game developers (designers, programmers, writers, artists, and so forth) often work together in a studio as a team to produce a game, or a set of games; to fund the development and publication of said game(s), they often rely on a publisher with deep pockets, who receives profits from sales and, in some cases, rights to the works created. As with so many things, it is a trade-off. Listed here: games whose developers went out of business, and whose rights devolved to the publisher (who had no direct involvement in creating the game(s) in question — and yet whose funding was also integral in enabling the game(s) creation.)
Ten years ago, this wasn’t much of an issue — getting games onto diskettes/CDs/DVDs and into stores was a hassle, and the odds of a game from a defunct studio continuing to sell many copies was negligible. Real classics — some of the best games ever made (for instance) — could not be purchased from a store. You might be able to find a copy on Ebay, or being re-sold elsewhere for a high markup…and of course, offered up on torrents for those willing to pirate. In a choice between paying someone who happened to have a box sitting around and downloading a copy for free, many people opted to pirate; the ethical argument applied to music — that it harmed the artist — clearly did not apply.
Then, however, enter: the internet. Downloads have replaced DVDs as the preferred distribution for many, and that means that reproduction costs are now quite low. A number of stores have popped up (notably Good Old Games) selling older titles. And a reasonably large number of people are buying them, many of whom would previously have pirated them. Personally, I’ve re-purchased several older games I used to play, and also bought new old games (if you’ll pardon that turn of phrase) which I never had a chance to try. But none of the money from those sales goes to the people who made them, even though you are now buying a store-bought ‘new’ copy. Is that bad? I feel like it is, in that I’d love to think that the people who invested their time and energy and work in making these things could be reported. That’s how I like to think of creative endeavors working; that’s why I’m okay with somewhat lengthy copyright terms. And while they did get paid back in the day to make these games, I have to wonder how the sales on some stack up: for perennial classic titles, bought and re-bought over the years, how much profit has been made this year as opposed to ten years ago?
And all this, of course, ties into issues of copyright. It’s going to be decades and decades before these games enter the public domain, if ever, and yet they’re already entirely dissociated from the people who made them.
[List found via RPS, which has some additional commentary]
