[lstyls]

What are good ways to acquire these game ROMs legally?

A google search brings up a lot of not-completely-legit-looking sites, and I'd hate to give money to some pirate. These games are amazing and I'd love to support the authors if possible.

[jsheard]

GOG and Steam sell many of them legitimately: http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Where_to_get_the_games

The publishing rights for some games are stuck in limbo though, so you just have to dig up a used physical copy or pirate them.

[clinth]

GOG is a good curator/vendor for old games. A fan put together a list of scummvm-compatible games here:

https://www.gog.com/mix/games_compatible_with_scummvm

[djsumdog]

As others have said,GoG et. al. have republished a lot of them (a lot of them just repackage the game using Dosbox or ScummVM; you'll see the license in the download).

I kinda wish they wouldn't though. A lot of these should just fall into the real of abandonware. A lot of these licenses just get sold off to big companies who try to do some long-tail nostolgia sales.

Some /really/ old titles are actually out of copyright (or the publisher has gone under and the license has been lost), but they're still sold through some services cause that's how public domain works.

[bhaak]

> Some /really/ old titles are actually out of copyright (or the publisher has gone under and the license has been lost), but they're still sold through some services cause that's how public domain works.

Nobody has been dead long enough for any computer game to enter public domain by the lawful way of inaction.

There are some games that have been made available by the license holder. Like "Beneath a Steel Sky" which was released as freeware.

[roryisok]

Gog is great, but my favourite way of getting these is to buy the originals on ebay, then you get the cool box to put on your shelf :)

[shmerl]

GOG is the best source (DRM-free): https://www.gog.com

Some ScummVM supported games like The Neverhood however never got a new digital release. So you'd need to buy a used CD on Ebay for example.

[shmerl]

> I'd love to support the authors if possible.

Just for the reference, in most cases, those games are now owned by some publishers, and original authors aren't going to get anything.

[JonDav]

I do not know if ROMs is the right word but I copied the files of the floppy disk or CD that the original game came on (yay for keeping floppy disk organizers and CD wallets). If you don't have the disk in hand it would be tough to get legally since they can be hard to find and possibly contain one or more bad disks.

As others have said you can some rereleased on gog/steam.

[khedoros1]

I've bought a lot from both gog.com and Steam. Even in the latter case, you can just point ScummVM to the game data.

[sebazzz]

In case of Freddy Fish and Pyjama Sam ScummVM is actually bundled with the game. I don't think it has any use updating that version because the bundled version has been tested.

[jadbox]

Simply buy the games: the raw game files is used by Scumm.

[shakna]

Where does one buy a game whose developer and publisher haven't existed in 10 years?