[kimixa]

Publishing things that are still available for purchase from storefronts (like steam and gog) seems to be stretching the definition of "abandonware".

While many people would likely justify their piracy with the idea that "The people who made it don't receive that money" - that isn't always true, and even then they did get the cash from selling the rights.

It's not as it playing that one specific game is a human right, after all.

[turpentine]

It's a Russian warez website, fishing for donations in crypto to bypass sanctions because of their invasion? Pass.

[tokai]

Not worse than using Kagi.

[elevation]

> Not worse than using Kagi.

Kagi was founded by Vladimir Prelovac. But it is incorporated in Delaware, and subject to any sanctions the US imposes. It is not a sanctions bypass.

[tokai]

They are buying Yandex data for 2% of their revenue. Money that goes directly into the Russian economy.

[bobim]

True, but in defense of the author site and from a personal perspective, the copyright laws are very skewed and allow for being paid for life for a craft that has been made once. Even heirs benefit from it for life. Isn't that wildly unfair for all the other jobs where you are paid for your work once for all? And irrespectively from the fact that what you designed has been produced by the million and still running...

[alberto-m]

> allow for being paid for life for a craft that has been made once

It costs on average 7$ to buy a craft that took maybe 2 years for a team of 10 developers (since we are speaking of DOS era games). Are you suggesting such works should have been paid 7$ just once by one person? Reasoning like this is why most gaming companies pivoted to either use Denuvo or to make pay-to-win, ad-filled products. I cannot blame them, seeing people that are wishing to spend hours on a game, but not to pay the rightholders the equivalent of 5-10 minutes of average SWE salary.

[bobim]

My opinion is that work should be compensated fairly, that's all. I was just highlighting that copyright is a strange exception, the patent system is more fair even if not perfect. 25 years to make money on an idea seems good enough to me.

[armchairhacker]

IMO the employees should somehow be paid for making the game based on how well they did so, during development and on release, but not paid later except for updates.

Because it costs $0 to copy the game, all the resource cost is in production; and popularity is an OK motivation for good games but not the best, as evidenced by the prevalence and revenue dominance of microtransaction slop.

[endemic]

That $7 isn't going to the developers.

[realusername]

Let's not pretend any of the original developers from the early 2000s or even worse, from the 90s get any money from these old games you buy.

[alberto-m]

The site pirates games that are still being sold by their original devs, like “Ports of Call”. Even for some games published by bigger companies, some of the original developers get a small cut on lifetime sales. So I don't need to “pretend” anything.

[realusername]

That can happen yes but it's rare, usually they just got their salary and the rights were sold/re-sold/sold again to larger media conglomerates merge after merge.

[Timwi]

> Are you suggesting such works should have been paid 7$ just once by one person?

No, I think people should just be paid a livable UBI and not have to worry about proving their worth to you to be allowed to live.

[ktallett]

Gog and Steam often release versions years later, sometimes items are well abandoned for a decade plus with no interest in release and people fairly download to play. If you then decide to monetize that, I don't think morally you can really blame those who downloaded it and shared it when it was abandoned.

The whole copyright system needs a huge overhaul as it is taking away the ability to share what is the art and creation forms of today.