ABANDONWARE
Among retro gaming nuts there’s a concept known as ‘abandonware.’ It refers to software that’s no longer available for purchase and is no longer making the copyright owner money. In some cases, the software has been released into the public domain or the ownership of the copyright is ‘fuzzy’ due to studio shutdowns and developers who have passed away.
It should be noted that abandonware is in no way a legal definition. In many cases ‘abandonware’ is straight up copyright infringement, albeit one that is rarely enforced. Even if you owned the game legally, there’s no provision in Australia’s Fair Dealing laws covering abandonware. Despite their shaky legal status, there is a large community of users who believe that these games belong in the public domain, and since in most cases, copyright isn’t being enforced, there are plenty of sites online that offer abandonware for download. Some of the big ones for PC games include
www.abandonia.com and www.abandonwaredos.com. There are plenty of other sites for different platforms as well.
When it comes to abandonware sites, our top pick is definitely My Abandonware ( www.myabandonware.com), a site that has a large collection but is more diligent than most about keeping products that are still being sold off its network (it instead will link you to the GOG page where the game can be legitimately purchased, often for just a few dollars). It also has an embedded version of DOSBox, so you can play many games online without even downloading them or setting up an emulator. It also has downloadable Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari, Apple II, Amstrad, NES and other platform games.