(sort of brought on by this week's sale, feat. various 20-year-old titles)

First off, I've been here long enough to have learned that "abandonware" is not a recognized legal state. Games can appear to have been abandoned by their creators and are no longer being sold anywhere (other than maybe Amazon/eBay), but downloading them without the appropriate people's permission is still technically, letter-of-the-law illegal and piracy.

However, I believe at least some of us believe site like Abandonia and even TPB can play an important role in at least preserving games for people to enjoy. It is piracy and technically illegal, but I think one could argue there is a greater moral law at play here, like preserving history and game heritage, etc.

Some people believe paying $5.99, a sale price, or even any money for such old games - unimproved graphically (no "HD" re-release) or gameplay-wise (still all the classic bugs), and simply using a free emulator you can get online - is ridiculous. (Plus it's almost assured the original people that worked on the games will never see any profit, and instead 70% of the money will go to some "greedy" publisher.) That number has probably lessened as GOG has gained a strong reputation, but we can be sure some people still feel that way.

But despite all this, most of us here don't mind paying a few bucks for DOSBox'd titles. Why, personally, do you spend money on such old games when you could easily get them free elsewhere, and possibly retain a relatively clear conscience?

I do it to support the store

Some games are a real pain in the ass to get working properly. As stated above to also support GOG and for the future possibility of more MSDOS/Windows games.

There are a few reasons aside from the whole legal thing that I personally will purchase, "abandonware" titles. Firstly, with the exception of some sites, most abandonware versions of DOS games are not really the full product, not so much in the game itself but some of the games are uploaded with the music and other larger pieces of media ripped out of the game. It is nice to get a copy of say, Blood for instance and have the CD audio and cutscenes intact from here instead of getting a gutted copy from an abandonware site with the decent, but not as memorable MIDI music. I should emphasize that not all abandonware sites host these gutted copies, but a decent portion do and still do.

The other reason, and it goes along with just purchasing games in general for myself, is that I want to get my money's worth out of the game I purchased. If I pay money for a few games, I will certainly play them at some point to get what I paid for. When it comes to down downloading a lot of free games, piracy, if you will, I tend to just get a procrastination like mindset and just let the games sit on my hard drive declaring I will EVENTUALLY get to them without that incentive of giving a game a shot that I spent hard earned currency on.

I can get new games free elsewhere, what's the difference? Many game devs are paid a salary while they're working but see no money from the success of a game. It could sell a trillion copies or it could sell one; either way they just get paid a salary while they're working on a game and nothing more.

For me it's because i only ever play legally bought games.

I do agree that piracy plays an important role in preserving games that publishers don't care about anymore and i'm not morally against downloading games that are not sold anymore in any way. I don't do it myself because i'm a collector, but i really don't think it's fair to expect people to pay U$50+ for that second hand rare game on ebay (which was the case with System Shock 2, for example, before it came to GOG and Steam).

However, i'm completely against pirating games that are currently available in stores. For example, nothing justifies downloading an illegal copy of System Shock 2 now that the game is available in its digital form in both GOG and Steam. The fact that the money doesn't go to the original developers doesn't matter. Publishers are the ones who funded these games in the first place, the developers were already paid for their work.

The second reason is convenience. I own the physical version of many games that i have here on GOG, but i'd rather pay for GOG to provide me a working version of the game ready to run in modern PCs than go through the hassle of finding community patches myself.

The third reason is that i want to support GOG, especially when it comes to the old games in their catalog. I want publishers to notice that they can make money from old games if they want.

A few quick reasons for me...
1.) I want to support DRM free gaming, may GOG live forever!
2.) Most games work without special configs needed.
3.) I trust GOG to not give me any viruses, worms or even annoyware in my downloads. (you can not say that about the TOR network).
4.) GOG games play without finding the CD and inserting it every time I want to play. DRM free rocks!
5.) I no longer have a floppy disk reader to even load the games I have on floppies. Yet I still enjoy playing them occasionally.
6.) Direct X support for game controllers and sound device emulations. (sometimes controllers and sounds do not work with vanilla DOSBox).
7.) I buy on sale so most games are under $5. If I get even only 1 hour entertainment I am happy!

Long Live GOG!

And that's the way it should be. Publishers are the ones who funded these games and paid the developers' salaries.

Among other reasons already stated here I do not consider those games adandoned anymore the moment gog offers them completly ready to work on new systems with all goodys in digital form attached.

Some great answers, thanks. I'm glad this didn't turn into an argument over my use of the word "abandonware". ;) Well, as far as community patches go, technically GOG doesn't usually include those, right? (unless the game is fundamentally broken or extremely unplayable without them) My understanding is they focus on making the game as playable as it was back in the day, but usually minor improvements (like widescreen support) to games aren't included in the official release.

Well, apart from the whole matter of legality and ethics, for me it's a matter of voting with my wallet and sending a signal. With their sales figures, GOG can show publishers (or whoever else might hold the rights to some old games) that there is a viable market for the old classics, and so possibly convince them to bring more of them here. It also shows anyone who's interested that there is a viable market for games of those types (gameplay over graphics, creative ideas, all the things that are missing from AAA games today), and so someone may take it into their head to make new games like that.

In my case, it's a combinaison of all of the above (clear conscience and support the store).

Another reason (that at least I had at the time) would be to show that there is still a market for old games and old school games. Judging by the number of old games on Steam nowadays, I'd say that it's a success.

Because I value my money.

Edit: Double Post. Sorry.

I do have a few abandonware installers, programs that have been made working on modern computers. just like GOG does. Though, I only download them by owning the original in CD and with the French language, to be fair. I have about a dozen, namely Police Quest 4 French, both Phantasmagoria in French, some Tex Murphy's.. Torin's Passage.. King's Quest VII. I replace them as GOG release French versions, bought Larry 7 for that reason and I look for Harvester to be my next purchase in that way.