Could older video games be put on a thumb drive and marketed?

I like to play the occasional video game, mostly WW1 & WW2 flight sims and the occasionally a FPS or RPG. But with the advances of technology, many games get left behind and those of us who like occasionally play find we can no longer play them on our newer systems.

Would it marketable to sell retro games on a thumb drive? Games like Aces over the Pacific, Red Baron II, X-Com, etc?

How could this ever happen if it's sold at a more convienet way..
Piratebay.

Did i say sold? I ment avalible.

reply to post by Anttyk47


The problem I am encountering is many of the older games do not play on Vista or W7 so they just sit in the closet. I haven't tried with LINUX though.

A lot of these games have been ported to newer platforms such as windows and video game consoles.
If the game has lost all support and is impossible to purchase then it is officially labeled as abandonware and the only way to get them is to download a ripped copy.

Try Steam, GOG and other digital distribution sites.

Have you checked out DosBox? Should be able to play all the old DOS games on a current PC

Some people do sell the old game compilations but are "technically" only charging for the labour and material cost.

If you do a search for abandonware you can find a whole heap of old software from the 80's & 90's as well as emulators to drive them on most OS's.

Legality is the issue though as you would still be marketing someone else's intellectual property.

reply to post by TDawgRex


you can do that your self

find the roms

find the emulators

then install emultaor on what you want to play it on

run roms from flash disk

your ready to play your favs

no it would not be profitable since many of those old games are licence free now and can be obtained free

Have you checked out emulators? I do not know if they make emulators for pc games, but they do for all of the consoles.

Game companies could re-sell those games today and they have done with classics on the PS3 (e.g. sonic the hedgehog, golden axe and streets of rage). However, most gamers would not pay more than a couple of dollars for them and so in order to sell them they would have to package it with 25 other games.

I don't see that happening and so your best is to find an illegal download that works on today's computers. On the other hand, you could find a computer that is running an old version of windows and just never update the OS.

You must go to gog.com.
That is the answer to your question.
gog stands for "good old games"
easy download, cheap, boom.
....I have very limited computer skills, so emulators and other gizmo sounding crap is not for me.
just click buy, download, and your playing games that use to come on 3.5 floppys.
(someone else mentioned this first...but it was way understated by them.
I have used Steam too, but they are $$$ more and have newer games.

To all...Thanks for the tips! I'll check 'em out.

Now that I'm retired, I actually have time to play.

I have vmware for that .. I have a windows xp virtual machine, windows 3.1 virtual machine and a windows 95 virtual machine.. plus my trusty amiga emulator with hundreds of games..

Vmware Player is free, you can also download VirtualBox for free as well ..both are excellent

There's already quite a few retro games on the Ipod.
Final fantasy 1-3, and FF Tactics just came out this month. Then there's Sonic, and some others.
So yeah, there's definitely a market that's being looked into by developers.

After the talks the other day about abandonware and obsolete gaming systems, I was amazed to find a gaming newsletter in my inbox with a reference to exactly that.....

Coincidently, it seems that Atari have found offence at old 2600 games being ported to mainstream OS's and have been threatening websites with legal action......

However we're not so comfortable when companies litigate without a clear reason behind it, as seen in our first story of the week: Atari slapping owners of fan websites with cease-and-desist letters. What rubs us the wrong way is that these fan sites are dedicated to a product that is no longer on sale - the Atari 2600 - and therefore should pose little threat to the company's bottom line. Read our article for more on this contentious issue.

www.atomicmpc.com.au... ampaign=weekly_newsletter