The problem with 'abandonware' is that no matter what criteria are applied to declare this or that software product, or a particular release thereof, as 'abandonware', it doesn't change the fact that unless the software in question is in public domain, or licensed for free distribution by current copyright holders (not necessarily the original developers or publishers), no one is permitted to just take and distribute this piece of software, either for free or for a fee. How hard is it to understand the words 'original release'? Original release = the very first release of that product.įallout 2 was released 1998, so it too is abandonware today as long as it's also the original release and not some re-release, GoG or whatever. Anything else would of course be newer, if someone made a re-release of Fallout 1, even with the original installer, but dated 2013 then naturally it wouldn't be abandonware. So if anyone has the original release made 1997 then it's abandonware, period. The original Fallout was released in 1997, thus very much abandonware by any standards. Naturally we also follow the unofficial '10 year rule'. Anything else would be modified, and for our purposes, useless.įor the historical purposes yes, but this criterion certainly doesn't work even with the most liberal interpretation of 'abandonware', because following this logic an official re-release that includes a patched version of the game and/or an add-on makes the original version 1.0 'abandonware', even if it came out only a year later. Mrpijey wrote:Well, the original version would be the original CD with the original installer. It has an additional folder with a more recent patch (from 2001).ĭoes repacking the original files onto a new CD and adding a patch folder make it a new version, thus making the original release REALLY abandonware? That sounds weird to me. I checked my German magazine version and it is dated to (Readme says it's 1.0 from Oct 15, 98), which sounds very originalish. The German magazine version was at least not a bundle per se (but a repack as you stated above).

Oh, sorry for not reading all the above posts Not the repacks, 3-for-1 packages or whatever other bundle it comes as today.

Translation: The original release is abandonware. It just all comes down to how much the original media has been modified into the current sales release. These pre-packed stuff differs from the original media, so a 1:1 dump of an original media would be considered abandonware, but a GOG-release would not. GOG releases pre-packed stuff which usually is updated and in some cases modified to work with current systems.

Mrpijey wrote:It's not just about the title, it's the way it's packaged.

Fallout 1 dos files