De New York Times heeft een artikel (gratis userlogin nodig) waarin ze de complicaties zullen we maar zeggen van abandonware bespreken. Abandoneware is natuurlijk oude software, die niet meer verkrijgbaar is behalve door abandonware sites op het internet.Their position is highly debatable. Gamers don't go out and download games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System instead of buying new games for Nintendo 64. Someone who wants to play an older game is looking for an experience that is different from what is available from a modern game. And by keeping older games alive, abandonware sites sometimes serve the ultimate interests of publishers: a new version of Frogger (first released in 1981) was one of the Top 10 best-selling computer games in 1999. Publishers became interested in re-releasing titles like Frogger precisely because they noticed that people were still playing it. Abandonware helped them identify a new market niche. Moreover, publishers provide no legal way for gamers to get older games; the market is too small to justify the effort. So gamers feel justified in making vintage games available, despite the legal risks. Older gamers' enthusiasm for games of their youth is only part of the story. In a speech at the Game Developers Conference in May in San Jose, Calif., Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Ma achusetts Institute of Technology, called electronic gaming one of the "lively arts for the 21st century." He said that just as once-despised arts like jazz and film were now accepted as legitimate, so, too, would games be someday. Lees hierover ook de thread op GoG.