so there is a number of sites where you can play old games in the browser pretty much like a flash game. Some of them require Java, others don't. This also includes a huge collection of DOS games running in a dosbox emulation. Ok it's not perfect yet. Some games run slow or have issues and normally you cannot save your game, but that might be fixed in the near future. Best thing is, they are free to play. This could become a serious trend and I have the feeling that GoG are trying to part with their retro image and get their hands on some newer titles. B/c all this old junk might soon end up in an online museum.

I think GOG has enough customers.I also hope you are wrong about GOG departing from old games because IMHO that would be the very end of them

I don't think so. I'm buying old games with a pleasure, even if already have many of them on retail CD's.

If you're referring to sites like the game section of Archive.org, then the problem is that none of those titles are actually licensed by them. They're essentially in the same legal area as all the abandonware sites out there, meaning it's not actually legal at all.

This won't happen because these sites have been around for years and it's not completely legal like with GOG, so they could get shutdown if someone with the licenses pushed for it. Or at least the games they don't own, which is what happened with some sites (out of their own volition though, I don't think any have been threatened with legal action yet).

Not exactly. Archive.org is legally regarded as a museum. The big question is, if they should cease to offer downloads though.

So you don't want GOG to get newer games DRM-free?

[url=http://www.gog.com/game/surgeon_simulator_2013]Simulator 2013 will become a classic for sure.

Many of them are free to play by breaking the law on various sites. We can say the same thing about torrent sites. Most games around there are "free to play" too.

Now, regarding Internet Archive, things can get tricky sometimes. They manage to go pass the "abandonware" thing by stating in their terms that their collections are for "scholarship and research purposes only". They act as an non-profit organization and they don't generate income from the things they put there. So, legally, if you take that game for entertainment, you are the one breaking the law. If you are taking it to show it on your class as a teacher, you don't break the law. But, if someone it's taking that abandonware game and puts in on an site in order for you to play it on browser and generates income for himself due to that website, through adds or donations, he's breaking the law. But unless the owner of that game does not sue him, he's pretty safe.

When you buy a game from GOG, you buy the whole package, not just an executable that might work or not with DOSBox. You are getting an fully functional game on your modern systems and various goodies, like manuals, wallpapers, artwork. That's what you pay for. GOG does not sell free to play games at a price. Every game on their website have an licence owner that agreed with GOG in order for them to release and modify that product in order for it to run property on modern systems. By paying them, you support their business in order for them to re-release more old games for you to enjoy. Internet Archive will never modify an software. They pretty much get the original game files and drop them on their website. Many of those games have bugs, don't work properly through DOSBox, it can be a hassle to play them. On GOG you know that you will enjoy what you are buying.

:) hah but not all older games are classics (good) games

*ahem* I like Surgeon Simulator.

Of course, I like super heroes, sex, violence, and Western culture and we know how the OP feels about that stuff. :P

Of course not. Let's get something straight. A project like that does not encourage piracy. We're talking about free of licence or abandonware materials. Those materials should be centralized somewhere, exactly for what they are stating in their Terms, "scholarship and research purposes only". Let's say that i want an manual for my 70 years old radio. I'm not gonna find that one at manufacturer, as it does not exist anymore. Only place where i could find it would be in some archives, but it's harder for me to physically look for them. Well, on Internet Archive, another guy from other part of the globe can scan his 70 years old radio manual that i'm looking for and i couldn't be more happy to take it from there.

We're talking about a lot of information that does not exist in general sources, that some people might need. Same with games. Maybe i'm an developer, but i want my game to inspire something from Volfield. In order to do my research, i would need the game. Well, that's a game that you can't buy right now. So, having it in an archive somewhere it's more than welcomed.

I kind of doubt that the likes of Baldurs Gate, Beyond/Divine Divinity, System Shock and many many others are ever to be categorized as junk. You also won't find these to play in your brower or so on.
I mean sure, you can download all these old DOS games like Master of Magic, Loom, Monkey Island and more easily and be rather sure that you'll never get problems for it, but it stays illegal. And a lot of gamers would like to actually legally own these games. So I doubt GOG will be threatened by these sites, nor will it lose it's good old games standing. I am glad we also see newer games here and I hope we get more of them. But at the same time I doubt GOG will stop selling older games and reviving more dead titles. It's what a lot of it's consumers want and are here for.

Using these free to play services for old games is saver, but usually about as illegal as pirating the newest AAA title.

I completely agree for titles that are not sold anymore, that's why I always liked Abandonia's approach of replacing links to their files with links to GoG's game cards when the game was sold again. Before the site got so messed up, it was like a museum to me. They had their own rules and those were not arbitrary. When someone complained about some license, they stopped offering the files.
Archive.org offers games that are licensed and sold again though and that's where the opinions clash.
I think, that GoG's versions are superior for easy gaming purposes thanks to the neat repackaging in easily working containers for various modern systems and worth the money in many cases (although often a bit less money, since they didn't create DosBox, ScummVm or Wine), so offering the old original files in an online museum would be grand, what I don't like is that they seem to include emulators as well while that's just making historical material "unclean" to me, if you only see it from the scientifical perspective.
Let's just hope, that the copyright laws regarding source code and running time of licences for software are updated at some point. The first generation of devs is already dying, so it's time to properly handle their legacy in an orderly and fair fashion which we won't get from license trolls (close relatives of the patent trolls) which may already be valued employees in video game companies if you look at the hassle GoG has with some licences.