It didn't...

This is a heavily modified SNES ROM in a custom ZSNES build. It's missing most game features (no car selection etc.) so it's basically a demo.

Wow. One would think that one of the most powerful and experienced studios in the industry would be able to properly re-release its own classics.

It may be due to issues with distributing the licensed music. This ROM has no music (the emulator plays a pre-recorded track embedded in its executable). It would be possible to modify the emulator to not use the music channels when running the proper ROM but in that situation they would still technically be distributing the music as part of the download.

Try this link: https://us.battle.net/account/download/?show=classic

Maybe that wasn't the only difference... Try this:
https://us.battle.net/account/download/?show=classic

EDIT: ninja'd ;)

Thank you! That works(As far as downloading goes anyway) :)

If you read the comments here, it's quite obvious some people just found out about this due to this post. So it was not in vain :)

Indeed, so that's a good thing ;-)

I still do think we should endeavor not to spam the forum with the same threads over and over again. It's annoying to have the same discussion going on in several threads at once, with some people posting in one thread and others in another. On the other hand, the forum search function is so unreliable that finding an existing thread is difficult at best.

Well, the missing soundtrack is justified, though. it would take Blizzard a lot of money to renew the licenses for those songs. Not worth it for a game they're releasing for free, is it?

That was mighty white of them.

Snes9x beat them to it though. XD

I completed that game during a rental back in the nineties and never returned to it.
Good game but you can really only sit through that crap once in a lifetime.


EDIT: Notice I said "Never returned TO it" and not "Never returned it"

a) When is it "worth it" to release a game for free in the first place?
b) It's Blizzard. I think they don't even acknowledge the term "a lot of money".
c) If they had re-released it at a low price they would have most definitely made far more money with this release within one or two days than the original release made in total. They should have just paid for the licenses and made it a commercial re-release if they were worried about the expenses - which they weren't because they're Blizzard.

Building goodwill and increasing interest for the paid products/services? I'd compare it to advertising for the company as a whole rather than for a specific service.

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to release games for free, I think it's great. I just meant that the "it's not worth it" argument concerning renewal of the music licenses, which was probably meant from a financial standpoint, is a bit weird when financially any effort put into this free release is "not worth it", as is the decision to release it for free itself.

I just would have expected more from Blizzard. They should have made sure that it's gonna be the whole game and not some inferior thing that some have referred to as a demo, no matter whether it would have meant higher costs (which Blizzard most definitely would have been able to stomach) or a price tag on this re-release. I believe that many people would have gladly paid a few bucks if that's what would have been necessary to actually get the game, and not this abomination.

Sure, but I don't think it was a serious business decision. They didn't really need it anymore, and people wanted access to it, so they gave it for free. I'm sure they could have made some money out of it but it was not worth the work and time. And although money really doesn't matter for Blizzard they are a company. They can't go around spending money on nonsense.