The Saul Zaentz Company (sorry, thought it was New Line) is forcing a pub that existed for decades before those movies came around to change their name and theme from The Hobbit, so yes, those dicks are going to come after you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-17350103

You won't find abdandonware in the dictionary (and you can find just about any game on ebay, even Wasteland, eg.). If the game is no longer hold in stock by first hand resellers, I consider it abandonware.

Used games are not a proper way of getting a license in my opinion. And the "sealed copies" that you still might find are sold for collectors prices, not gaming license prices.

Everything is always owned by a company that still exists, unless it's part of the public domain. When a company goes under, its assets (like the game/rights/franchise/etc) go to another company. Somebody always owns them. Abandonware is when they either stop selling it for whatever reason, or they CAN'T sell it because multiple parties own pieces of it and those parties can't get along.

A game being unavailable for legitimate purchase is pretty much the only definition of abandonware. Some things only stay as abandonware for a matter of weeks or months, though, so it's not a permanent designation. It just means you can't get it except from a pawn shop.

That is a completely different issue which has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion at hand.

That is a different issue, as the Pub is using the "work" that was licensed to earn money. And afaik the case was recently dropped anyway.

Can you at least download the patches via the updater or do I have to search for them? I was thinking about reinstalling them in the near future.

Unfortunately that may be against their economical interests. People like me (re)playing mostly old games I bought already 10-15 years ago, or for a few bucks from GOG or indie bundles, are not the kind of customers they want to see, because we bring them less money than if we had pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 Ultra Deluxe DD+ Edition with an inflatable doll.

Good question. Did the first game in the series have (auto update) patches as well? Because at least in www.patches-scrolls.de, which is my default place to hunt for offline updates for old PC games, it has updates only for LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 (v1.06 for various different languages separately).

Auto-patching for single-player games sucks, unless it is completely optional. It didn't work for Dune 2000 either (Westwood is no more, duh), but fortunately there were offline patches available as well.

Well it's all about revenue, sure, but if you're selling a lot of copies 2 years after release at $20 a pop you are making good money.

I'm not sure, I think there had to be some reason why abandonware sites like Home of the Underdogs and such pulled out old Sierra Quest games etc. already a long time ago.

For the longest time, the HOTU website represented a healthy balance between publisher/developer rights and game preservation. Even when they were more active a decade ago they always removed downloads for games that were available elsewhere and replaced it with a link to a place to buy it from. The Quest games were part of this as Sierra started offering DVD packages containing the various series in around 2004.

I see now that *all* of the downloads have been taken down in the meantime, but Abandonia seems have to followed this old system.

There are quite a few "abandonware" sites out there that offer games for download in spite of their being available elsewhere to buy.

Yeah, the Sierra games are not abandonware and have not been abandonware in a long time.

That only shows you have too much time in your hands, or alternatively you hardly ever finish games? :)

Albeit, the fact that you buy DLC (and base games?) when they are on sale is not cool in publisher's eyes. Are you trying to be a cheapskate or what?

Actually, many publishers are very cool with sales, because time and time again sales have resulted in a bigger net profit, because of the low distribution costs and the number of actual sales skyrocketing.