Well you could of course just buy the physical collection:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Quest-Collection-7-Games/dp/B0012DJ00K

You can use ScummVM to play the games. ScummVM patches out all sorts of game bugs on the fly and even gets you speech + text at the same time in King's Quest 6. Windows 3.11 hires portraits of KQ6 are also supported.

Well okay except for KQ7. That one is currently not supported, but at some point it will.

Right we know about ScummVM but that's not the point of this post.

However, the broken nature of the steam/2006 collection is likely the reason why it was removed from Steam in the first place. Not everyone knows about or how use ScummVM. Your average 'non-computer' person only buys games to have them work out of the box, and if they don't they aren't necessarily going to go hunt for methods for how to get it to work, but instead complain to the company they bought it from.

Personally I'd recommend one of the older collections either Collection I (albeit no KQ7), or Collection Series, or the Roberta Williams Collection. They come with more stuff, extra programs, extra games (King's Questions, Graham's Board games, and in Collection Series, and ROberta's sets, you get some of her other series such as Laura Bow Mysteries, and Mixed-Up Mother Goose, and Hi-Res Adventures). Better manuals.

http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_Collection


2006 collection has:

KQ1 remake version only (does not include the AGI version of KQ1), and packs the windows only version of KQ7 (no 64-bit support). Broken introduction video on KQ6 (a file needs to be added back into it for it to work correctly, GOG has this same issue).

Still there is no reason that gog's edition shouldn't also include the KQ1 remake 'legally'. Promoting piracy isn't allowed on these forums, although some people do use that method.

Likely because they were largely 'broken out of the box'. Broken menus in KQ1, KQ2 and KQ3, also broken save features (due to incompatibilities with the outdated dosbox build included). No direct support to KQ6 windows, and a broken intro video in KQ6, and a version of KQ7 that wasn't compatible with 64bit windows.

So lots ofpeople complaining about technical issues.

Yes, many of those can be fixed, by updating Dosbox, or using ScummVM (although ScummVM is somewhat slower with these games than using Dosbox, and many prefer dosbox for Sierra's games). But your average person doesn't know about these alternatives.

Yes, the original Sierra collections were really awesome. I own quite a few of them. Love the extras.
One of the Leisure Suit Larry collections for example has a 300-page book included with interviews and more.

A few of those collections are listed on the ScummVM wiki.
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/SCI/Game_Collections

For King's Quest there is no definitive collection. One collection contains some extras, another collection contains different extras, so I guess you have to buy them all :P
see:
http://sierraplanet.com/curiosities/kingsquest/collections.html

They are of course way more expensive than the 5pound collection and some are hard to find. In my opinion they are totally worth it, but some people may disagree and go for the cheaper one. And you will have to use either ScummVM or setup Dosbox to play those anyway. So for people in this forum the 2006 collection could be a really cheap and legal way to get KQ1SCI now (also w/o the possibilty to catch a virus from a pirate site), although yes, GOG should add it if possible.

About that broken KQ6 introduction, which file is missing? Has anyone contacted GOG about it?

GOG should of the originals and remakes for all games. I do not understand why some games they have both versions but others they only have one version