Both:

The sites are probably kosher.
Using them is dodgy.

Um, they went under about a decade ago. Whatever site you're looking at is a copy and/or ripoff.

I;d be real careful about what I download from there. Just a fyi.

Having said that, they were a great place to get games no longer available. Manual and game books too.

I pirate. I'll go ahead and admit to it. When my third ex split back in 1999, everything went with her (and probably into a dumpster around the corner) and I wound up in the hospital for 6 weeks. A lot of the things I had is no longer available, either because they were one time items or mementos that couldn't be replaced.

Things have gotten better within the last few years. I'm working on replacing what I can. Nothing is every going to replace that Dragon magazine #45 signed by Gary and Roger though.

That is completely untrue.

I've suffered something similar with a girl like 11 years ago. At this point I've lost any hope..

You loaned a girl to someone!?

lol! nice one!

well it was a book and some highschool stuff... I was teaching her maths... seems she don't reply my messages, chats, etc since I talked about those old notes (my old highschool notes could be useful for my niece..)
Perhaps she thought that I was asking for those things just for invent an excuse for a date? or perhaps she throw everything to the trash bin...

sorry for the offtopicJMayer !

none of the two, because some games are still being sold here

EDIT: Abandonia is pretty legit - nothing dodgy about it.

I suppose you could live in a country that is not a signatory to the Berne Convention, and refuses to sign extradition treaties (though most countries have treaties with the United States at a minimum.)

Beyond that, you are ultimately just hoping you won't get caught. Legally you have no rights to the games in question, it's only a matter of whether you can avoid being punished.

I honestly used to visit Home of the Underdogs frequently before I found out about gog (years ago). Still a lot of classics that haven't made it here yet, but I'm hopeful that many of them eventually will.

(Big fingers, small touchscreen and auto correct...)

Off course piracy is "not up to the individual", it is quite clear and straight forward. It is defined both legally and commonly. Piracy is "unauthorised use or reproduction of another's work", that's all there is to it.

Abandonware is not authorised, therefore using it is piracy.

Thought most of these had been shut down. Used the on occasion, I agree with both sides of the arguments on them. An example, I want to play game x which I brought, full boxed edition, however the cd warps, does the issuing company who holds the copy right provide a means to replace that copy so I can use the product I payed for? In a lot of cases the answer is no. Now I know, some will say that then getting a copy may not be the same game blah blah, however the simple fact is, the rare times that a dev/pub actually provides end user support over the given period of ip, is if they can further abuse the customer, for instance blizzard - we provide Starcraft so you can play it, however we need you connected through our advertising platform. For this whole process to work, ip holders should be providing support through the lifetime that they own it. This is one of many areas where the ip system is broken.
(And yes, this is a real example, I have 6 copies of dark forces, and 4 of those cds are either gone or nearly gone)

I don't see anything morally wrong in using abandonware sites if the game in question cannot be bought anywhere. The alternative is that nobody can play the game. If I were a game developer, I'd rather people still played my game than let it be forgotten.

If it's available on GOG, do the right thing and buy it. If it becomes available sometime later, do the right thing and buy it then.

I still have a copy of Unreal Tournament that I borrowed off a friend about fifteen years ago while in high school, then lost contact with when school ended, and just recently reacquired contact with through a pen-and-paper roleplaying group. I almost never play FPS'es any more, much less competitively (even among friends), and even back then I was more into slower-paced RPG's than twitchy shooters.

HOTU closed years ago because the guy running it couldn't afford the server(s) anymore, now you can only browse mirrors of it without the files. And anyway, before it closed, he was removing the files and linking to the GOG store for the games as they were being released here. It was as legit as it gets, and a great place for research on 'underrated' or 'forgotten' old games (the mirrors still served that function last time I checked). There were also some pretty good free games in there (e.g.: Battle for Wesnoth).

Abandonia I also remember being pretty 'legit', and MyAbandonware as well.

Don't know about the last one you listed, but from what you say I'd stay away from it; sounds dodgy AF.

Thanks for the replies folks..... quite the full spectrum of beliefs as well, from left liberal views saying it's not doing any harm to far right attitudes that think even a single byte of code downloaded for free is grand theft software and should be punishable by good old hanging. What those rightys don't mention is the fact that these abandonware sites also host games designated "freeware" and "shareware" by their developers, who have voluntarily released their games and source open as free for all on the net. "Battlezone 98" for example? I suppose those little 'itlers would also like to call even such "freeware" piracy - deserving of a full HDQ punishment.

At least my rep only went down by 2 clicks over this one, thanks to the above right wingers and their attidudes, I expected worse!!!!! (For some reason I smell "Hickory" - looks like I've picked up my first GOG.com forum enemy!) :D