Why though? I mean when you could buy the actual game and get the same?

For those who would rather not buy Windows binaries and dig through an install to get the data.

Ah yes good point it would prevent people having to resort to wine to install.

That said I doubt a website like gog who provides games will ever do data only.

I know it is not likely, but it would be something that would do well to cater to old school gamers. I mean, many people on Windows buy some of the games just to put them into a source port, let alone the Linux and Mac markets. Just make a separate download option attached to a game sale.

How would that work?

Just sell the game data without the binary.

Might be something for FireFlower Games. Would that be in a single file?

Might be something for FireFlower Games. Would that be in a single file?

The way I'd see it, again: tgz, nixstaller, mojo, etc.
So customers can just buy the data files, slap their favourite port onto it, and be done with it. Additionnal value: give links to ports. But that could be overkill already.

Well, you need to get rights to some some games that had their source released, but yes that would be lovely if you can manage it. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Commercial_video_games_with_freely_available_source_code

My suggestion, try talking to 3D Realms - it would be nice to sell the data to Wolf3D, ROTT, DN3D, or SW (although SW needs better source ports).

id would be really nice (everything from Commander Keen to even Doom3: BFG) but they are not even on gog, so I doubt the climate there would be that receptive. :(

The way I'd see it, again: tgz, nixstaller, mojo, etc.
So customers can just buy the data files, slap their favourite port onto it, and be done with it. Additionnal value: give links to ports. But that could be overkill already.

I think just having the needed data in a tarball or a zip file would be fine (keep in mind, this does not just apply to Linux gamers, but retro gamers on all platforms).

Ok, email to 3D Realms sent. :) I might need some help later on if they are interested. I don't know much about that kind of stuff. :)

So you are taking my word for this. Why does that make me nervous? :P

Interesting. Yes, the best way would be a standard compressed file (zip, tar.gz, tar.bz2, 7z) with all the game data. Most of the times the engine ports and GNU/Linux systems already have install scripts for the data, or they can be done really fast. Distributing game data with an installer would be a problem again. I'd like to help if needed.

I'd appreciate all the help I can get. :) I know how to create an executable zip-file but haven't learnt how to make a proper installer file yet.

Let me know if there are other games you would be interested in and I could contact the owners to the rights for them as well.

Do you know who owns the rights to: Jagged Alliance 2, Homeworld and Star Control II?

You shouldn't need to do an installer, some of us don't even want it. Distributing just the game files would make it easier to use the game on any distro without installer compatibility problems.

If there was enough interest in such thing I guess distros would get their own installers for the game data files. At least, I'd try to make them installable with Debian, I could ask the Debian games team about this.

I'm thinking about the ScummVM games. The original engine source wasn't released but the new one works very well.

Ok, cool.

Don't think it will be possible to get the rights to Lucasarts games. :) But Sierra and others might. Who owns the rights to these? "Sierra's AGI and SCI games (such as King's Quest 1-6, Space Quest 1-5, ...), Discworld 1 and 2, Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Gobliiins 1-3, The Legend of Kyrandia 1-3"

I want to note that we're talking about very old games that most nostalgics may already own or may have downloaded from abandonware sites. It would be interesting to have legal means to own some of these games, but I guess not many people would be interested in such old games distributed this way. Maybe selling a ScummVM Sierra pack would be commercially interesting or it would be marginal, I don't know. Doom 3: BFG is a different case, I think more people would buy it.

Flight of the Amazon Queen and Beneath a Steel Sky are both freely distributable and already included in several distributions. I don't know about the rights to the other games.

Yeah, I don't know how commercially viable those old games are either. But retro seems to be "in" at the moment at least. :)

Doom 3: BFG is a new version right? Only for Steam perhaps?

I've sent an email to id Software anyway.

Doom 3: BFG is a new version right? Only for Steam perhaps?

That's the thing - they released Doom 3: BFG purely as a Steam and console exclusive release, but they also put out the source code which allowed people to make a complete source port of the game (minus Steamworks integration) for other platforms. But you still need the Steam data to play ATM.

I see. Let's see if they will reply.

Haven't got a reply from any of them yet. Seems they're not interested.