Revising older games to play on XP or Vista

Having just finished playing Dark Fall 2: Lights Out in the new Pins & Needles version that Jonathan upgraded for Windows XP & Vista, I am wondering why the owners of the older classic games don't release upgraded versions of other games. Just think what this practice would do - - introducing a whole new generation of gamers to classics like Amber, the Tex Murphy series, Gabriel Knight, the Journeyman Project series, etc.

The corporate owners of these older games should follow Walt Disney's example and start revising and releasing their older games updated for the newer OS platforms. It can't be that expensive and it would help generate more sales for titles that the owners believed to be long dead and worthless. They could do this every 10 years or so as newer OS platforms come about as well.

It would be nice to see some of the older classics remade with todays higher graphjic standards.

Part of the problem is that MANY of the companies that made the games no longer exist. The question is - who owns the copyright when the original copyright owner folded and disappeared?

Jonathan is very unique in this sense - he created the upgraded versions out of love. Is he making any money? He's probably breaking even, or not, is my guess.

i would love to see the game Ripper remade. I've only been able to play parts of it using dosbox but i would love a full remake so it could play on vista with upgraded graphics. Both phantasmagorias too.

There is actually 2 installers for XP for the Phantasmagoria games.

One company addressing this issue is Good Old Games (www.gog.com). Games are downloadable, very reasonably priced, and free of DRM. You can make a copy and install it as many times as you like. The games come with built-in loaders that enable them to work on XP and Vista. Neat idea.

MrLipid,
I went to www.gog.com and downloaded Under A Steel Sky for free and ordered the original Simon , thanks for the alert.

Glad to be useful.

What a great looking site, MrLipid, thanks for the link

You are most welcome.

There is certainly enough interest just from this site alone. Many, many (including myself) over the years have asked for help in loading older games. I finally bought a reconditioned older computer just for Win 95/98 games. I read on this site of the number of people replaying and enjoying their older games. Thanks, MrLipid, I am certainly going to check out that site.