Gaming site gog.com [1] [2] built a successful business around acquiring rights to game companies' back catalogs and selling them online. (Originally they were Good Old Games, but they've now rebranded to simply "gog.com" and sell new games as well.) HN readers may be interested in the technology (Dosbox) and gog.com's strong anti-DRM stance [3].
From a user's perspective, the work they've done getting games to work on modern systems is alone worth the price of admission -- I must have spent hours [4] tweaking Dosbox configs to try to get my copy of Master of Magic to play music (the game directory that began with a 7-floppy installation in the mid-90s has been copied to every system I've had since then). Buying (another) copy of the game from GOG and getting a Dosbox config that Just Works, was well worth the modest price.
From the publisher's perspective I'm sure it's a win as well -- I could easily believe they gave up on ever realizing any more income from that IP a decade before they were approached by GOG.
[4] The finickiness isn't unique to Dosbox, I remember having to fiddle with the in-game settings for a while running bare-metal on at least one '90s era PC as well.
Master of Magic has been on every PC I've owned as well. And gog.com's version was the first thing I installed on my newest Win10 laptop a few months ago: Runs with no problems :)
This is such a weird coincidence. I've been listening to The History of Rome podcast [1] and was getting the itch to play some civilization/strategy. I literally downloaded Master of Magic from gog.com (had purchased it there years ago) about 20 minutes ago.
Quite a lot of strategy in MOM. In a way, the several unbalanced units, psychopathic AI and diversity of units and spells adds up to quite a compelling and deep game, even by modern standards :)
Archmage + channeler + confusion spam can win so many otherwise unwinnable battles. And yes, I have alechemist to keep up the mana supply, so I have almost no spells or troops and still win fights with my magic spirit scouts.
Naturally I use Rjack's portrait as I'd prefer not to face him in game with a strategy like this.
From a user's perspective, the work they've done getting games to work on modern systems is alone worth the price of admission -- I must have spent hours [4] tweaking Dosbox configs to try to get my copy of Master of Magic to play music (the game directory that began with a 7-floppy installation in the mid-90s has been copied to every system I've had since then). Buying (another) copy of the game from GOG and getting a Dosbox config that Just Works, was well worth the modest price.
From the publisher's perspective I'm sure it's a win as well -- I could easily believe they gave up on ever realizing any more income from that IP a decade before they were approached by GOG.
[1] https://www.gog.com
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
[3] https://www.gog.com/support/website_help/what_is_gog_com
[4] The finickiness isn't unique to Dosbox, I remember having to fiddle with the in-game settings for a while running bare-metal on at least one '90s era PC as well.