The ’80s and ’90s are considered by many to be the heyday of computer gaming, seeing such releases as “Elite,” “System Shock,” and “X-COM: UFO Defense.” While some of these critically-acclaimed games also saw great commercial success, many more did not, owing to the volatile nature of the market. A great deal of game companies went out of business without giving its intellectual property rights to anyone else, thus orphaning these titles.

These games – referred to as “abandonware” – exist in a legal vacuum. Because they have no owner, no company can purchase the rights to an abandoned game and re-release it. However, if someone does violate copyright – according to U.S. copyright law, copyrights remain valid for 95 years – and distribute an abandoned game, there is no owner to file a lawsuit. Thus, abandonware is technically illegal, but it is impossible to enforce the existing copyright.

Home of the Underdogs, www.the-underdogs.info, is a Web site devoted to preserving overlooked computer games, most of which are abandonware. The site hosts copies of abandoned games for download.

The site justifies its actions by stating that, because there is no legitimate way to acquire the games it hosts, it is serving the public by providing them. Backing up this philosophy, the site does not host games that are still sold by a legitimate retailer, instead posting a link to the retailer’s site.

Some students like the idea of abandonware, likening it to public domain media.

“I would compare it to classical music,” said Andrew Jordan, senior in mathematics. “You can copy it as much as you want.”

Others saw the idea as more complex.

“While I don’t think its entirely right to just freely distribute these games, there are a lot of companies that wouldn’t want to take over older games because they won’t sell as well,” said Melissa Alfirevic, freshman in art and design.

Alfirevic, an avid computer gamer, said she thought it was important that the original creators of abandoned games receive credit.

Yet she accepts the distribution of abandonware as a necessary evil.

“If people didn’t freely distribute them, I would have no access whatsoever to some of my favorite retro-style games,” she said.

The existence of abandonware sites, such as Home of the Underdogs allow current gamers to play games for which they missed the original release.

Various utilities, such as DOSBox (available at Sourceforge.net) are available to help run older games on today’s computers.

Despite the recent focus on software and data piracy, abandonware is able to exist in the shadows.

Alfirevic, however, wished it didn’t have to be that way.

“In a perfect world, there would be a company that would continue to copyright these games and yet keep them accessible to the general public.”