Let me tell you a story...

This is a story about a group of programmers. These programmers have a day job, but also work at night on a game. They spend many months working on this game, and finally finish it.

The game - let's call it Super Rocket Pro - does very well, and sells enough that the group of programmers give up their day job and form their own company. They then start work on the next version of it - Super Rocket Pro Advance.

They work day and night to create the new game, which is full of all sorts of new and wonderful things. They've given up their day jobs, but this isn't a problem as Super Rocket Pro is doing well, and the forums are growing so fast from new people getting the game that the programmers have had to pay for better web hosting twice.

One day, the lead programmer gets an urgent phonecall from his bank. It turns out that they are almost out of money, and have staggering debts. How can this be, he thinks, when Super Rocket Pro is doing so well and the forums are full of people who've only just got the game?

He calls an urgent meeting - this is a crisis, for unless they can find some more money they can't work on Super Rocket Pro Advance. During the meeting, the programmers have a look at the accounts.

They find that during the past month, only 20 copies of Super Rocket Pro have actually been sold. How can this be, they ask themselves? And they seperate, and each in their own way searches for an answer.

The junior programmers finds the truth first. All the hundreds and thousands of new players have downloaded the game, through Kazaa, through underground IRC channels, through dubious BitTorrent servers, from hidden FTP servers. Not one of them has actually bought the game.

But this discovery comes too late. The programmers must find new jobs, and work nights also to pay off the debts that built up. Super Rocket Pro Advance is abandoned, for not one of them sees the point in spending months of their own time on a game which won't feed them.



Now, I agree that copying a game is not the same as stealing a chocolate bar, but you are completely wrong when you say it doesn't hurt the company in any way. If the company doesn't earn money from selling the game, then the company can't afford to make new games.

I personally see nothing wrong with abandonware, when it is impossible to get the game through legitimate means (e.g. publisher/developer gone out of business or no longer interested in the game). Some developers even release the game for free once it ceases to be profitable (e.g. Quake, Warzone 2100). But if a game is still being sold, then, quite simply, it is not abandonware.