Abandonware spotlight
Retro gaming news and insights
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Interactive Achievement Awards - 1998
The Interactive Achievement Awards (IAAs), now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards, are an annual ceremony that celebrates exceptional accomplishments in the video game industry. Established by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) in 1998, the IAAs recognize excellence across various aspects of gaming, including game design, art direction, sound design, storytelling, and gameplay mechanics.In addition to these categories, the awards also honor individual contributions such ... -
Do you remember the first Heroes of Might and Magic?
Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest, was released in 1995 for MS-DOS and later ported to Windows and the Macintosh. Developed by New World Computing and created by Jon Van Caneghem, the game is a turn-based strategy set in a fantasy universe that shares its lore with the Might and Magic role-playing game series. The game features a strategic world map where players can explore, collect resources, and ... -
Atarisoft: Pac-Man, Defender, Donkey Kong, and more
30th November 2024the history of video gamesAtarisoft was a brand created by Atari, Inc. in the early 1980s to sell video game cartridges and software for platforms other than Atari's own. This strategy was designed to expand Atari's market presence by bringing their popular game titles to rival systems, during a time when the home computer market was rapidly growing.Atarisoft produced games for various home computers and consoles, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, IBM PC, ... -
Wizardry: a CRPG series
23rd November 2024RPGThe Wizardry series holds a pivotal place in the history of computer role-playing games (CRPGs). Created by Sir-Tech, the franchise made its debut in 1981 with Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (developed by Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead), a game that set the standard for many CRPGs to come on home computers. Drawing substantial inspiration from the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons (as many early CRPGs did), Wizardry introduced ...
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World Karate Championship
Compiling a list of the best-selling PC games of all time is no simple task. The reason? The video game market has evolved significantly over the past few decades. A game that sold 100,000 copies 30 years ago might have been considered a best-seller at the time, but the same sales figure today wouldn’t carry the same weight. Here’s an (unordered) list of the best-selling games, based on
Retro gaming: the love for old school games
Where does the love for old abandoned games comes from? Our childhood, perhaps. What's left of that age? What do we miss so much? The long afternoons spent walking in the worlds of Ultima or the hours passed impersonating Duke Nukem. Here we are now, slightly aged, eager to pay homage to all those wonderful DOS games.
After all, it's about the passion for old games and a little bit of nostalgia.
The games listed on Abandonware DOS are no longer supported by their respective developers (as far as I know... I often check sites like Steam and GOG). If you find out that a game is still on sale or "protected", please let me know and I'll remove it from Abandonware DOS as soon as possible.
How to run DOS games on Windows?What does abandonware mean?
Abandonware is a word that describes a software (game or application) no longer supported by its developers or its publishers and is no longer available for sale in any form (digital or retail).
When we talk about abandonware we usually refer to old games for systems no longer available to the public such as DOS, Commodore 64, Amiga, Spectrum, etc.
Some "abandoned" games are still on sale, that's why you will find games tagged as "protected" on Abandonware DOS.
How to run old Windows games on Windows 10?Is Abandonware DOS safe?
There's a misconception about abandonware: since it's about old games, there's no security involved. It's not like that, al least not on Abandonware DOS. Every single Windows and DOS game on this site was personally tested. Every game was played on a computer with all kinds of tools: antivirus, antispam, etc.
That said, there's the possibility of a false positive: your software tells you there's a virus but there's no such thing. I can't speak for other abandonware sites, but I can assure you that I take all the necessary measures to keep the games on Abandonware DOS safe.