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Maes said:
AFAIK none of id's games has ever been bargain binned

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• Some games never ever depreciate: they keep commanding near full-prices or prices not justified by their age (excluding special offers). Doom falls neatly into this category, even though there are frequent special offers. Outside of those, you pretty much are expected to pay $10 or more for a nearly 20 yo game. It's crazy if you think about it. Warcraft 2 Battle.net also still commands a price which was ridiculous for a 10+ yo, and there are probably others. I guess this supports the "hard-let-go cash cow" theory.
  
• Some do depreciate to the point that they become widespread bargain-bin fillers or magazine bundles (the latter seems to be more "prestigious").
  
• Some games depreciate or are subject to special offers only in certain markets e.g. become bargain bin items only in certain countries while commanding higher or even full price in others. Depends a lot on what kind of publishing agreements and marketing policies are in place for a particular region, I guess.
  
• Sometimes, only particular versions of a game may be binned/bundled, while the more prestigious/supported "world" versions do not. E.g. the Half Life 2 bundle I got for Eur. 5 on a disk is single player only, while other times only the localized version of a game may be binned (usually these are too divergent/unsupported compared to the "good" World/US releases)
  

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GreyGhost said:
I've seen budget re-release copies of Doom 2 and Quake 2 in the $5 bargain bin at Electronics Boutique, which I think was around the time Doom 3 hit the shelves.

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hex11 said:
Technically, even some of the partial conversion PWADs are "illegal". Ditto with those maps which are based off IWAD maps, including the popular ones that merge levels (or even IWADs) together. *

Not much can be done about it though, other than actively supporting projects like Freedoom, etc.

* Edit: for that matter, the bulk of monsters (and other sprites too) on /idgames and realm667 are technically illegal derivatives (and thus any PWAD that uses them)

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Porsche Monty said:
And I've had about enough of threads like this. Why on God's green earth would you want Doom to be released for free? don't you own it already? can it not be bought on eBay like for $1? why is it that all of a sudden everything of certain age has to be "free" otherwise the copyright holders are badmouthed and demonized?

What a load of thoughtless, pathetic, socialist garbage.

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hex11 said:
Technically, even some of the partial conversion PWADs are "illegal". Ditto with those maps which are based off IWAD maps, including the popular ones that merge levels (or even IWADs) together.

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DoomUK said:
Perhaps I have a poor understanding of how businesses work, but does it seem a little greedy to anyone else that a company as successful and longstanding as id still charge for an 18-year-old game?

Yes, other companies might be just as guilty with their older titles. And yes, Doom demands far fewer banknotes than what you have to part with for a modern game. But would it kill id's revenue if they declared all their vintage titles as freeware?

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DeathevokatioN said:
I guess Star Wars, Alien, and every movie made before 93 should also be released as Freeware?

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DoomUK said:

Actually, a lot of really old movies are now free to watch because the copyright has expired or something. Night of the Living Dead for example.

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Gez said:
Finally, they've already opened the source code, which is better than making games freeware.

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Xaser said:
Now, questions like "why hasn't Old Game X's source been released yet?" I can definitely second. :P

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Maes said:


In most cases the "source" would be a blurb of (non-Intel) assembly and machine code, at least for titles that I would give two shits about :-p

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Xaser said:
Still, as 'nice' as it would be to have Doom go all free, I feel as if the only results would be a flood of people trying to use Doom resources in freeware products (even if Doom's hypothetical freeware license says not to do so).

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DoomUK said:

Actually, a lot of really old movies are now free to watch because the copyright has expired or something. Night of the Living Dead for example. I don't hear anyone lamenting over what a tragedy it is that George A. Romero is no longer earning any money from it.

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Xaser said:
There seems to be an absurdly high amount of butthurt here. "HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST OUR BELOVED DOOM (or anything else awesome for that matter) IS WORTH A FREE RELEASE," etc. :P

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Xaser said:
Still, as 'nice' as it would be to have Doom go all free, I feel as if the only results would be a flood of people trying to use Doom resources in freeware products (even if Doom's hypothetical freeware license says not to do so). I doubt the userbase would expand too much, as I imagine most who would only look at Doom if it were free would probably do it just out of idle curiosity.

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Xaser said:
Now, questions like "why hasn't Old Game X's source been released yet?" I can definitely second. :P

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DoomUK said:
Perhaps I have a poor understanding of how businesses work, but does it seem a little greedy to anyone else that a company as successful and longstanding as id still charge for an 18-year-old game?

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DeathevokatioN said:
P But my theory is that if it became freeware it might actually even shorten the lifespan because that would render any re-releases and bundles pretty much pointless. And without being advertised on places like Steam, being part of bundles, or as part of the Xbox live the younger generation might not even become aware of it's existence and Doom would slowly disappear off the market into obscurity.

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Vordakk said:
"Perhaps I have a poor understanding of how fast food franchises work, but does it seem a little greedy to anyone else that a company as successful and longstanding as McDonald's still charge for a 63-year-old burger?"

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qoncept said:
Copying files doesn't cost money or material. Bad metaphor.

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GoatLord said:
I thought to myself, "Pfft, the game is so close to free, why be so picky?" So I went to id Software's official store and was a little shocked to see that Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Final Doom were all $20 each, which is barely any cheaper than it would have been 15 years ago. Contrarily, on Steam, you can purchase Ultimate Doom, Final Doom, Doom II, Doom 3, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil and Master Levels for Doom II for under $40. Not bad! But it is a bit absurd that id is charging $60 for half of the titles in the Steam bundle.

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natt said:


But if it's really the original source (and not a disassembly or comments-stripped version), then it couldn't be that bad, right? I mean, it's not like professional coding studios write giant masses of comment-free spaghetti that barely fill their requirements and are completely unmaintainable...

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