Originally Posted by
cleeg
I know many have said that there will be three replacement sites that will pop up in place of any that go down, but I think this will all eventually migrate to shadier parts of the web where end users will need some real expertise to get what they want; the days of the free for all are gone now in my opinion.
Granted, I know very little of the way the web works with regard to business, trade and laws etc so may be talking nonsense but it just feels to me that this is how it will go. In some ways I'd be okay with that, for all systems I own I have the means to extract bought copies of my games. But if I want to try Snatcher I'm buggered if I'm going to pay triple figures. And it'd be the biggest shame of all if we couldn't play any unreleased protos and such. I loved having a small flavour of the DC Ecco sequel.
One thing I can't quite understand: If I buy a second hand copy of any particular completed run title from an individual then all the money that can be made from the dev / pub is already made, correct? So why does it matter to them if the game is distributed for free? I can understand if the game is still commercially available of course.