eXoDOS: Piracy or Preservation?

After a year and a half of not mentioning it, James finally talks about abandonware and eXoDOS in this short and decidedly one-sided video.

Additional Footage:

Music: Lawnie (aka me) - Citysleep (instrumental version)

[RetroeXo]

It is worth noting that only 3% of the games in eXoDOS have any commercial availability.

A majority of those titles are through services like GOG, which rip out original files. Most GOG games are modified image rips that are lacking drivers for any video\sound mode not presetup with the distribution. They often have the setup file removed as well, preventing the end user from experiencing GameBlaster, General Midi, Roland MT-32, etc... (anything other than every day adlib\sb16).

We recently fixed Ravenloft: Stone Prophet which did not play cinematics due to the cinematic files on GOG's disk being mastered incorrectly, replacing underscores with hyphens. In this scenario, and many others, GOG is actually harming preservation by flooding the internet with the modern day equivalent of scene rips. It has become a common theme to be unable to find a clean, original, copy of a game that GOG has released. With their copy becoming the defacto standard. So we go out of our way to find the original disk images and attempt to counter this.

Meanwhile, while Jason Scott's efforts are also appreciated - the java based "browser" dosbox being offered there is also incredibly subpar. CD based games take ages to load, dosbox settings are not optimized to emulate the original experience, and again - the end user has no agency over the modes that are available.

[hoodedclaw]

Bravo. I've been using Exodos right from the very beginning. The work Exo and his team have put into Exodos (and still are to this day) is superhuman. New missing games being added, universal configurations created, gameplay videos for each game being recorded. Not to mention the other collections that's now being created its an industrial sized feat.

[wfp]

We used to say Computer years were 3 months. 50x3 =150 months or 12+ years. Sounds perfect. So many games lost, so many cracks disappeared. It is a travesty that this legacy is lost. Copyright laws are an archaic mess.

[Null_Experis]

Copyright should expire when a product is no longer commercially viable in its original form.
IE, when a game is released for MS DOS, the game's original release should become free to distribute when Microsoft drops support for MS DOS, making the game no longer commercially viable.
Any re-release should be categorically different enough to justify a NEW copyright and should be measurably improved over the official release, containing either new features or significant improvements to its graphics, sound, and code to present it as a derivative work. Simply porting it to a new platform isn't sufficient.

[Commut]

Copyright is a GIFT by government to creators in return for eventual PUBLIC rights to copyrighted material. Copyright terms are arbitrary and increased in recent years due to lobbyists.
Abandonware should be considered protected because when it's no longer offered because the creator is not SELLING the protected product copyright protection existed to encourage.
Otherwise why maintain the UNREQUITED public gift of copyright?

[skeetodev]

2:43 "A local copy is the best experience." Hear, hear! Far too undervalued these days.
2:54 Shots fired?

[Cynidecia]

There's an argument for private servers as well IMO
Most Moba games and MMOs are objectively different games from what they once where and there's an argument for re experiencing an older version of them.

[kingbaard]

Anyone interested in this will have already purchased the commercially available games multiple times. This is PURE preservation.

[cliff]

Exo packs have been the best find so far for 2023. I'm very curious, what is the name of the obscure game that you mentioned near the end of this video?

[SomeCanine]

DOS is a non-commercial operating system that is only existent in old legacy systems. Anyone arguing that companies are missing out on money needs to specify how much money they think companies could make. There is NO commercial market for old dos games. In fact the only reason we're talking about it is because it's free. Some people might want to purchase a flash drive that has the games on it, but that's more for the convenience, not for the games themselves. There's nothing stopping people from buying their own flash drive and converting these releases into the same thing.

[nodak]

These companies have no one to blame but themselves, the few that are still in business anyway. The console brands like Sega, Nintendo and Sony are starting to learn this lesson as well. If you don't give people what they want, then they will take it. People who own old games shouldn't have to constantly re-purchase something they already own just to keep being able to play it on modern AV equipment and/or computers. Then there's the vast swaths of game titles that just aren't available anymore, period. Sony only offers a small handful of PS1 titles for download.

[percentDaBigGuy]

man i am trying to find a game where you fly throw a city blowing up alien ships on a set course it was from like 1993 or like 94 95 or something might of been even as old at 1991

[ominae]

I just came here to say: I DON'T CARE... Is a great work.

[neverthehero]

Retro collectors would state that eXoDOS, GOG, Steam, a plethora of emulators, and other platforms are no substitute for the real thing played on period correct hardware.

[Bluezuel]

Great subject, but the music made me stop watching within minutes. I'm a mega dos fan but da music sux(not just like "it's not my thing" but seriously had to turn it off within 5 sec of music creating a chaotic white noise, static cognitive disintegration bleh! And I'm a dubstep/ heavy metal fan. Something like fingernails on chalkboard reaction for me. Hope to s3e more dos vids from you later that are watchable. Much luv bru

[Cyberbrickmaster]

The link to eXoDOS is currently down or doesn't work anymore.