Sega needs to put some Sonic games at Freeware?

[Solister]

What is the Freeware?
Freeware is a Software that is available for use at no monetary cost.

What games are Freeware?

Exist many games that you can download free, but here I will only say the most famous games.

• ·         One Must Fall 2097 (MS-DOS; 1994) – Epic Games
• ·         Duke Nukem 3D (MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS, etc.; 1996) – 3D Realms
• ·         Wolfenstein 3D (Browser-based; 1992 (Original Release) 2012 (Browser-based release) – iD Software
• ·         SkiFree (Windows; 1991) – Microsoft

What are my thoughts?

I'm thinking about it and I have some ideas where Sonic can be better in the Freeware, where most of the fans will like, and I got at this conclusion.

Sega made an emulator of their old consoles (Sega Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, Sega CD and Sega 32X). Then it offers free of charge to fans on your Home page.

 

After that, you go to the Section ROMs and download some game ROMs, officially offered by SEGA. To have no problem with piracy and other emulator, I think that SEGA would make a exclusive ROM file to your emulator.

Besides that, I think that is interesting to SEGA offers old SEGA PC games, such Sonic & Knuckles Collection and Sonic CD (Windows 95 version).

What YOU think about that?

Therefore, after all, I want to know what you think of my thoughts. SEGA needs to put old Sonic games in Freeware? Or, you think is bad idea? You have another idea? Tell me!

 

 

 

[Tails spin]

Sonic 1 is still to this day an evergreen title. I highly doubt Sega would ever make it a free downloadable game. Sure we have some free to play games but a full fledged console game for free I doubt seeing it.

[Tornado]

Sega's glory day back catalogue are one of the few things that consistently make them money. We should already be happy that Sega gives everyone an extremely, extremely wide berth about what they allow vis a vis copyright infringement.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

People are still gonna find a way around it, which is why things like ROMS and emulators exist. So I hardly doubt they are going to make it free. I will say that nowadays, you can buy the game on Steam for $1.50. So there's no excuse as to why you cannot purchase the game. 

[Diogenes]

I'm all for the preservation of old games, but I'm not really sure how this arrangement would help Sega. I assume their old games still sell reasonably well, so it makes more sense on their end to keep charging for them.

[krazystitch]

SEGA is still making money from their classic games, whether it be from Steam or even the mobile version. They're still losing a profit if they end up making them free instead. I mean, there's always going to be people emulating the games anyways, but might as well get every bit of profit that you can.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

I'm echoing what everyone is saying here, but I don't think they'll release any of their old titles as freeware as long as they still sell in the millions of compilations they usually release.While developers like Bethesda and 3D Realms still embrace freeware (Despite 3D Realms actually having users buy Duke Nukem 3D on Steam because it's a completely new version of the game) with their very old, probably not-going-to-sell-anymore titles, SEGA can still make money from these games because people still would like to simply buy and play a good ol' classic like Sonic the Hedgehog in whatever compilation releases SEGA put out. They are effective budget releases, and can easily make SEGA a small amount of money for not so much work.

[TheOcelot]

SEGA has every right to keep charging people for the classics, especially when real effort goes into the releases such as the mobile and 3DS version of Sonic 1&2. Considering they only cost a few pounds and discounts on Sonic games are frequent throughout the year, I think SEGA are very generous when it comes to how much their games cost.

Yeah it's easy to emulator Mega-Drive games but I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you've purchased the game at least twice, because otherwise it's not fair on SEGA and they deserve money.

Freeware might be more appropriate for games from 1980's hardware, such as Spectrum, Amstrad or Commodore.

[Salamander]

I suspect that, with the freeware games you've quoted, the original developers after several years recognised that there was no way these games were going to make any real money any more, so they might as well be made legally free for the few who still cared.  But people will definitely still pay for the classic Sonic games - look at the Sonic 3 Remastered campaign, which desires a new way of paying money to play Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

[Tornado]

Should also be pointed out that a lot of the 90s games that companies have since released as freeware also happened to be ones that started out as Shareware.

[EmmBee]

Maybe in the future it will be a good idea to make Sonic 1 free to play across many devices, but that probably won't be for a very long time. Mind you, Sonic 1 only just recently got a fantastic mobile remake. Doing that anytime soon would undermine the sales of that release.

[shdowhunt60]

The vast majority of Freeware is just Abandonware. It's software that the company has completely abandoned, and doesn't care anything about.  The only Sonic games that SEGA has abandon are the games that they don't want public.

[Blacklightning]

Aren't most of Sonic's mobile games as of late F2P anyway? =V

[Solister]

But... Remember that SEGA made an website to play your own games for free in Internet: The PlaySega.com

http://segaretro.org/PlaySEGA?rdfrom=%2F%2Finfo.sonicretro.org%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DPlaySEGA%26redirect%3Dno

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

There is absolutely no reason at all for Sega to do this.

 

[shdowhunt60]

Pretty much, not when they're still milking the hell out of games made 25 years ago.