> But I agree with you, I'm surprised Steam doesn't have a way to get old ROMs.

Not quite old ROMs, but gog.com sells old computer games prepackaged for Dosbox, which because of that work on Windows, Mac and Linux. That's basically the old PC computer equivalent of what I believe Nintendo does by shipping the emulator with the ROM when you buy it through the Virtual Console so it runs as a whole.

I am abandonware collector of sorts, and one thing I liked is how all major abandonware site happily link to GOG.com when the game is up there.

GOG has been earning a lot of my praise recently for not only hosting binaries - but actually putting labour into making sure their games run on modern systems. This is particularly important for games from the era of weird sound cards that can't render audio quite right without a vintage soundblaster - but also goes for games that were simply designed with DOS expectations in place.

Back in the day I was a big fan of an SSI game called Imperialism - this game pretty much refuses to run on modern software - it needs DOSBox to run smoothly and even then it does custom cursor stuff that tends to screw up very obviously on modern systems - the GOG version of the game runs smooth like butter.

Why would I ever pirate a copy of Imperialism and spend a day actually getting it set up to run sorta decently on my machine - when I can grab it off GOG for 1.89 CAD? A day of my time, even an hour of my time (even my leisure time), runs well above 2$ at this point - the convenience is there so pirating becomes a bad value proposition.

GOG is great and reasonably priced. I never pirate what I can find on GOG.

> But I agree with you, I'm surprised Steam doesn't have a way to get old ROMs.

They sell old games, e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog: https://store.steampowered.com/app/71113/Sonic_The_Hedgehog/

That's a Windows program that runs a Sega Genesis emulator that loads the game's ROM.

That doesn't entitle me to run the game on a much better emulator with RetroArch or apply fun ROM hacks on it.

Yes it does. It literally installs raw ROM files that can be opened in any Mega Drive Emulator directly into your steamapps directory.

But does it give me the right?

IANAL, but yes. If you don't copy something, copyright is not invoked.

In many jurisdictions (AU, UK), it would be legal to copy them to another device you own, such as a hacked PSP, under the "format shifting" exemptions.

It doesn't stop you either.

> Steam doesn't have a way to get old ROMs.

Licensing hell.

Yeah, I'd settle for being able to buy No One Lives Forever and NOLF2 again on Steam, and those games are a lot younger.

Those games are an interesting case: it’s very likely Activision or Warner owns the rights for them, but since ownership could be in the hands of at least one other party and the games themselves aren’t popular nowadays, it isn’t financially worth it for them to do the work to verify it, even though people have tried to work with them in the past.

https://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-...

Uh, you can get them for free.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-one-will-sell-no-one-liv...

Great games. Recently - well a year ago - played through them with a friend coop.

I am sure it is, but I figure if anyone can crack that nut, it's Valve.

The Sega Genesis games they sell are basically just ROMs. You can go into the folders where they are installed and grab them to use in a different emulator.

They'll have to compete with SuperStonk GameStop... (and GeForce Now, and Stadia...)