You may recall that earlier this year Electronic Arts shut down a number of Ultima IV remakes, but wouldn't publicly say their reasoning for it. After all, EA was well aware the game was widely available on the Internet for a long time, and several indie developers had made remakes or reworked the old code to work better on modern operating systems. Today they revealed why: because they wanted to give it away free as part of its 30 year anniversary of the series.

To that end, EA and BioWare Mythic are offering a free PC download of the classic RPG Ultima IV, one of the most heralded RPGs in gaming history. The download is available at the newly launched Ultima heritage site, www.UltimaForever.com.

For now, the Ultima Forever website offers the download for Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, and some slight information on EA's MMO Ultima Online. Hopefully they will offer more information on other classic Ultima games as well as Ultima Underworld in the future.

And on a related note, Good Old Games is offering classic PC editions of Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld II. The games  have been re-mastered for current PC operating systems and are available today on GOG.com. Additional re-mastered Ultima titles will be available on GOG in the future. Wing Commander: Privateer and Dungeon Keeper are also available today. In all, 25 classic EA games are coming to Good Old Games.

Ultima IV Released For Free, Ultima Games Available on GOG


Source:Game Politics

But but... www.UltimaForever.com turned out to be an invalid website.

Gaming industry’s legend invites you to play a game that was way ahead of it’s time.

Try this masterpiece by the one and only Sid Meier. In Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri you’re one of the survivors of the UNS Unity, a seedship designed to colonize a far star system. You wake up after the long cryogenic sleep and discover that someone murdered the ship’s captain. The crew divides into groups of adversaries, of which you choose one of the seven survivor factions. Ally or wage war with them for supremacy over the new planet. With lot’s of customization, research and deep gameplay possibilities you can tweak every part of your units, armors, weapons, you name it! And with tons of useful technology to research in different categories (Conquer, Explore, Build and Discovery) you have many ways to achieve your goals. Choose your faction and play the ultimate Civilization in space!

3D Realms spin-off Apogee Software is offering its legacy content in a new digital storefront launched this week, including titles in the Duke Nukem and Rise of the Triad franchises.

The online store is operated through e-commerce solution provider Digital River, which also runs digital game storefronts for THQ, Capcom and Electronic Arts, among others.

The company is positioning the new store as a return to its roots: the original Apogee Software distributed its games digitally under a variant of the shareware model, offering the first "episode" of each title for free and charging for the follow-ups.

"Apogee fostered young development teams creating a global audience through its digital distribution platform," said Apogee CCO Terry Nagy. "Apogee will continue its tradition by providing a platform for new developers to access a global market...our online store being the first step in this direction."

The store currently offers the same titles the publisher distributes through CD Projekt's Good Old Games store, namely Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, Rise of the Triad: Dark War, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold and Blake Stone: Power Strike, for $5.99 each. The shop also offers all of the games in a collection with extra bonuses for $19.99.

As the last release from the first batch of the huge deal with Electronic Arts, we’re giving you a chance to become a wizard that needs to save the world.

Magic Carpet is an extraordinary action shooter game from the acclaimed Bullfrog Productions. All magic wielders are battling between themselves for the most valuable resource (no, not oil) - mana. Casting huge meteor showers or invoking a terrifying thunder storm, one could summon a castle in the middle of an ocean or just create a volcano right on top of this little harmless village. If you’re not the type of guy that likes to let the hell loose you could always just throw fireballs here and there or just summon a massive skeleton army to plow your way through the plethora of hostile creatures. Apart from other wizards and genies fighting you over the oh so precious mana, you’ll encounter various fantasy monsters ready to devour you (like a hydra or a dragon) or convert mana into more monsters (like the crabs do ).

Apart from this awesome flying-carpet action you can slow down a take a look at the normal lives of the townsfolk to admire the normal day to day activities that the AI performs. And if we’re on the subject of AI, the one controlling the opposing wizards is exceptional even when looking from today’s perspective.
If you ever wanted to live the life of a carpet-zooming wizard now you can! Want to do much more than just sing-along “A Whole New World” with the prince and the princess? Then this is the game for you!

Double Fine Productions now owns the publishing rights to its cult hit 2005 action-adventure game Psychonauts, and will directly benefit from all future sales.

That is according to senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis, who Tweeted the news on Tuesday afternoon.

According to separate Tweets from Kipnis, the publishing rights for the game "reverted" to Double Fine, and she suggested that its contract with previous publisher Majesco has expired.

Note that the only change here is Double Fine's ability to publish the original game: the actual IP rights to the Psychonauts franchise belonged to the company from the beginning, and it is free to create additional games in the series.

In the near future, all digital sales of Psychonauts -- including those on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace -- will directly benefit Double Fine, according to Kipnis.

[Update: Double Fine head Tim Schafer has clarified this new arrangement to Gamasutra, saying that while rights have reverted, the company is not yet going to receive all the money for the game. Kipnis' Twitter post was the result of "an excited team member jumping the gun a little bit." Schafer told us this in an email:

"It's true the publishing rights have reverted to Double Fine, but there are some more deals that need to be worked out and contracts that need signing before that actually means anything, financially. After that's all squared away, we will have some fun stuff to announce! (And no, it's not Psychonauts 2.)"]

hmm...tempting...does steam version of fallout 1+2 is the same as gog??
i know gog version usually superior...but i would very much preferred it on steam...