presserving newer titles by John Wilson

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Denk
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presserving newer titles by John Wilson

#1 Post by Denk » Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:52 pm

I am pretty sure the old Zenobi titles can be found in a lot of places on the internet but I think it is a shame if John Wilson's newer games get lost. They were probably all published under "pension productions" and they were freely available.

However, before his death he wrote this: (24 january 2012)
All the games featured on here are made freely available under the following 'terms and conditions' .
The game(s) in question are for your own personal use only and may not be redistributed - either singly or or in self-made 'collections' or 'compilations'.
Should you wish to do the latter then please feel free to contact me directly and the matter can then be discussed amicably.
Please also bear in mind that I am not giving away the 'original' game(s), merely a playable 'copy of said game(s) for your own personal enjoyment.


So I was wondering if anyone has been in contact with his family to ask how they look at this?

I can imagine that he wanted his games to be played but about distribution I don't know.

EDIT: In 2004 John Wilson allowed all old Zenobi titles to be put on the IF Archive with this message:
128K Spectrum games for which Zenobi Software hold the copyright. Zenobi make these games available for personal use only and may not be compiled on to a CD or other media for resale.

Would make sense if he wanted the same terms for his newer games.

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Strident
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Re: presserving newer titles by John Wilson

#2 Post by Strident » Mon Mar 20, 2023 10:56 pm

Last time I checked, they were all currently still downloadable from John's site...
https://zenobigames.blogspot.com/

I don't personally think there will be an issue with them being preserved in the future. People archive things without permission anyway. You could argue that John didn't have the exact permissions to do certain things, or grant permissions to do things, with all the games in the Zenobi catalogue himself. ;) I personally was very surprised when my games appeared on the ZX Spectrum Vega!

Denk
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Location: Hjørring, Denmark

Re: presserving newer titles by John Wilson

#3 Post by Denk » Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:26 pm

You are probably right that there isn't a big issue in making them available somewhere. I just think it would be neat if e.g. his PunyInform games could run from the "Play Online"-button on IFDB as more people would probably play them. Uploading them to the IF Archive would be a simple solution but I think they are just a little bit strict with permissions.

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Strident
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Re: presserving newer titles by John Wilson

#4 Post by Strident » Wed Mar 22, 2023 8:48 am

Regarding your comment in the submission queue about John & Twine adventures. John actually wrote several adventures with Twine in 2011/2012. I'd not tagged or put them in the database as they're not parser based, and I don't think CASA really covers Twine games (there are some existing ones in the archive, but not many).

Both Behind Closed Doors 5 and Behind Closed Doors 6 were originally Twine games, before John converted them to "proper" adventures. Bulbo's Unexpected Journey was the other Twine game John produced.

See...
http://bcd5.blogspot.co.uk/
http://bcd6.blogspot.co.uk/
http://bulbosjourney.blogspot.com/

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Garry
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Re: presserving newer titles by John Wilson

#5 Post by Garry » Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:10 pm

As John put in so much effort to get his own games updated and published in so many different formats for so many different platforms, I'm sure he would want his legacy to be preserved. The IF Archive would be a good place to do that. I suppose I should make the effort to download all his games while they're still available, as I fear that the site will die when it comes up for renewal, assuming it does come up for renewal at some point and does not last an eternity.

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