Beyond Classic DOS Games

I have always believed in the philosophy that a good product sells itself. I just assumed that if I made a great website, people would tell their friends, and they would tell their friends, and in no time everyone would be aware of the site. I worked harder on the site in 2007 than I had ever worked before, and then I evaluated the effects of my efforts. What I found was surprising: the number of visitors was no higher than it had been a year before!

I was disappointed by the numbers, but I figured that there must not be a large audience for websites about DOS games. Then I compared my traffic statistics with the top three DOS game sites and found that, on average, they were getting 10 times as many visitors! There is a huge demand for DOS games, but hardly anyone is going to Classic DOS Games to get them!

The mystery didn’t last long: I looked up “DOS games” on Google and the site made #11. That means we just missed being on the first page of results. The difference between page 1 and page 2 could be as much as 1000%. The rankings are based on content and sites linking in, so apparently we just don’t quite make the cut yet.

“Well”, I thought to myself, “there are over 200 games on the site, but the Big 3 have 400 to 500. The site is young, and we’ll catch up.” Then I remembered that one of the reasons why there are so few games is because those other sites include only the latest version of each game, whereas I take the time to locate and archive the entire version history of each game. It’s a ton of work! So I counted all of the versions and found that I had 575 versions of classic games! That’s more than any of the Big 3. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, Classic DOS Games now has more game downloads than any other legal DOS games website in the world! It took me less than three years to get to 575, whereas some of the other sites are 7 years old and are just getting to 500. Well, no wonder! I’ve been working like a dog on this site! Sometimes I feel like the hardest working guy in DOS games. I probably am!

So, you work hard for almost three years and accomplish things that no other website has accomplished. Liberate 19 games, do a bunch of interviews, make a DVD, and collect 575 downloads. That doesn’t include the modern games in the “member games” section, or the utilities. Or the licenses or screenshots or tutorials, or any of the other extras that set the site apart. You work hard, and you get no respect. Rodney Dangerfield: I hear ya, buddy!

Which led me to the question: how do I improve my Google rank by one place? Just one place! Well, there’s not much that I can do about it, so this is where you come in. If you like the site, post a link on your website. That will generate traffic from your visitors, and it will improve Classic DOS Games’ search ranking. It costs you nothing, and it might increase traffic to the site tenfold. Not too shabby!

So, that’s all I have to say about that. I think Classic DOS Games deserves to have the kind of traffic that the other big sites get, and I think it’s going to happen pretty soon, with your help.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the site thus far.

I’ve always believed in being completely transparent and accountable in my “business practices” related to Classic DOS Games. After all, I’ve created a website where I offer downloads to other people’s work, but I’m asking for donations? Most websites like mine talk about their hosting expenses, but don’t tell you what those expenses are, so I created a detailed accounting of all expenses related to the website on the Donations page.

I’m going to be equally honest about the Classic DOS Games DVD. There have been three orders so far: donations of $20, $20, and $100. It took me almost two months to ship them. I’d like to explain why.

When I first had the idea, it seemed relatively simple. I would buy a DVD burner (I’ve been using a generic 32x CD-ROM since 1998), and I chose the Plextor PX-810SA, which I purchased for $93.00 plus tax ($106.02) on August 19. I could have purchased a capable burner for $35, but the Plextor PX-810SA is the best. Plextor consistently produced the highest quality optical drives since I first read a review of 4x CD-ROM drives in PC Shopper, which selected the Plextor QuadPlex as the best drive available. When review sites analyze the quality of DVD burners, they test the discs for C1 and C2 errors with a Plextor drive. I chose a more expensive product because I wanted the best possible quality.

I also wanted to use CD labels so that I wouldn’t just be sending out a DVD with a label written on in marker. I purchased the Memorex CD/DVD Label Maker Kit Expert because it’s the only CD label product that Best Buy sells, and because it comes with a device that attaches the label and makes sure that everything is perfectly aligned. It also has some useless label software, but I didn’t know how bad it was until after I purchased it. At any rate, it cost $28.99 + tax ($33.05). So now we’re up to $139.07.

On September 1, I went to Canada Post to find out about shipping options. They sell a Bubble Mailer for CDs that is “water & tear resistant” and very professional. They’re $1.59 each ($1.82 after tax), and shipping will also be just a few dollars per disc. I can live with that. I bought two, so I’m up to $142.71.

I needed to ship the DVD in something to protect it during shipping and beyond. A jewel case might crack, and besides, that could get expensive. I found Dynex sells a 100-pack of CD Sleeves for $9.49 + tax ($10.82), that are made of soft plastic and have a special non-scratch sheet inside. DVDs will be protected, and I’m only out 10.8 cents per sleeve. Sold! So now I’m up to $153.53.

I designed a monochrome label that was just black text on the white matte label paper, and I was going to print it out on my Brother HL-230 monochrome laser printer. Then a former high school teacher of mine informed me that I could use the school’s HP Color LaserJet 4700n to print color labels. Those things are huge and sell for about $1800. It was inconvenient having to go into the school to print each individualized label, but I could live with that. (Actually I can’t. What happens during summer vacation? I didn’t think far enough ahead on that one.) So I designed two color labels, and fell in love with the idea of color labels. I could never go back to black text on a white label after designing these!

Unfortunately, the printer wouldn’t print on my label paper. The perforation in the paper where the sticker peels off of the page seems to leave an impression on the electrostatic image, causing a black ring the same size as the perforation to be printed half way across the label. I tried everything, but the outrageously expensive behemoth couldn’t print on my paper.

As I said before, a printer that I can only access under staff supervision on weekdays during the school year doesn’t really cut it. I could only print DVDs from September to June, and only for as long as the school would put up with me. It was a bad idea. I would have to buy my own color laser printer. And I had to find one that printed on my label paper soon! Two orders had come in for the DVD, but I still couldn’t print labels!

I called the computer store that gets most of my business and explained my problem. We’ve had a business relationship for years. I asked if they had any color laser printers in stock that I could do a test print on, and they said that they use a Xerox Phaser 6120N in their office. I tested it out and printed on my label paper without any problems. It was on sale for $339 + tax ($386.46), so I ordered one immediately, and apologized for the delay to the folks who had requested DVDs. It was September 22.

So, it’s October 9 and they still don’t have my printer. A nearby computer store that I used to shop at was selling the Xerox Phaser 6110N for $257 + tax, and I had to incur a 3% credit card fee because I was out of cash ($302.94 total), and they had one in stock. I did my due diligence and found out that the 6110N has half the RAM and a smaller tray than the 6120N, and it prints a bit slower. I can live with that. There’s only a small difference in model numbers, so I emailed Xerox and asked if the print quality would be comparable, and they said yes. I purchased the printer, took it home, and printed some labels!

The print quality was noticeably inferior even on regular paper, and it wouldn’t print on my label paper at all. The toner looked burnt on and clumped all over the label. It would flake off with just a touch. I could have bought new label paper, but the print quality was still lousy. I had no choice but to return the printer and pay a “20% restocking fee”. 20% of $302.94 is $60.59, they only refunded $235.29, which means that I paid $67.75 to not buy a printer. So now we’re up to $221.28, and I’m still waiting for my $386.46 Xerox Phaser 6120N!

Well, the printer still hasn’t come in, and perhaps it never will. After waiting a month for my printer, I called the store and asked them to let me come in and print all of my labels on their Phaser 6120N. They agreed, and on October 23, I fulfilled the first three orders, which amounted to $140.00 in donations. So if you’re wondering why I’ve gone to such great expense on this project, it’s because people have been so generous! They deserve to get something really good for their donation, so I chose to burn the DVDs with the best DVD writer, and print the labels with the best color laser printer I could afford, and ship them in a quality CD sleeve. I’m trying to create a collectible, so I’m not going to ship out a DVD-R with a label written on with a Sharpie! I hope that everyone will be happy with the product, and I can finally say that I’m happy with what I sent them.

Webmaster’s blog, Stardate 3012.4. Too nerdy? I just like the way it sounds.

Running a website about DOS sucks. Actually it rocks, but I’ll tell you why it also sucks. Nowadays most people don’t know anything about DOS, or care that it ever existed. Plus, most of the best games were shareware, and the copyright holders haven’t sold the full version for more than a decade. And then, when I do something amazing like get the copyright holder to release the full version as freeware, it largely goes unnoticed because — returning to my first point — nowadays most people don’t know anything about DOS, or care that it ever existed.

Another gaming site offered to buy my website, with the condition that I come to work for him creating content for his own site as an expert on DOS. I declined to sell the site, but I agreed to write content for his website as a way to draw new visitors to Classic DOS Games, and on the condition that I would have carte blanche to blog about whatever I wanted, including non-DOS games. (Remember all of the video game consoles I mentioned in my interview on ASCII World? I have a lot to say about gaming on other platforms!)

I wrote a first article shamelessly promoting my own accomplishments, and have half a dozen articles in my mind that I’m eager to publish, but I haven’t heard anything from this fellow in quite a while. I’m tired of waiting, so I decided to publish the blog myself as a way to express the creative energy that I can’t normally write about in the brief reviews on my fact-based website, and expose visitors to my personal brand of insanity. So, here’s that shameless first blog entry I wrote.

I created Classic DOS Games because I was afraid that my favorite games were going to be lost to decaying floppy disks and failing hard drives, so I decided to make a website and host the files locally so that other websites wouldn’t take them to oblivion with them when the webmasters gave up on having a website devoted to DOS games. At first I was just collecting all of the legally distributable DOS games that were still worth playing and putting them on my website. While playing Chopper Commando, which was written by a teenager almost 20 years ago, I realized that people had probably stopped sending the author money, and he might be willing to release the game as freeware. I searched the web and found out where he worked, sent his employer an email and got a response from him. All I had to do was ask, and he said yes. All of a sudden, I had a new cause. I would preserve DOS games not by collecting shareware zip files, which a dozen other websites were already doing. I would go for the real prize: I would save the registered version that only a few people ever bothered to pay for before the last 360 MB hard drive failed and took the last copy of some amazing game with it. I would save the games by contacting the copyright holders and getting them to release the games as freeware!

I have to be humble on my own website, but this is a blog, so let’s let loose a little. I’ll start by listing my illustrious accomplishments, and why you should care.

I have personally negotiated freeware declarations for 26 games. First there was Chopper Commando by Mark Currie, including source code, then Mah Jongg -V-G-A-, Mah Jongg Laptop, and Mah Jongg -8514- by Ron Balewski, then all five of Moonlite Software’s self-published games: Clyde’s Adventure, Clyde’s Revenge, Crazy Eights, Cribbage, and Taking Care of Business. Then I contacted Richard Lang and Psion Software and got them to release Psion Chess as freeware, and Clay Hellman agreed to release Cybersphere and Cybersphere Plus. Maciej Miasik and Epic Games agreed to release Adventures of Robbo, Electroman, and Heartlight PC as freeware, which were also collectively sold as the Epic Puzzle Pack. Damon Hastings agreed to declare Duel 2000 freeware. John Pallet-Plowright agreed to release Traffic Department 2192 as freeware. Then Larry Tipton agreed to release Drum Blaster as freeware. Everett Kaser agreed to release Snarf as freeware. Robert Epps agreed to release Slam! as freeware. Colin Garbutt agreed to release Kye as freeware. Ste Cork agreed to release Overkill as freeware. Jeff Souders agreed to release Gargoyle Medieval Pack as freeware. Allen Pilgrim agreed to release Kiloblaster and Xargon as freeware, including source code. Most recently, Escape Programming agreed to release Thor’s Hammer as freeware. Oh, and when Accursed Toys released a Win32 version of Boppin’, I got them to give the okay to distribute the full version of the old DOS and Amiga versions for free, so that’s technically number 27. I also got Revolution Software to release the source code for Beneath a Steel Sky. Sweet. And other authors have promised to release at least two other games as freeware, but I’m still waiting for them to get back to me.

Doesn’t look so humble when I put it all in one place, does it? That’s why I don’t do this on my website.

Anyway, getting back to why you should care. Actually, I can’t really think of a reason. DOS was a big part of gaming, and the games back then were fun. That’s not a bold or radical statement, but it’s a good enough reason for me. I still see people playing the game where the snake eats numbers and can’t run into the walls, or itself, on their cell phones. People still play 2D platform games written in Flash. Why would people play simple games that just use the arrow keys, and Control and Alt to jump and shoot, in this age of Wii and PlayStation 3? Because the simple games have never stopped being fun.

I sometimes play chess with my coworkers to relieve the tedium of being a corporate drone. If you want to talk about retro gaming, I can talk for hours about the cool board games people play that are 4000 years old. You wouldn’t believe how many people still play the ancient game of Go. Some games simply become classics, and people play them generation after generation. Actually, Go, which is the world’s most popular game, is played by more people in Asia today than were alive when Go was invented: there were only 27 million people in the world when Go was invented around 2300 BC. Played with nothing more than two piles of stones and a wooden board, the game has grown more popular century after century, millennium after millennium, played by tens of millions of children and centenarians, but never been mastered. Games like chess, checkers, backgammon and Go have become eternal. They transcend the generations and will be carried throughout the universe by our descendants. Classic games are a universal constant that connect every civilization with the empires that have turned to dust, and the empires that are yet to be.

Will people still be playing DOS games in 6300 AD? Not if we don’t save them!

EDIT: Added Drum Blaster, which was liberated on 7 October 2007.
EDIT: Added Snarf, which was liberated on 2 January 2008.
EDIT: Added Slam!, which was liberated on 5 February 2008.
EDIT: Added Kye, which was liberated on 18 February 2008.
EDIT: Added Overkill, which was liberated on 23 July 2008.
EDIT: Added Gargoyle Medieval Pack, which was liberated on 2 August 2008.
EDIT: Added Kiloblaster and Xargon, which were liberated on 4 August 2008.
EDIT: Added Thor’s Hammer, which was liberated on 16 July 2009.