Xatax

[AutoAdmin]

Feel free to rate and discuss this game.

[Calvero]

When you download Xatax from one of the biggest abandonware sites on the Internet, it comes with a file named License.txt and it says, among other things:

LASER LIGHT, ELECTRANOID, XATAX
GENERAL LICENSE AND INFORMATION

INFORMATION
~~~~~~~~~~~
Pixel Painters is pleased to release some of its older, discontinued titles
to you for free! There is no charge at all and these are the full, complete
games.

Is this true and legal?

[DOSGuy]

Pixel Painters went out of business, and the founders supposedly moved to California. It's a definite possibility that they released their games as freeware, but I have no information about it. Could you please send me the file so that I can look at the license?

[leilei]

I don't trust abandonware sites so they could have modified the license themselves without permission (like that whole freespace 2 is freeware debacle). I'll only believe it out of the horses' mouth.

[DOSGuy]

The license definitely looks legitimate, and legally binding. It was a promotional giveaway that allowed those three games to be downloaded for free, but forbade redistribution, so I can't add the registered versions to the site. Unfortunately, the contact number in the license is from Virginia, and I've read that the owners moved to California after Pixel Painters shut down. The problem is that they don't list any names in the credits of their games, so I don't have any names to search for!

The phone and fax numbers in that license file are different (same area code) as the ones in their other license files. I tried calling them anyway, on the off-chance that they still belong to someone who knows the whereabouts of Pixel Painters' founders. The phone number and fax number have both been disconnected.

I also called the phone number and fax number that appear in the licenses from their earlier releases. The phone number is disconnected, and the fax number reached a fax machine. I don't have a fax machine, and I'm also partially deaf from calling a fax machine. So, we're no further ahead yet.

The license Calvero sent me also lists their website as pixelpainters.com (Pixel Painters released their last game in 1996), but archive.org has no archive of the domain name before 1999, when it seems to have been grabbed by cybersquatters.

It would be nice if we knew the original source of that file you discovered, Calvero. I have to assume that the giveaway was around 1996, because it doesn't include Dig It!, and what were they trying to promote? It must have been a promotion for Dig It!, which seems to have only been sold commercially. If they posted the files on their website, what was the URL? Or was it on the Dig It! CD-ROM?