Er... the obvious question is - how (il)legal is it? I mean, is it just a patch or patched games?

GTA was shit until Vice City.

These are the complete games. And there is no illegality in this, GTA and its expansions are no longer for sale and Rockstar Games no longer cares about the first two in the series. Maybe you don't know, but there was a time when the first two were free on Rockstar's own website, and they were removed and forgotten, as far as I know for no clear reason. Thank goodness there are fans to preserve the history of games. ;)

So completely and utterly illegal then. Say goodbye to your posting rights (at the minimum) as yer promoting piracy, cracked games and general shittery.

I'm not sure GOG shares this view...

Gotta love the hostility on a forum of a store that existed to preserve games

You know you can explain that without seeming like a complete prick, right?

Did my best!

You know that you didnt have to reply to make that known, right?

Tough cookie, if someone behaves like you did i usually point it out.

Enjoy wasting oxygen in doing that in these cases, and maybe in future point out the OP in more gentle terms why theyre completely deluded instead (intentions aside perhaps).
PS: Bye!

Again, hilarious to read vitriolic nonsense like you spew on gog forums of all place. No wonder people barely interact with folks here

Do not feed the troll. ;)

The fact that Rockstar no longer sell the games, does not make it legal for you to pack them up and offer them. Rockstar still owns the rights to the games, no matter if they sell them or not. The same applies to the short time they gave them away for tree on their website. Since they own the rights, then it is also within their rights to do with them what they want, including giving them away (on their own website) for a short time. This does not mean you can do the same, the games did not become freeware.

The problem is that gOg is a buisness, and it is illegal to have links to illegal games on their website, they are trying to get partners to sell games here, so they need to be seen as above board.

There is an argument for game preservation in making sure that software is available and do not get lost, which is important, but gOg as a buisness cannot and should not have those links on their forum. There are other sites that do so, which does nont have that legal and corporate visibility / reputation

edit - Think of this. Last week, gOg gave away The Beast Inside here on their website. This does not mean that The Beast Inside is now freeware, and you can copy and distribute it to your hearts content. that would still be piracy.

I'm only going to tell you two things, because I'm tired of explaining what piracy, fair use, abandonware, among other things.

The following is:

1 - The guys who did this are not making a profit, they are not selling. It's just preservation and nothing more.

2 - The link is not direct, the link is to the GTA forum, a very well-known forum by the way. So there is nothing wrong with the link, if you think it is wrong for whatever reason, just don't click on it, or click and don't click on the link that leads to the package, simple as making pie.

Cheers! ;)

has absolutely no impact on the legal issue. wheter it is free or paied for, it does not change the legal issue one iota

and again - I think it is impoortant that the games are preserved (I have them downloaded a long time ago, this is more than a year old now), but this is not the place to have these links. The place is where they are already. Just dont be suprised if this thread gets deleted, beacuse that is something gOg must do