Forums > Game Forums > Caesar > Freeware status questions
MrFlibble (18234) on 12/27/2014 9:10 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
The trivia here says that the game is freeware "at least since 2004". I did not know anything about it before recently.
Apparently, the full download was available from Impressions Games' website at least since 1999 (which is when the earliest Wayback Machine snapshot of that page was taken). Later, the Sierra page mirrored the original Imperssions Caesar page with the download link, but was apparently removed no later than Dec 2002.
Is there any clarification on the game's freeware status? Was it a temporary giveaway? Or did they just remove the link as they felt the DOS platform was getting obsolete?
[Edit] Upon the freeware release, Impressions added an installation instructions addendum which says:
PLEASE NOTE:
This program is unsupported. Neither Impressions nor Sierra On-Line will be providing customer service or technical support or this title. On the other hand, you did get it for free.
MrFlibble (18234) on 12/28/2014 1:13 PM · Permalink · Report
A helpful user in another forum pointed out that the Wikipedia liberated games list contains an explanation of why the game is no longer freeware:
Q: Where is Caesar? Sierra gave it away at one time. Isn't it freeware?
A: When Vivendi Universal Games was contacted about Betrayal at Krondor (see above), the status of Caesar was also requested. Regrettably, just like Betrayal at Krondor, Caesar is not redistributable freeware.
(source)