Home of the Underdogs

Home of the Underdogs

Home of The Underdogs as of 14 May 2006
Web address Defunct; multiple revivals exist (see below)
Type of site
 Abandonware video games
Registration Not Required
Launched September 1998/April 2009
Current status Defunct; succeeded by multiple third-party mirrors/revivals

Home of the Underdogs (often called HotU) was an abandonware archive[1] founded by Sarinee Achavanuntakul,[2] in September 1998. It grew to be a significant abandonware website.

The site provided reviews for over 5,300 games, as well as offered downloads of software and manuals for a number of games that were no longer commercially available. This allowed it to be a valuable resource to players who lost the original discs or manuals. While a majority of games available on the site were for DOS or Microsoft Windows, the site also contained a section with games for other platforms. Where downloads for these games were provided, they were usually present in formats compatible with emulators. The site also had scans of several gamebook series, many of them complete. In addition to commercial titles, the site contained a small number of 'freeware' titles.

On January 2006 it was posted on the site that the owner got new responsibilities at work and the site updates got a low priority.[3] On March 2009 it was reported that the site ran out of money for hosting.[4]

As of September 2009,[5] Hotud.org had rebuilt the archive. An active team of four people worked on correcting errors in the filesystem. There is an active relationship between Hotud.org and GOG.com[6] to promote both the history of classic gaming as well as modern access by digital distribution to these classic games. A notice went up in February 2014 on Hotud.org stating that the site will be taken offline due to financial reasons.

Also in 2009, Homeoftheunderdogs.net [7] was created focusing on keeping the site more faithful to the original design. This group is still active today maintaining the site.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Simon Carless, Gaming Hacks New York: O'Reilly (2004): 2 - 3. "Sites such as Home of the Underdogs ... have major copyright issues but can provide valuable resources, for example, for people who've lost legitimate copies of the manuals."
  2. ↑ Saltzman, Marc (2002). "Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware". gamespot.com. Archived from the original on 2006. Retrieved 2012-12-29. By day, 28-year-old Sarinee Achavanuntakul is an investment banker in Hong Kong, but by night, she runs the infamous Home of the Underdogs, a Web site she founded three and a half years ago, and receives an average of more than 30,000 unique visitors per day. According to Achavanuntakul, the purpose of starting Home of the Underdogs was simple: to preserve out-of-print games that publishers no longer support, to keep them from falling into oblivion, and to honor other underrated games, including freeware games and recent commercial titles that might have been poor sellers.
  3. ↑ "Home of the Underdogs - Archived Site". 2009-01-15. Archived from the original on January 15, 2009. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  4. ↑ "Underdogs, Ho". 2009-03-12. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  5. ↑ "Home of the Underdogs - Hotud.org First Archive". 2009-03-11. Archived from the original on March 11, 2009. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  6. ↑ "Home of the Underdogs is back!". 2009-06-11. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  7. ↑ "Underdogfight: Home Of The Underdogs Returns". 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2015-12-23.
  8. ↑ "Home of the Underdogs Revival Project Google Groups". 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2015-12-23.

External links

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