But Achavanuntakul says that whenever she is asked to take a game down by its rightful owner, she does so.

One problem, she and others say, is that game companies often don't know what games they own.

"It appears that the abandonware community knows better who holds the copyright to a particular game, so sometimes they may claim control over something they don't own," says Purdes, who used to run his own abandonware site. "I've contacted publishers numerous times about products they advertised as original, even though they were sequels.... For example, it took me a month to convince EA that Dune 2000 was not the first Dune game. Because of this, HOTU still offers games for download that may appear as belonging to publishers who don't wish their games to be available."

But Hirsch, in his statement to Wired News, argues that it doesn't matter who owns the rights to a game, because someone does.

"The game industry has seen numerous instances of older vintage games re-released in new formats, proving that older games continue to have commercial viability for many years," he wrote.

Regardless, HOTU is thriving, despite a regular stream of cease-and-desist letters. Indeed, Achavanuntakul claims the site has 80,000 members.

And according to Farago, it is that substantial community of gamers that makes HOTU such a destination for him and many like him.

HOTU "aims to be a museum of sorts, where people can find the games they used to play back in the old days and relive sweet memories," he says. "I think the best proof (of) how HOTU succeeds at this goal is the blooming community that has sprung up around it. People don't only come to download the games they want; they come to meet like-minded people with the same interests."

Further, says Farago, the HOTU community has an invaluable repository of knowledge about games and game history.

"Let's suppose you're trying to remember an old game you played 10 years ago, but forgot what the title was, or you can't get your old favorite to work on your modern computer," he explains. "All you have to do is post about it, and somebody from the crowd is bound to have an answer for you."