For Mafia's 20th anniversary 2K Games is giving away digital copies of the game between the 1st and 5th of September.
In honor of #Mafia20 let's go back to where it all started 🏙
Get the original Mafia (digital) for FREE on @Steam from Sept. 1 - 5
Note: It is the classic edition of the game being offered.
All games >20 years old should be free.
Yes agree. This is pretty borderline unplayable
I believe workers should be remunerated for their labour (imho)
I doubt many of the "labourers" are being "remunerated". More likely to be the original investors or whatever company has ownership over the thing, probs Take-Two games
And I believe investors who put capital into business ventures or assets should (if successful in producing a product or service that holds value to others) receive a yield from the risk of stumping up their own hard-earned and putting it toward something productive.
Maybe a belief less tangible for the Average Working Joe/Jo, but the principal applies to the hard-earned most of us put into the home we buy and the assets held in our superannuation which we wish to grow and produce earnings to secure our finances, housing, and future.
@muwu: When you invest capital into an asset, that asset has a usable life span in which it will generate returns before it is either decommissioned or requires additional investment to continue to be fit for purpose.
No rational investor would expect a typical computer game to have a lifespan of 20+ years. Perhaps if it was a bridge or a truck that kind of lifespan would be appropriate.
Sure, there are a few exceptions for games that do last that long, but typically that includes investment and innovation in the game to keep it evolving. That is not the case with this game.
@Domingo: Investments have variable timeframes, depending on the intention and strategy of the investor. Some are intergenerational (indefinite).
An asset held never needs to be re-purchased. Some have ongoing maintenance costs, some don't.
@muwu: Yes, valid points, which do not reasonably apply to the subject of this post - a 20 year old computer game.
Can you please advise me a 20+ year lifespan asset that requires no ongoing costs yet will still generate a worthwhile return? I'd like to consider investing in that asset.
@Domingo: Publicly listed assets on an exchange. Company shares, investment funds, property (REITs), bonds, gold, crypto. Some ongoing costs that may apply include MERs and accounting. Some assets they won't apply, depending on the structure and how to do your accounting.
@muwu: By saying company shares, you're comparing investing in a digital product with investing in a company.
A company has ongoing operational costs, and most likely investment costs to stay relevant.
A 20 year old video game is a product that a company would own and sell/distribute.
Having the same expectation from investing in an asset vs investing in a company is not reasonable. Additionally, as a shareholder of the company I would not be expecting returns from their 20 year old IP, I would be expecting returns from (and investment in) their recent IP. Giving away 20 year old IP could be considered relatively cheap marketing.
Gold - needs to be stored somewhere securely
Investment funds, bonds, crypto - needs to be managed, carries risk
@Domingo: I'm not in the business of media, and not video game development and publication.
I would presume there are costs for having your game available on an online market place. My guesses would be something like presuming the product would need to be maintained to function with the platform, with OSs, and changing specs. There's probably costs in being listed to the platform and some web development. There's probably costs in holding the asset (the IP, trademarks). There's probably costs in keeping a company structure in order to ongoingly provide the product.
@muwu: The incremental cost of selling an old product for a company that sells modern products would be immaterial. They'll already have arrangements set up with distribution platforms, they've already got a website - putting old IP up for free would be considered a marketing cost.
My point is expecting yield from 20 year old PC games in general is unrealistic, and there should be little to no expectation on them generating anything of value.
If the company purely existed to keep old IP alive then that could in very rare circumstances perhaps be a different story, but we're talking about a modern developer/publisher with much newer products than this.
@Domingo: I understand your points by contextualising old IP for a media company.
For a product or service itself, I never carry an expectation that it should be free. I understand there are costs associated with its provision, and a parent company that requires a profit margin to continue that provision, and I expect to pay for what I consume.
Regarding investing, there are long-term buy-and-hold assets that individuals or family trusts purchase, have minimal maintenance costs, and ownership is kept for decades and can be intergenerational. Other assets require different timeframes if the intention and strategy is different. I don't want to conflate that with private ownership and management of a business, as that's a direct individual endeavour in productivity and manufacturing profit margins, and much less to do with asset accumulation (variable depending on the business) .
Workers are long gone now. They received their pay slip, thats it. Its the publishers who own the intellectual property getting the rewards.
They should also be stripped of drm after 5 years. In case Gabe goes bust :p
the real question is, can the race mission be skipped ?!
Just be gentle in corners… Took me a couple of nights of December 2002 to master it :) It is like driving on ice in a cart with bicycle wheels
I remember I was raging at my computer in 2002 lol.
they released a patch 20 years ago that made the race easier
Yeah but we all pirated the game back then so the only patch we were using was the no CD patch.
Shit, I remember how angry I was trying to complete that mission, I eventually made it!
I've never seen this lock before
One of the bestest and well written games out there.
Race mission can be cheated by taking a shortcut i heard.
Don't think so. But happy to be wrong.
Christ this made me feel old
damn! your comment made me feel young
Been playing the remastered one from humble choice and it’s brilliant!
Haven't played the first game ever, but have played Mafia II countless times. Thanks for the heads-up OP
Mafia 2 is great! One of the few open world, single player campaigns I've finished.
Sweet!
This will complete the trilogy in my Steam library.
Amazing game !
Chinatown my Chinatown still playing in my head :)
The soundtrack of this game is ingrained in my mind from the early 2000’s
Yes intro scene still gives me shivers of joy
This game is truly special. The soundtrack in particular is just incredible.
Assuming this won't have the original 1930s and 40s songs due to licensing issues? I think I recall reading ages ago they got removed.
Was a big noticeable omission in the remaster
Can be it yes… Then I would go over myself and download a repack.
I bought the physical copy of Mafia from a Harvey Norman (or maybe it was EB Games) store on their bargain bin / clearance tables back in the day … nice to see a digital release version being made free to celebrate the annierversary.
And as part of the 20th anniversary developer interview, right at the end, they confirmed that a new Mafia game is in the works
That’s good to hear - loved Mafia I and II but III was absolutely atrocious, so hopefully IV can make up for that
If this was on Epic Game Store they would of given away the remastered version too… Steam being cheap like always.
Thank god its not the god awful remake.
How is it awful?
Played it a few months ago and it was great.
I get if you never played the original at the time it came out it could seem that way. SPOILERS, again SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE ORIGINAL, IT IS DIFFERENT
Visually it's stunning, but the problem lies with two factors - recasting characters and changing the story.
I could go into how Hayden Blackman was involved and put a lot of his political leanings into the game but that's not worth going into as anytime you critisize this angle the woke army piles on you.
So focussing on the two points raised :
Character actors were changed, normally when you do this you find a lookalike/soundalike, they didn't do this they instead fundamentally changed a lot of the characters as well as changing their behaviour. So in the original Paulie was meant to be a deniro styled and behaving character, the guy they replaced him with was more like Joe Peschi from lethal weapon, good actor and good character but out of place here and not who he was in the original.
Sarah was changed, one of the original critisisms of her character was that she was a trope and window dressing so they said they would flesh out her character, and it was done really poorly.
This was rampant all over the place as well as characters being removed.
That leads into the second point, the story being heavily edited and changed, we've already covered how the characters were altered which really changed the game, but a lot of scenes were removed, replaced or altered to a point it didn't follow the story or plot points of the original game.
There were heaps of this including removing "sexist" content according to blackman, yet adding racism into it (it was there, it was just altered how they showed it which was really weird), there were heaps of level changes like the hits as well as the prison level which were just bizzare, as well as the church scene which really changed a lot of the originals impact.
But the biggest glaring one for me had to be changing salieri's character on a fundamanetal level, in the original one he was 100% anti drug, the fallout occured over smuggled diamonds and involved a whole sub plot about paulie and tommy robbing a bank with the help of yellow pete.
Instead this was all cut out and replaced with robbing the national guard? It didn't make any sense.
The only real positive story wise was all the world building put in over what happened before but again it felt like they were setting up for a prequel of how sallieri and morello fell out.
I had a mate who just turned 21 and never played the original play the remake and love it, and I get that, I showed him the original and he thought it was too "ugly and slow" for him. When I showed up some choice points of key differences with the game he was absolutely baffled at how a lot of the content was changed including the ending. After showing him this he said that comparing the two, he was shocked they didn't just copy and paste the story straight in and accomodate for gameplay changes, instead he viewed it as trying to re-write history to make it more pc.
Wow, didn't know it changed that much (I've only played the remake). Shame they decided to, I should give this version a crack one day.
@silverrat23: it shows it's age, but it's still a great game.
It puts remakes / remasters in interested territories, the game was sold as a remaster which it's not, it's a ground up remake, which is ok.
No issue with content being added, its when content is removed or altered beyond what it was, like I get adding a skip option for the race, or wanting to censor politically incorrect stuff, or adding more content with a character, but when you are fundamentally changing what was there, it just stinks.
You can't get on the trains.
So the remake is terrible but also that looks like potato graphics… unlucky
I remember the ending to this game being one of the few times it provoked a genuine emotional response in me from this time era - the writing back then was often fairly bad.
I remember the original game box on pc spoiled the death of a major character, in that version you didn't see the death coming (unless you'd looked on the box).
It still hit hard.
I cried.
Great game. The remaster was well done too.
Excellent game, LS3D engine was magic in 2002. I think they also made hidden and dangerous 2 with the same engine.
I'd completely forgotten about this game! I can't even remember the story anymore, but I do remember it was engaging, and I remember that race level was a bitch!
Can't wait to relive it again
What colour is your bugatti?
Not free for me?
Guessing it's from midnight US time? $19.99 for me at the mo.
correct
try at 3 am tomorrow
Yeah I jumped the gun. Apologies
Another fine addition to my collection.
However, the more pressing concern is that it will possibly take 50 years for Activision to reduce Black Ops 2, a 10 year old game, to less than $30, even on sale.
Just a bit of general FYI regarding this Steam version of the 2002 Mafia game, which is technically a 2017 re-release of the game on the Steam and GOG storefronts (source: Wikipedia page for Mafia):
Mafia on Steam > bottom of the description page:
Note: This rerelease of Mafia has an edited soundtrack and does not include any licensed music.
There are a couple of guides out there in regards to the lack of licensed music for the 2017 digital re-release of Mafia:
This makes me feel old. I can't believe it has been 20 years…
I bought this 20 years ago and never played it. I should get this free digital version so I never play it too. Added to the pile.
I haven’t played the remaster, is it worth it?
Whats the difference between this and the definitive edition?
This is the original 2002 game, the definitive edition is a 2020 remake of this
Man.. just played it. I remember playing this 20 years ago, and the graphics were amazing. Now the graphics look so dull, I don't wanna play anymore lol Really makes me wanna pull the trigger on the Definitive Edition..
I think this is the reason why they made this free. To tickle our buying bones
Wow! That looks fresh as. Thanks mate I'll have a go at it
You're welcome, it's a poor mans Mafia Definitive Edition! Or you can get the real one for $24 on sale on Steam atm 65% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1030840/Mafia_Definitive_…
Thanks OP, I set a reminder and snagged myself a copy, cheers! 🍻
Absolutely loved this game. I'm going to make it my mission to play it again.
![[PC, Steam] Free - Mafia @ Steam](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/16/721816.jpg?h=2e9b901a)
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