Home of the Underdogs
Home of the Underdogs ( HotU ) was one of the most abandonware sites on the Internet. The site was founded in September 1998 by Sarinee Achavanuntakul and initially hosted on free web space, but later moved to a new server.
Description
The website offered both reviews of over 5,300 computer games as well as downloads and manuals for many games that are no longer sold by the manufacturer. Most games were available for the PC ( DOS and Microsoft Windows), but there was also an area for games on other platforms, which are usually present in formats that can be played with emulators. Furthermore, there were 33 scanned game book series, many of which are fully available.
The site focused mainly on " underdogs ", ie games that, for whatever reason, were less commercially successful. The following ratings were awarded for games:
- With Top Dog outstanding games were referred to their success but, for example, failed due to poor marketing.
- In the Hall of Belated Fame ( HoBF, = subsequent Hall of Fame ) a very small number of games was listed, the many awards and good reviews have in mind the HotU operators should receive. All HoBF games were automatically Top Dogs.
- With Real Dog the games were called, the commercially failed were (mostly for bad playability ) was added to the database of Home of the Underdogs, but at the request of fans and rightly so.
The site claimed by itself, not a download page, but rather a kind of museum for games to be, which are now held "great" for who have been but given little consideration when they are released ( it also relates the " underdogs " in name the page). HotU was endeavor to satisfy the wishes of the Author: If there is a game that was available for download, again to buy, or the holder of the rights to the game wished it so the files have been removed and if possible to by a link Manufacturer's site where you can buy the game, replaced. Legally, copyright infringement yet been committed.
All content was made available to visitors free of charge. In order to pay the running costs, the operators had to rely on donations. Since this alone was not sufficient, banners and pop-ups were also switched.
Technical difficulties
The site was initially the domain theunderdogs.org. 2002 this domain was not renewed in time and then occupied by a cybersquatter. The archive then moved to the domain the- underdogs.org.
Since 21 March 2006, the address of the- underdogs.org was unattainable due to problems with the. Org domain. Supposedly disabled difficulties with a credit card the re- use of the domain name. As a result, the- underdogs.info has been registered and moved there the page. Since 23 April 2006, the site was fully functional again. However, there were no further updates.
The page could not be reached in September 2008, over several days, the reason is not yet known. The page appeared in late September 2008 again, but without screenshots and downloads.
From February to the end of March 2009, the site was no longer accessible. A message to the effect that this was due to the page owner bankruptcy of a Reseller.
Since 24 March 2009, the site under a new domain can be achieved.
Relaunch
Shortly after the temporary demise of HotU online got together a group with the support of the original owner, Sarinee Achavanuntakul, trying to run a relaunch of the page. Leading involved is Dan Pinchbeck of the Advanced Games Research Group at the University of Portsmouth, which contributes to the framework of the EU-funded KEEP emulator project to archive computer game history and keep it accessible. The plan is comprehensive archive of Home of the Underdogs rebuild and make available, as well as to expand the archive constant to other historical games and user reviews. An already partially filled with content bodyshell of the relaunch is to see.