Ceasar I free giveaway back in 1999 - early 2000s

[MrFlibble]

This is something I've just learned from this old post:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fre ... ssages/969

Apparently back in 1999 and the early 2000s the full version of Caesar was available fro a legitimate download from Impressions Games' website:
http://www.impressionsgames.com/caesar.html

The last working snapshot of that page archive by the Wayback Machine is from April 2002. After that, the page would apparently redirect to Sierra's Caesar page:
http://www.sierra.com/games/impressions/caesar.html

Which, in fact, still had the link to the full game from Impressions Games' website until December 2002.

I know Sierra had some temporary free giveaways of their games (like Red Baron), what about Ceasar? Did they revoke the freeware release, or can it be still distributed today?

Is there someone from the copyright holders who can be contacted for clarification of this matter?

[Edit] Upon the freeware release, Impressions added an installation instructions addendum (install.pdf) 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.

Which kind of suggests that the game went public domain.

[Collector]

I was aware of this at the time. It was my understanding that it was just temporary, not released to public domain. As far as I know, Activision now owns the IP.

[DeadPoolX]

Do you mean Caesar 1, 2, or 3? The third Caesar game is currently sold on GOG. I don't know what the status of the other two are, but given that Activision holds the rights to that IP, I have a very difficult time imaging them letting it go for free.

[adeyke]

Wikipedia lists it as a "[Game] no longer freely distributed".

[MrFlibble]

Wikipedia lists it as a "[Game] no longer freely distributed".

Thanks for the clarification!