Why Port To PC? Shareware Still alive!

An anonymous reader writes "Here is an interesting interview with Tom Anthony, describing why Ambrosia Software are porting their Mac games to the PC market. Do you think their games can really sell after being ported? I thought shareware was dead, but all their games are still using shareware as well."

Comments

Shareware is FAR from dead!

[linuxbaby]

Shareware DEAD? WHAT?!? Some of us are using it more and more.

I know after years of not having any money, and using shareware for free, I LOVE that I can afford to pay people who make shareware, and support independent software.

Recent shareware fees paid:

• 10 licenses of the Opera web browser
• A ton of Chank's fonts
• Limewire
• UltraEdit

Plus PayPal tip-jars to the great Quanta, MusicBrainz, and even websites like Ryze.

Whenever I need a program/tool, the first places I look are TinyApps (very small software for Windows), and Tucows.

I sure HOPE it's not just me that's out there doing what I can to support the independent shareware programmers!

Re:What?

[Boo Robin]

They are basically giving you a 30 day period to test the game. The games will not be complete until you register the game. After 30 days, you are expected to register if you like the game or utility.

Originally, the games were open and you could complete them without registering. But as of late, Ambrosia has restricted how far you can go. You get a good taste of the game and it usually makes you want to play more. It is a great method that has worked for them. And hopefully PC users will appreciate it when EV Nova Windows is released.

Oh, and I have plenty of experience with Ambrosia. I moderate a forum of theirs. Great place to be for mac users. And soon PC users.

www.ambrosiasw.com

Re:If anyone can make it Ambrosia can...

[WiPEOUT]

Where did you get the idea that shareware on the PC has bad connotations? Maybe in the applications category, yes, but as for games, can you say Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake?

Re:If anyone can make it Ambrosia can...

[sebi]

can you say Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake?

Sure I can. But the problem with your list is that the most recent title was released in 1995. Shareware used to be alive and kicking. The question is if it is just suffering from a little exhaustion, or laying down to die.

There is a reason that successors to those titles didn't follow the shareware model anymore. When presentation became a really big deal in computer games the binary sizes became to big to distribute them over modem. Now we have broadband and people are able and willing to download files hundreds of megabytes big (just look at the mod scene for various shooters; EV:Nova is over 100Mb as well). But sometime in the intervening years the perceived difference in quality between boxed and download-able offerings became big enough to tarnish the image of shareware games for good

Now for the Mac side of things: Just around the time that PC gaming really took off we started to get starved for games. While big games where ported the overall selection was small. So we had no choice than to take a closer look at what shareware had to offer.

Maybe shareware will make a comeback on the PC side. People are complaining about a lack of innovation in games anyway (and as far as I know most PC shareware games are 'yet another puzzle game' anyway). Big publishers are reluctant to take risks with new ideas. Broadband is getting really popular. Maybe these factors combined will keep the scene alive long enough until the medics arrive.

Shareware Author's Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

As a shareware author, I can definitely say that shareware's not dead, although the term "shareware" is getting old. You can read about the history of shareware at the Association of Shareware Professionals website -
History of Shareware

Shareware is really just software that is marketed as 'try before you buy'. I don't refer to shareware on my website - I just refer to a free trial.

There are many Independent Software Developers working on games, utility type programs, and small niche software.

Re:Why not?

[Masem]

Ambrosia's made several excellent games for the Mac, and I'd definitely be interested in buying any Windows ports that they make. Their first games were generally enhanced clones of classic arcade games (Maelstorm : Astroids ; Aperion : Centipede ; Barracks : Qix, and so forth), but then they got into original designs like with Escape Velocity and Avara. Their games are nearly always of high quality, requirely nearly no updates after release (and I was part of a beta testing cycle once and I know that they do heavily beta test before release). And for $25, you get games that are overly additive, certainly a reasonable exchange.

More so, I'm finding that there's not a lot of shareware authors interested in the Windows market. It may be the case where the market suffers from two problems: it's so potentally large that it's hard to let people know you have a new game and secondly, there's more people on the Windows side that I would think would look for cracks and codes to avoid the registration than there are on the Mac side (mostly due to numbers again, mac users generally have some sort of loyality to those that develop good software for the platform). So having more choices for shareware games is a good thing. Sure, you can argue that a lot of good games can be found via Flash or JAva, but Flash and Java still has some limits that can't faithfully be used to make the same type of games that you can do on the native system programs.

So here's to good luck to Ambrosia for success in this venture.