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The Return Of Shareware Games
An anonymous reader writes "CNN has a new column up looking at the re-emerging trend of shareware as a means to distribute games. With development prices soaring and space on retail shelves getting scarce, smaller companies like PopCap Games and GarageGames are returning to gaming's roots - and making money in the process."
Wow, people aren't just cracking them like we used to do?
garagegames isn't making any money, at least last I heard. They're a dev house like any other dev house, only they happen to peddle things on the side; or would if anyone would buy.
PopCap isn't succeeding because of shareware, PopCap is succeeding because their games are like heroin!
...if they use proprietary formats in these games, ala the Microsoft Affirmative Action Act? It would ony be fair.
I am just fine with the games that come with KDE. Not only can they entertain you, they may also build some intelligence.
My free time was eradicated by a shareware game by the name of Snood.
Do you mean addictive, or slimming?
Fucking A. That's great. Maybe people have gotten wise to the fact that a really fun game that lacks shitloads of bells and whistles, and full-motion video after every level will make a bigger profit than a boring game that cost a ton of money because the designers didn't know when to leave well enough alone.
If designers price the games properly (i.e. don't charge me $50 for a downloaded puzzle game) then I wish them the best of luck.
I don't know about you guys but I miss the days of being able to try a demo before buying a game...sometimes months prior to the release. I remember playing the Quake III: Arena beta for months before it was released at which point I was first in line to purchase it.
:)
Nowadays you get games that are released without demos or in the cause of Unreal 2003 a demo months after the game is available retail. Is it just me or does it make more sense to either release demos/shareware prior to launch rather then waste development time weeks after launch when most people have demoed it at a friend's house by now.
Just my observations
Oh and another great thing about shareware is it can be freely ported and released on different platforms without it being considered piracy. Its nice playing Heretic Shareware on my Dreamcast.
With the emergence of games shipping unfinished, with so many bugs and really pathetic gameplay, is it any wonder shareware is coming back. Its the simple phrase - "Try before you buy".
Most development houses are pushed these days by publishers to get games out in peak selling periods, and often these games are lacking in more than a few departments. Thats why shareware could work once more, especially with ease of purchase over the internet and bandwidth these days.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Wow, i wonder if Duke Nukem Forever will be shareware?
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
I remember before Diablo 1 came out, blizzard release the first dungeon level, well before the game came out, as a Demo.
It got me, and many others hooked on the game, and we couldn't wait till the real version came out.
More game companies are having enough trouble releasing the full game on time, but there is also a money factor involved in the delayed release of demo's.
If they have a good game, and they know it, they should really release a demo (and not a open beta) before the game is out. It certainly won't hurt their chances.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Most games released today generally have a demo, usually available before the official release of the game. It either lets you know whether you want the game, or gets you hopelessly addicted...
Just like Doom....
Ambrosia Software has been doing this on the Mac for ages. Their games are always fun, reasonably priced shareware.
I've bought more than a handful of their titles, and have had more fun with them than most commercial releases provide.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
The poor site didn't stand a chance. Here's Google's cached version.
And whatever happened to "The Incredible Machine"? That game rocked. Simple concept, but great in terms of developing analytical and problem-solving skills - My younger brothers and their friends (all in the eight to 12 age range at the time) were seriously hooked.
These days most of the games that keep kids that age entertained are FPS (violent) or massive multi-player (not good if you don't have a 'net connection (and, yes, there are people out there who don't)). The rise of shareware could actually see a second coming of educational games that aren't actually designed as educational.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
There are 2 types of shareware :
...
- Limited version : when you pay, you get a key that unlocks the full product
- Full working version : the author asks you nicely to pay, or send a postcard, coin stamp
Concerning the former, at first, people who know how crack it (tracing with a debugger and NOPing away the final key test), others reinstall regularly or play with the system time to get the program to continue working, and some do pay. Finally, if the program is successful enough, there'll be a key on a crack site eventually anyway.
For the latter, it's like spammers : authors hope for a 1% return rate, knowing full well most people won't nicely send them money for their hard work once they've installed the software.
Most people aren't honest. It's sad but it's a fact, and it's especially true for software users. So, the real question is : are current times so desperate for gaming software shops that developers revert to releasing shareware instead of selling their work as regular products ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Who's going to tell us how many polygons there are in the game? The lighting? The realistic physics?
What about all the anti-piracy warnings?
This'll never work!
Now all of their money will be going into paying for extra bandwidth...
"Please be patient and try again in a few moments.
GarageGames.com is currently experiencing an extremely high volume of traffic. Your patience is greatly appreciated.
--GarageGames"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I just wish Ambrosia would finish up their port of EV Nova already.
There's other approaches, too. In the genre of simulation sports of baseball and football and such, it is usually produced by one or two developers who "open up the process" to everyone and release public betas.
I find that this approach matches extreme programming to some degree if releases are done fairly regularly, and you can get a good read on the pulse (or lack of a pulse) on what the game should have above and beyond your original intentions.
The game I'm working on I release every two weeks if possible, and it has been a motivator to keep plugging ahead.
This space for rent.
You have a lot to learn about the real world. I've played many shareware games that were just as bad as any big budget snoozer you allude to. You obviously don't get out much.
I wouldn't say that what popcap does really resembles the shareware of old, which often consisted of short teasers for much longer, more elaborate games. The plain old game demo is the closest thing to "Wolfenstein Episode 1" et al.
Maybe this is a sign that we are in the last phase of the recession, and into the "pre expansion" phase of the business cycle.
I wonder how many of the people writing these games were layed off and decided to pick up on some ideas that weren't worth exploring during the boom.
Here's hoping that some of these guys get into hardware and innovative business ideas too. It could spawn the "next big thing".
I also wonder if these guys are old school shareware authors-- no crippleware (at least not severely*), no spyware, no adware, no nagware. Just "guiltware", which is pretty effective, despite all the crackerz out there. Best of all, traditional shareware was uncrackable because it was already cracked!
*Judgement call. An HTML editor that can't save is crippleware. An HTML editor without the advanced features or a "lite" version is not such a bad thing. For games, having just the first few levels is acceptable. Classic example: Quake.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... the king of the weird and fun shareware for Mac (and some Windows):
Freeverse Software
Freeverse is one of my all-time favorite shareware companies. Games that work well, play well, can be as addicting as all heck, and often have an odd sense of humor.
Between Ambrosia and Freeverse, most Mac users don't need any other games. Okay, maybe some others, but those are usually enough for many people.
-Jellisky
What?
The coolest voice ever.
I got burned for the third and last time by EA Sports last racing crapfest, NASCAR Thunder 2003.
.000 when it comes to this genre. Extremely poor AI, even worse multiplayer, horrible physics, you name it. They concentrate more on eye candy than on the actual meat of the game. Of course a game with a poor foundation won't be worth anything, no matter how nice the frills are.
I'm a big NASCAR sim fan, and only one company has been able to do a quality NASCAR sim throughout the years: Papyrus, a division of Sierra Online.
EA has attempted to do NASCAR sims since 1999, starting with NASCAR Revolution, the NASCAR 98-99 for console, NASCAR 2000, and lastly, Thunder. They have been batting a
For NASCAR Thunder 2004, I'm warezing or demoing beforehand.
The bottomline is that it does not matter whether the publisher calls the game or program shareware or not. It is by default shareware, till I decide to convert it to payware or freeware. It just goes to show how the shareware philosophy is no longer on the fringes but it is the mainstream.
With so much of warez, crackz and serialz, put out by some brilliant minds, I think there is no real difference between a shareware and payware today, esp. in this superconnected space of internet. You can try anything, whether shareware or payware, for almost as long as you like, and if you really like it, then you pay for it. It is the same philosophy that I use for music files too.
From many programs that I try, I choose only a few that I eventually buy. Thus, from my point-of-view it makes no difference whether the publisher calls it shareware or not. With all the crackz and serials every game/program is shareware for me till I decide to convert it to either payware or freeware. It is nice that some publishers are waking up to this reality.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
- The demos tend to be representative of the final game. I don't get to play 1/10 of 1 level with 99% of the the features disabled - as I often do with boxed software. It's not in a shareware developer's best interest to turn you off with a bad demo. There is no shelf presence to make you think "Damn, I should give that a second-chance"
- Instant gratification. I can download a demo, decide I like it, place and order and receive my liscense code within a matter of minutes. The days of waiting for your registration to be processed are coming to an end.
- Price. I can get most games for $20, $30 tops. This, coupled with the faster registration times I mentioned above make shareware more of an impluse buy than ever.
- Developers generally have a better attitude. This is purely subjective, but in my experience the developers are much more interested in what the community thinks of their product and how it can be improved than the "boxed" developers. The "release and forget" mentality is simply not that big of an issue in the shareware community.
- More complex games are showing up as shareware. In the past, simple Tetris-like games have been the mainstays of the shareware industry. Escape Velocity, and the Mac version of Uplink are good examples of this. More users with high-bandwith connections are making epic-scale games easier to distribute.
Maybe what I have is the sequal but I was playing that game just last month and my brother started playing last week. Still 256 color but the cats and cheese couldn't look any better!
It's fascinating how many bright people are locked out of the industry right now.
Everything is geared towards big-money projects, which you can't get into unless you're one of the X thousand people already into it. No one gets these gigs; even if you do, you can make a successful game and still come out owing money to the cartel. Of the $50 you pay for a game, it's split (very roughtly) 50% for the store and 45% for the publisher. You have to have a megahit to get ahead.
Ahem. Meanwhile, back in the real world...
There are interesting avenues in cell phones (but our shitty regulatory system set that back about 5 years in the U.S.). Handheld gaming is tantalizing, at least because you don't need 10-20 million minimum to make a handheld game, but even there you get into the same kinds of issues with the platform vendor, their favored publishers, and the mafioso retail system. So in reality most "garage shops" are locked out of that too.
This is a big bummer, because you can produce some pretty amazing games on sub-million budgets (even sub 200,000 budgets) and this is where the real innovation happens - not with the polycount skyscraper competition but with whole new gameplay ideas. Check out shops like Large Animal Games - these places have amazing ideas, there is basically no channel for them to sell their wares.
Online vendors, micropayments, etc. are barely nascent; shareware is actually still near the top of a lot of lists. No game will be Wolf3D or Doom of course... None of these systems will make you a lot of money. But like with a lot of things the internet now allows smaller places to live on this sort of thing that couldn't have before.
There is a big market waiting to happen if we can figure out what comes _after_ shareware; if there's some way to allow the little guys to sell their goods in a cheap, secure way. To cut out the middlemen, in other words.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
We've been making money selling shareware products (really, just electronically distributed/sold products these days) for the past 15 years, and making money at it. Yes, with a real office, real employees, and real paychecks.
As development costs on games have skyrocketed to the levels of feature films, the quality has gone down and games have started to stagnate. The reason is that the backers want a high certainty of return on their investment rather than taking a risk. This is the kind of mentality that leads to games like "Enter the Matrix". Sucky game with a movie tie-in (of course Movie tie-in games have always sucked. Slate had a great article on this recently).
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
http://www.alawar.com/
is another one. I love their Bubble Bobble version. I've spend hours on that one with my brother. It's awesome.
The best new shareware games I've played recently are Space Tripper and Mutant Storm from PomPom, a two-man UK company.
Alright, I admit it, I used to work with the guys who wrote them, but they're still the most awesome Defender / Robotron-style (respectively) updates I've ever played.
Oh... they have windows, mac and *linux* versions, so I guess the slashdot crowd should appreciate that.
The ZX Spectrum Book 1982-199x
Fortunately, Ambrosia Software is porting Escape Velocity Nova to Windows so a wider audience can enjoy it as well. I look forward to being able to play it on my computer at home instead of having to find someone with a Mac.
We'll get to play great games like Commander Keen once again?
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
The bottomline is that it does not matter whether the publisher calls the game or program shareware or not. It is by default shareware, till I decide to convert it to payware or freeware. It just goes to show how the shareware philosophy is no longer on the fringes but it is the mainstream.
This is a very good point
The term "shareware" has been bastardised over the last decade. Back when the concept first arose, SHAREWARE was software you could share with your friends and, if you felt it warranted it, you sent the author a donation. There was nothing crippled, there was nothing missing. You could freely copy it, and the developer might make a few bucks.
This new usage of the word now means nothing more than game demos put out by developers who can't/won't get their games on the store shelves.
In short, it AIN'T SHAREWARE, not by the correct definition.
Diablo, the first edition, I remember was available as a demo. I also remember that "Future Shop" sold the "shareware" version for those who didn't want to make the multi-meg downlownload. I can't remember the size of Diablo exactly, but it was pretty massive for a 56k modem, likely to be 50-100meg or so if my memory is correct. Quake II also still has a nice little shareware edition.
You know... after getting a 99cent copy of diablo the shareware edition, I payed full price for the game within a week.
So if i'm the desired demographic, shareware and demo editions of games work for me. I'm not about to pay for a game site unseen, and it's not often the latest and greatest in stores have display models. And hell, I don't want to go to the fucking store anyway.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
www.spiderwebsoftware.com
I personally recommend Avernum II and III. Geneforge looks interesting as well. There, but for the cruelty of life, go you.
I used to be a narrator for bad mimes. (wright)
This doesnt surprise me actually. The only people that pay for games these days are the honest ones that would probably pay for the shareware ones. The emergence of P2P file sharing means that all games are essentially 'free', its just a matter of being honest and legit to actually pay for them. Seeing as these are the only people going to pay, you may as well go with the flow, and give out your games free and ask people to be honest, cause thats whats going to happen anyway.
I.O.U One Sig.
Shareware hasn't gone anywhere, it's still here. It appears that some of the bigger players are now just trying to come back to it to reduce their costs.
--- Shamless Plug ---
Try some of these games. Some are free (like the one I wrote (FrostByte Freddie) and some are shareware. Check them out at Dark Unicorn Productions
--- End of Shamless Plug ---
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
Where o where is my ware to share?
Care to share where is the fair ware, if you dare?
This affair makes me beware of ware that is mostly air,
but I sit and stare, in my chair in my lair, at my monitor's glare,
and still I prepare a fare to pay for this wair,
but I am starting to wear of the blare
(the blare that this ware may really be brought to bear),
and now I swear that were this ware that is their care to share be in my very lair (though that would be rare),
even then, I would despair to declare that the ware is there,
for I really know that the ware will ne'er be, whether by share, or even prayer,
and that is most unfair to me, if I may dare to declare.
Since they are DEAD SET against the entire concept of shareware, to the point of being absurdly rude about it.
:(
But here, even in the free software haven, shareware is considered viable and very much alive.
I am a shareware developer and had looked to license qt for a small run, low cost piece of software and they told me to go get stuffed. Full, insanely high priced, commercial license or GPL or go to hell is their motto.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Sure, he swiped his alias from the famous character on *Moonlighting* portrayed by Bruce Willis, but man could that guy write great shareware games. His version of Monopoly on the Atari ST was incredibly fun...and it would cheat too! But then the entity known then as Parker Bros. got mad, sued him, and he disappeared. Actually, I think the game was *freeware* come to think of it... If anyone has any info on what the guy is doing now, I'd appreciate it...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The record industry should take hint.
Why mark something as "insightful" when it is full of bogus info?
GG is not a "dev house." GG does not work on any game projects, they merely sell/update the engine and publish games.
These type of games seem to have dissapeared in recent years, and is it because the big download pages (download.com, fileplanet.com) are consumed with a flood of commercial demos from the big name game developers and these small games are nearly invisible because of the vast amount? Or have people stopped making these types of games, unable to compete with the desire for top graphics and gameplay.
I was on a Mac from about 1995-1999 and the quality of the shareware on the Mac platforms seemed to be far better than Windows shareware. The games were more fun, rarely crashed or didn't work. Anyone else seen this? Anyone have any reasons for this? Anyone care?;~)
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
It's good to know PopCap Games is making money through their shareware model, but it's not going to get me to buy any games I can find at AddictingGames.com. I can hardly bring myself to fork over cash for games like UT 2003, and I've been playing the demo of that for quite a while now.
Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
Good thing about shareware include:
In many games, it should be hard to make a shareware copy. Just clip the game after X levels/scenes/items etc, and you've got a nice demo. Shareware could also be nice for hardware reviews, I seem to remember various hardware being tested on shareware versions of doom, etc - which provided a nicer "reality" benchmark than today's crackable Futuremark, etc
I just played the online java games from popcap games - excellent! reminds me off the C=64 games of me youth.
Millions of dollars? Really? I'm not saying you're wrong, but could you give an example? I haven't heard of game dev $ reaching that high . . . (then again, I kind of left keeping up on the gaming scene a while ago . . .)
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
I downloaded a "shareware" version of "Crimsonland" http://crimsonland.reflexive.com/crimsonland/
Got hooked, finished what I could and proceeded to whip out the CC to finish buying it..
Bastard addictive game it is too.. highly recommended for those that want a deceptivly simple challenge...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
It is very difficult to make any money in shareware, only a relative handful of people ever been successful. I would estimate chance of recouping money worth the effort at well under one percent. A never ending stream of starry eyed programmers discover this every year.
Create something for the love of it and let it free. Don't waste time with shareware because:
a) you'll be disappointed.
b) no one will use it.
c) your work will be unappreciated.
The GPL does not forbid selling the software. Its main restriction is that source code must be available to everyone who gets the executable program.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Mutant Storm by PomPom Games and Ricochet Xtreme by Reflexive Entertainment are my all-time favorite shareware titles and both could easily sell at twice there going rate ($20). While there's always going to be crap in the shareware world, there's also some gems. These two are definitely gems.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I played tons of shareware titles before I got the internet, then a while in the start, until I discovered freeware etc.
There is one cool place called http://www.Gamehippo.com , many good games there..
(Although, many are REAL crappy, too.. given the volume of titles there.)
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
The first time I ran against an International Banking system, I actually started sweating as I watched the traceback get closer (so quickly) to my home system............ this will appeal to your inner hacker, perhaps as a guilty pleasure.
Most engrossing game experience since Half-Life. And at least six other games floating around the mac shareware sites of equal quality. Blows the hell out of anything commericial AND the noble offerings of Linux developers.
---------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I never had any success with DOSEMU. I have had great success with Bochs. Managed to play Project Space Station (1987) by Avantage on my p3 800 MHz. Processor emulation is the strong point of Bochs. That game simply rules and should be made again. The main problem with Bochs is getting the sound operational. I've had no luck with sound. Does DOSEMU do any better?
Laws are for people with no friends.
Well, a AAA title has a dev time of anything between 2 and 4 years. I can't give exact figures, but games like UT2k3, NWN and any other top title (I'm talking production values, not gameplay quality) cost anywhere between 2 and 10 million to make. Go read Gamasutra, fatbabies and other sites of the like for exact figures.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
You know the most beautiful thing about that Slate article? The advertisment I got at the bottom of the page...
It appears Garage Games is licensing their Torque Game Engine to anyone for $100.
It runs very well because of the precise control over the processor speed. As the original game didn't have sounds worth hearing to begin with, sound is not an issue. What I had trouble with was the keyboard control of reentry and landing but that is largely due to disability in my hands. Remember, the original game allowed the joystick for all game functions--including increasing funding on research and development. I had trouble getting the joystick working. Allegedly, it will. The trick is finding a hard drive image with all the original drivers for DOS 3.3, 4 and above. I haven't worked on the issue for almost a year. I spent 13 years just trying to track it down again and a few months getting it to run at a normal speed. The graphics are fugly as hell even for their day but the gameplay was absolutely outstanding. Probably the first true RTS. The game advanced in time every 8 seconds. I always felt like it was just me and a couple of friends that knew what it was. As time marched on, just me and one other guy kept the memory alive. With ISS and other NASA adventures/mis-adventures, this would be the ideal game to put the space age into perspective. I think there's a lot more that the original guys wanted to add but were limited by floppy disks and a worthless publisher. If only we could put a team together on this. Could succeed as shareware since it would appeal to computer geeks and science nerds that are aware of the importance of putting money to something good. The market already has far too many first person shooters, civilization wannabes, Homeworld clones and other dead horses. Project Space Station would be educational and hardcore.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Shareware = Try before you buy
A tryout for 30 days is the industry standard(Microsoft, Corel, etc.). âoeSharewareâ has always been âoealiveâ.
Could it be that the means for delivering good shareware is finally catching up to the amount of data files(Animation and such) that the average spiffy game is employing? I don't mean the small shareware games to kill a few hours, but the larger more pro ones. I know that if I had to sit for a few hours to get my install of Starscape, like I would when I had my modem, I would probably not have bothered.
And this long long speach comes to one point... That-- OOOO! QUARTER!
Thanks to this article I searched out Phrase Craze Plus (a Wheel of Fortune knock-off) which I used to play under Macintosh System 6. I downloaded it, it opens in OS 9 and plays fine.
No sound though. Hmm.
Anyways, Macs had tons of shareware and it was stuff you were free to use and encouraged to make donations if you enjoyed it.
"Crackz/serialz" aren't worth anything unless you have the full version, so you're contradicting your own argument against the parent poster who stated that the shareware versions were incomplete: You could get crackz and serialz all you want, but that would do nothing.
So what you're really saying is "because of piracy, everything is shareware". Well a) no, shareware is legal. Piracy is not. b) Shareware is moral. Piracy is not. Proclaiming that there is "no difference" is akin to saying "I have no morals, and I don't believe in the law". You might as well say that to you some ruphenol and handcuffs is "no difference" from consensual sex. Badabing! I'm sure that'll pull the nutcases frothing out of the woodwork defending their P2P ways, so let me disclaim that: No, piracy is not even remotely as bad as rape, however the same "I can get what I want regardless" justifications can be used in any case.
You must be a brave man in any case. An oft stated piece of wisdom is that there is no honor among thieves...do you truly thing that the land of crackers and pirates is a noble one? I have no doubt whatsoever that it is rife with those for whom piracy is but one of their criminal pursuits, so I'm sure your cr4ckz/pir8z full machine has been owned and used for credit card sharing, kiddy porn propagation, etc. "But I run my pirate copy of McAfee!" you proclaim...bwahahahahahahahaahahahahaha.
Sinned
And real professionalism, it's worth noting, whether it's a port (just started playing the Uplink demo, expect my credit card and free hours soon) or an original game (EV Nova being Marathon for the post-Bungie Mac community). I still have fond memories of whiling away hours of compile time with "Harry the Handsome Executive." Not to mention your strong support of the MacOS X development community. Kudos!
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
I hate Snood! It's totally a ripoff of Puzzle Bobble (later called Bust-a-Move), and PB has superior look and feel. No one has heard of Puzzle Bobble. Lots of people have heard of Snood. I know this point has been brought up on Slashdot before, but you asked if anyone else felt the same way and I do. Snood looks all blocky and stuff. All they did was rip off Puzzle Bobble and charge money.
GarageGames seems to be having a bad time of it.
If you want to have a look at what the shareware gameing world is up to you could try some of the others doing great games.
Dexterity
Mountain King Games
Retro64
Phelios
In fact, too many to list. All of those sites have links to others. You could spend days following them all.
Or you could try some of the new emerging quality shareware game news/review sites.
Diygames
Bytten
Shareware Gaming Magazine
GameTunnel
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Don't show me Window stuff and make me want it :P
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Piracy can be moral.
If somebody puts out a game and charges $100 for it, why should you be expected to buy it if all you've gotten to see of it is box shots and movies they've released? They can make those movies of exciting parts of the game, and on great hardware. If they don't release a decent demo, if doesn't seem fair to be able to force someone to gamble on a expensive game. And the problem with demos is that they aren't typically part of the game at all. Whereas ten years ago, you'd get the first episode of a game to try out.
So pirate it, see if you like it, and buy it is so. It's what I do for all of my games. There are a lot of crappy games out there, and I shouldn't be expected to buy them based only on marketing.
I could play the game at a friends or at the store, and I often do. But pirating it is just another method of that.
The article he linked to mentioned $20 million for enter the matrix, not quite to Waterworld levels, but above quite a few movies. That's a bit of a bad example, since they paid about $10 million for the name rights, and more for an extra large ad campaign, and actors time from the movie. But just the coding and other development costs probably cost above $5 million, and that was for a pretty rushed game.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I remember the phrase "crippleware".
Haven't seen it for a while though, guess it sounded to negative.
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
It must be difficult to turn a profit these days especially since all the good software is free :-)
Regards, Jake Johnson http://www.plutoid.com
The problem with this article is that 90% of the "shareware" I download isn't shareware at all, it's a demo.
The way I (and most people I know) define these terms:
Shareware: Software distributed in a fully functioning, non-limited version. A request is distributed along with the software that asks the user to send some money to the author(s). whether or not you send the money, the software will have all features and not disable itself at any time. The software may have a "nag" screen that asks for you to send the fee.
Demo: Software that is disabled or restricted in some way from it's full version. To use the software's full feature set, or to use it for an ulimited amount of time requires you to pay a fee. Not paying the fee will cause the software to disable itself, or to continue to operate in a lesser manner than the full version.
Freeware: Shareware that has no request for money. the software is free.
Free Software: Similar to freeware, but the source code is usually available and usable by end users.
There is a VERY large push today (apparently backed by sites like Versiontracker) to use "shareware" and "demo" interchangeably. Sorry, but I just don't but it. I pay shareware fees when I use truely shareware software. I've decided to boycott any software that claims to be shareware but is in fact a demo.
Some software (such as BBEdit on the Mac) sort of blur the line a little. BBEdit Light is freeware, you may use all the program's features for as long as you like. But Light is also a demo for the full BBEdit which is commercial software that has more features than Light. There is also a true demo version of BBEdit that is lauch limited, then refuses to operate.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
a platform game I'm working on: (well a sreenshot of it):
http://grraargh.com/gallery/screen1.png
click me
More evidence to show the legality of P2P sharing systems!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
i know where to get better rpg's for free. Not pirated or hacked mind you, but for completely free. Because *some people* like doing this and giving away what they do, and other people like to rip off the public for half assed games.
click me
It's main restriction is that the source code must be available, recompilable, and redistributable by everyone who gets the executable. This means the GPL essentially forbids selling software to more than one intelligent entrepreneurial person, since this person will then undercut your price or just give your software away to the second potential customer. If your potential market is over 200 intelligent customers, then rounded to the nearest percent, the GPL forbids you from selling to 100% of your market (unless your product caters to charitable people, or people to lazy to google for the source and recompile).
I was thinking about recently getting into the shareware market- and I wonder- is their a market base for non puzzle games, like, let's say- platform games? Like Commander keen and such?
blatent image plug of a game I'm working on-
http://grraargh.com/gallery/screen1.png
click me
go Apogee! You can copy this floppy!
I am glad to hear that shareware gaming is making a comeback. This is because I believe that the shareware approach rather than the "If you can't beat them join them" approach of WineX and the hand me down approach of porting old Windows titles will be the way of building a successful Linux game industry. The basic problem with Linux and gaming is NOT that Linux users don't pay for software but simply that there are not enough of them tp support the release of "big time" commercial games under the Linux platform at this time. However a small shareware "cottage" gaming industry could not only make money where a large commercial gaming company can't but such a Linux shareware gaming company may well make the "Killer App" that brings about the final exodus of Windows users to Linux. All od this is contingent of course on weather or not Linux can survive the current SCOap opera ;-).
The term "shareware" has been bastardised over the last decade. Back when the concept first arose, SHAREWARE was software you could share with your friends and, if you felt it warranted it, you sent the author a donation. There was nothing crippled, there was nothing missing. You could freely copy it, and the developer might make a few bucks. That's a pantload. Shareware was/is 1/3 free, 2/3 for registration (for example). It's not donation-ware.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
The reason is that the backers want a high certainty of return on their investment rather than taking a risk.
I hear bonds are a good investment. Anyone investing in video games and wanting "a high certainty of return on their investment" is a fucking moron.
It's called "risk capital."
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
No, you're wrong, and you're a grotesquely ugly freak. Do your research. Id Software can be
thanked for bastardising the term the worst. That is NOT shareware in it's true sense. If you're so confident, then fine, name *2* titles released BEFORE 1990 that were sold as "shareware" where you got your mythical 1/3rd free.
You don't know what you're talking about.
RB started as shareware and this is the reason I found it and started playing it. Shareware (or whatever modern name you wish to attach to this marketing model) is a great way to "get into the game". I would not be surprise if most first time authors do not make (much) money publishing shareware. But that is not always the only point, sometimes the exposure for the authors is what counts. Sometimes it is just wanting to get what the author believes is a great tool/game/widgit out into the real world while maybe making a bit of beer money at the same time.
Liberty Basic is another great piece of software that started as shareware. I have not followed it lately but back in its beginning it helped me alot with minor Windows based apps.
Merlin.
Of course English is my second language. Giberish is my first!
Don't bother flaming my English... I will just reply with more.
Shareware left? When?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
If you're so confident, then fine, name *2* titles released BEFORE 1990 that were sold as "shareware" where you got your mythical 1/3rd free. Eight-inch disks or punchcards? Shareware is a freely copyable portion free, the rest for registration. Giving away the whole game free and asking for registration is donation-ware. Look up the word "mythical" again.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
In Germany, you can rent games in videoshops.
I'd never buy a games anymore that I haven't
tested for a day or two.
And yes, I do buy the games I like (and usually
apply a nocd patch to avoid the hassle.)
You don't have to GPL the *data* (graphics, music etc), IIRC. Most Free Software people can't draw or model in 3D very well so giving away the code earns you respect, free ports to other platforms etc. and you can *still* earn money for your work. Also, by GPL:ing the code, you can save a lot of work for being able to use other peoples' GPL'd stuff.
Some people might draw new graphics after a while if your game is good enough for them to bother, but their results won't be as good as your originals and even if they were, your sales window has closed ages ago.
I would really like to see game companies going for this model. It would provide us with multiplatform games and higher quality. Instead of wasting their time for writing all the code from scratch to keep it prorietary, they could concentrate on polishing the gameplay, level design, graphics and sounds.
You must be a brave man in any case. An oft stated piece of wisdom is that there is no honor among thieves...do you truly thing that the land of crackers and pirates is a noble one? I have no doubt whatsoever that it is rife with those for whom piracy is but one of their criminal pursuits, so I'm sure your cr4ckz/pir8z full machine has been owned and used for credit card sharing, kiddy porn propagation, etc. "But I run my pirate copy of McAfee!" you proclaim...bwahahahahahahahaahahahahaha.
How is this insightful? How can you associate piracy with credit card sharing and kiddy porn? This isn't even a blatant generalization. This pure conjecture. "I'll just make up my own generalization."
...[in 1993] id Software unleashed "Doom" on the world. Millions of people downloaded and enjoyed the free, abbreviated version of the game...
Am I the only person who in 1993 would get his shareware buy buying the latest copy of PC Gamer, which came with a disk with one (maybe two) games on it? Admittedly, I lived way out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but still. I'm not even sure I had put a modem in my computer yet.
Shareware is cheap, usually instantly downloadable, usually instantly unlockable/playable in the full version and you get to try it before you buy it. So you never get caught out by hyped rubbish. Only problem is sifting through the thousands of amaturish offerings, anyone know any good review sites?
p.s. Starscape is my first suggestion, very good game. Here is the site http://www.moonpod.com
>No, you're wrong, and you're a grotesquely ugly freak.
And an elephant can...no more...get it's trunk...up it's own guts, than wecanlickourballs.
Wonder how many people got it?
No, the term "shareware" supposedly comes from the very old concept of a "developer commons".
The basic idea here was: you'd join a commons with some other programmers. Then, any useful software you write, you share with the others; in exchange, you get a share of all their software. Thus, software was effectively freely distributed among the commons, in anticipation that its value would be "repaid" by the users' contributions to the same commons.
Of course, this was only really useful back in the very, very old days where pretty much anyone who used a computer was a programmer because there was pretty much nothing to do with computers other than trying to program them. When non-programming users became the norm, these commons could no longer work, so the request for money was substituted for the anticipation of reciprocially shared software. Crippleware was the paranoid's version of that.
Oddly enough, the main killers of shareware games were the commercial companies who dumped "shareware" versions of their commercial games on shop shelves. Remember the "shareware Diablo" and the "shareware Descent"? This neatly taught consumers that anything called 'shareware' must be an inferior version of something they could buy in a shop, and killed the market for a while.
It seems that the the low cost and ease of distribution and charging that the internet gives us is once more making it viable for the small one-man firms to trade.
A prime example of this is Llamasoft, Jeff Minters old company. Back in the 80's and early nineties he produced what many people would say are some of the finest examples of really addictively playable games. Revenge of the Mutant Camels, and Llamatron being some of my favourites.
For many years since the Yak has put most of these old versions on his website for people to download and enjoy, claiming it wasnt worth the expense of trying to sell anymore, but with little or no new material available.
Now it seems he has relaunched Llamasoft and is releasing new improved games as shareware, with full versions available for about 5UKP, which is serious value for money for work of this high a calibre.
Anyway he is still going, and has some great new games available from:
http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/
Gridrunner is especially worth a go.
You may know Jeff Minter from the games llamatron, tempest2000 or revenge of the mutant camels.
Pirates are generally criminals who you've given pretty exclusive access to your PC (and usually you've proven yourself to have a high connection by downloading the massive packages). It doesn't take a genius to identify the risks there...
Check out Kaser Software . Great mind games. There's one called "Krazy Mazes" that is to Mindsweeper as Hulk is to Bruce Banner. Lots of good stuff. Been buying from this guy for years. Not disappointed, yet.
Have fun,
Paul
Oddly enough, I feel worse, about not registering a shareware program I use daily than about downloading and beating a warezd game that I will never play again. I guess it's just a perception thing.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
And it looks like he got modded up. So that puts him on par or a bit ahead of some of the other readers.
Tha Cat has Karma. Is his name Felix?
I smell a new troll .... "First Cat Post"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Dude, then don't buy it. Nobody's forcing you to buy a game you're not sure if you like. If you don't want to risk it, then don't. It doesn't make it ok to steal it 'just to be sure'.
Read the damn reviews, perhaps? Lord knows there's enough computer gamer magazines and websites around.
Grab.
First we need to stop using the word pirate, and only use the word thief. There are no boats or swordplay involved. The whole arguement will sound different.
no, you're wrong. if you want to 'blame' someone, it should be apogee, the publisher for such titles as id's. your 'true sense' is essentially what open source software is today (sometimes sans the source). contrary to your idea that the shareware industry died off, it was boosted greatly by the likes of apogee and epicmegagames and don't forget pkzip, winzip and paintshop pro.
if anything killed shareware, it was the internet. before the internet was available for everyone to use, you had a limited supply of programs available to you from bbs's and services like compuserve as well as the mailorder shareware catalogs. nowadays there is such a huge flood of programs that all do about the same thing that there is little incentive for a programmer to write something unless they are going to make it better than everyone elses, and then charge a few bucks for it (or makes it essentially barebones and makes it freeware)... otherwise it gets lost in the fray of similar titles.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
There generally isn't any physical property involved, so 'thief' doesn't really cut it either. How about we use the proper term: copyright infringer.
Hmm, doesn't roll off the tongue nearly as well as thief or pirate. Arrrrrrrrr it is!
Like most 'mainstream' press, the article missed out on a lot of the better shareware/indie games being made at the moment. Some worthwhile links to check out might include:
Positech Games
Mistaril
Smugglers
Andf also check out diygames.com,gametunnel.com etc...
Even though Im lucky enough to be on broadband,m I increasingly find myself turning to small games like this purely for their lack of hype and their originality. Also you can download them in 2 minutes and you get to try before you buy in the true sense of the word.
If a demo is more than 100 meg its high;ly unlikely Ill bother downloading it, knowing I'll probbaly spend less time playing it than demoing it...
Because everyone is completely objective...
From dictionary.com
Thief: Someone who steals, especially by stealth.
Seems to fit perfectly to me. No mention of physical property.
Lets just not sugar coat things here.
GG
I hardly think that just because you download some mp3s and some warez that are likely involved in credit card sharing. Again, someone is making a generalization.
Pirates are people who distribute unlicenced software or media. That do not neccissarily have exclusive access to anyone's PCs but their own.
Er...no. We're talking about the people who crack and distribute pirate software. These people have already shown a nonchalant attitude towards the law, and now you're putting binaries that they've manipulated on your PC...
Didn't Kazaa bring back the concept of shareware?
p.s. i'm just joking. i purchase all of my games and never use any cracks on them.
muahahaha
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
the parent is perfectly relevant MOD him up!