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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!
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.
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....
"Wow, i wonder if Duke Nukem Forever will be shareware?"
There's no ware to share.
"Derp de derp."
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
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/
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
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.
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
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.
are you proposing that saved game file formats be open as well? :)
hrm, would make cheating easier i suppose
er i mean, would make it easier to transfer characters between games
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.
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.
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!
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)
Schnapple
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
And that, by the way, is the first time my cat has ever stepped on my keyboard and successfully posted to Slashdot.
Schnapple
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.
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.
It appears Garage Games is licensing their Torque Game Engine to anyone for $100.
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
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
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
More evidence to show the legality of P2P sharing systems!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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 ;-).
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.
The reason they don't do this anymore is probably because they're scared they'll lose sales. Seriously. Most games are derivative these days (can anyone remember the last truly inventive, original game?), and a demo would amply highlight the "more of the same" mentality.
Angband and the many variants, Egoboo, and several of the games at the site you mentioned are nifty.
However, spiderweb isn't "ripping people off." Send in your money or don't. If it's half assed, you get to find out before you buy. No biggie, don't buy.
I paged through several of the games on the indie rpg site and saw alot of short episodes and demos developed in a week or a couple months. But, I probably just don't know what's good on the site. Can you list some of the better titles, with long game play and a fairly original mythos? I'd love to see some new ideas.
I used to be a narrator for bad mimes. (wright)
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.