Best Shareware Games Of 2003 Explored

Thanks to AVault for their feature discussing the best shareware PC titles for 2003, as the writer points out: "As software stores stock fewer new computer games, shareware titles and Internet releases offer an alternative for those who want to play on their PCs. Most of my favorite recreational offerings from the past year never made it into retail outlets." Picks include Chain Reaction ("Remember the old Dynamix game The Incredible Machine? Even though the company is defunct, its creators have developed a new 3D version"), Ultraball ("combines the fun of a Breakout game with all the action and excitement of a pinball game"), and Dr.Blob's Organism ("...a fast-paced shooter in which you blast gelatinous one-celled organisms as they try to escape from a Petri dish.")

Comments

Crimsonland

[Hettch]

Crimsonland is by far the best game on that last. You really should give that game a whirl. Truly addicting smash TV style from days past. Guns + Buckets o' blood + powers = good times :) (sorry, don't mean to be trolling)

Gee.

[Anonymous Coward]

I salute the sentiment, but I was hoping they'd detail more than four games on that website.

Still, a dollar tends to go farther on most shareware/small house titles than on the commercial ones, and the authors are usually much cooler with the gaming community (no small feat; I've seen the message forums.) Maybe the best title I've picked up that didn't hit store shelves was Galactic Civilizations, and that guy even made a number of free add-ons for it that one could download. Pontifex is pretty cool, too.

EVN

[Illissius]

One game you should definitely check out is Escape Velocity: Nova; I haven't actually tried it yet, but if it's anything like the original, then it's better than 99% of games out there, shareware or not. If only there were an MMO version... :)

Re:EVN

[BackwardEngineer]

Speaking of which, I had a friend who owned a Mac and had the original. I used to play that all the time until I moved away.

As soon as I heard that they were making Escape Velocity: Nova for Windows, I knew I had to buy it.

Great game, love how its open ended. Just wish I knew how to make a ton of money so I could buy those huge ships.

Re:EVN

[Anonymous Coward]

Grab an Asterioid Miner ship and start prospecting. If you find the right planets that buy opals, you'll get stinking rich in no time.

Do some missions for Sigma Shipyards on Earth, and they'll eventually give you the hypergate access codes. Then you can do long distance cargo missions that pull in the big bucks.

Once you have enough of a private fleet established (either by hiring escorts or by disabling and commandeering ships), you can start demanding tribute from planets. More money.

Does shareware make $$?

[Astro Del Gato]

I have been reading a lot about how difficult it is for an independant developer to break even in the mainsteam game industry. Does anyone know how shareware games fare? How many copies can you sell? Are there any shareware game developers that can be considered financial successes?

Re:Does shareware make $$?

[ReyTFox]

To a large extent it depends on the dedication of the developer. It's rare for a shareware company to turn a living-wage profit, the first year or two. However, if you recall the early 90s, Apogee(pre-Duke3D) and Epic(pre-Unreal) were both highly successful shareware developers. Nowadays we have a lot of "new kids:" Dexterity, GarageGames, Spiderweb and PopCap are some names that come to mind. All of them now turn profits, and they all got there in unique ways:

Dexterity builds games(mostly puzzle games) that are "perfectly sellable" with just enough limitations to encourage a purchase.

PopCap also does puzzle games, but offers two varieties: the browser-based demo, and the "deluxe" downloadable version, which gives them an edge on penetrating the market - with no demo to install, they can get more potential customers.

Spiderweb has a niche in classic RPG gaming, which has apparently proven very profitable.

GarageGames is made up of former Dynamix(Tribes developers, and did many titles since the mid-80s) employees, and is perhaps the most idealistic of the bunch. They play two roles - a developer/publisher of games, and a community-building institution for independent developers, by offering their Torque engine(originally the Tribes2 engine, but with continual improvements for the last few years) up for sale for the fantastic price of $100 and then providing a set of forums tailored for developers. They lost money on this venture initially, but are now able to boast of getting minimum wages :) Since they give developers a minimum of 65% royalties on their work when they publish with GG, I would say they're actually pretty successful for that.

Nowadays the market is pretty heavily saturated with puzzle games of the match-em-up or move-em-around categories, and simple clones of other games(classic arcade games and Solitare). That's not all that different from what you see in the AAA-end of the market, but what makes indie development attractive is that you can take more risks.

The real secret to success is to continually build the reputation of your company, offering several strong products and building word-of-mouth and community relations over a long period of time.

A retail title can get by with less advertising in proportion to development costs, because it's already getting the advertising of shelfspace at a retailer.

A shareware title, however, MUST gain "buzz factor" to really break out some good sales numbers. The usual sell-through rate of demo downloads to purchases is only 1 or 2%, and there isn't any one place for a developer to connect with the market, so good word-of-mouth is essential to success.