Shareware Heroes
eBook - ePub
Available until 12 Jan |Learn more

Shareware Heroes

The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet

  1. 352 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Available until 12 Jan |Learn more

Shareware Heroes

The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet

About this book

Shareware Heroes is a comprehensive, meticulously researched exploration of an important and too-long overlooked chapter in video game history

Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet takes readers on a journey, from the beginnings of the shareware model in the early 1980s, the origins of the concept, even the name itself, and the rise of shareware's major players – the likes of id Software, Apogee, and Epic MegaGames – through to the significance of shareware for the 'forgotten' systems – the Mac, Atari ST, Amiga – when commercial game publishers turned away from them.

This book also charts the emergence of commercial shareware distributors like Educorp and the BBS/newsgroup sharing culture. And it explores how shareware developers plugged gaps in the video gaming market by creating games in niche and neglected genres like vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-ups (e.g. Raptor and Tyrian ) or racing games (e.g. Wacky Wheels and Skunny Kart ) or RPGs ( God of Thunder and Realmz ), until finally, as the video game market again grew and shifted, and major publishers took control, how the shareware system faded into the background and fell from memory.

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Yes, you can access Shareware Heroes by Richard Moss in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Computer Science & Computer Science General. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. By the Same Author
  3. Title
  4. Special Thanks
  5. Contents
  6. Introduction
  7. Chapter 1 An Experiment in Economics
  8. Chapter 2 Copy That Floppy
  9. Chapter 3 ‘Pizza and Beer’ Money
  10. Chapter 4 Licenceware
  11. Chapter 5 The Apogee Model
  12. Chapter 6 Invasion of the Vorticons
  13. Chapter 7 Epic MegaGames
  14. Chapter 8 Experimental, Experiential Weirdness
  15. Chapter 9 Ideas from the Deep
  16. Chapter 10 Maelstrom
  17. Chapter 11 DOOM
  18. Chapter 12 Shareware Edition
  19. Chapter 13 Pretty Good Shareware
  20. Chapter 14 Fade Out
  21. Coda – Free to Play
  22. Developer Spotlights
  23. Glossary
  24. Index
  25. Image Credits
  26. Acknowledgements
  27. A Note on the Author
  28. Supporters
  29. Plates
  30. Copyright