Listen free for 30 days
-
Shareware Heroes
- The Renegades Who Redefined Gaming at the Dawn of the Internet
- Narrated by: Richard Moss
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Shareware Heroes
Buy Now for $22.26
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
Shareware Heroes is a comprehensive, meticulously researched exploration of an important and too-long overlooked chapter in video game history
Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet takes listeners 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.