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Shareware Heroes
- Author
- Richard Moss
- Narrator
- Richard Moss
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish Date
- 28 March 2023
- Run Time
- 9 hours 11 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
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.
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Details
- Author
- Richard Moss
- Narrator
- Richard Moss
- Duration
- 9 hours 11 minutes
- Release Date
- 28 March 2023
- ISBN
- 9798765088005
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Genre
- Biography: general, History of Computing, digital and information technologies, History of engineering and technology, Games development and programming
Synopsis
Shareware Heroes is a comprehensive, meticulously researched exploration of an important and too-long overlooked chapter in video game historyShareware 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.
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