Shareware Heroes

Shareware Heroes The Renegades Who Redefined Gaming at the Dawn of the Internet

Paperback (18 Aug 2022)

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Publisher's Synopsis

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.

About the Publisher

Unbound

Unbound

Unbound was founded by three writers: Dan Kieran, Justin Pollard & John Mitchinson. We think people who love books ? primarily readers and writers ? deserve a say in what does or doesn't get published. You may not be aware of it, but even best selling authors are beginning to have very restrictive parameters imposed on the kinds of books they get to write. Put simply, there are lots of potentially great books we're not getting the opportunity to read.

Book information

ISBN: 9781800181748
Publisher: Unbound
Imprint: Unbound
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 338g
Height: 129mm
Width: 197mm
Spine width: 31mm