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A Time Before the Web: BBS and the Seed of Shareware

Let’s set the scene. It’s the late 80s, early 90s. Dial-up modems scream like wounded seagulls when you connect. The internet as we know it? Not even a twinkle. But we had BBSes—Bulletin Board Systems. Think of them as text-only, slow-as-molasses online hangouts run by regular people (called SysOps). You’d log on, trade messages, share files… and most importantly, download software.

This was where shareware took root. It was a leap of faith. Developers would release a full episode of their game—hours of play, a complete little story—and say, "Here. Play it. Copy it. Give it to your friend. If you want more… send us a check."

No publishers. No retailers. Just creators and players, linked by an honor code. Crazy, right? Back then, when every game cost $40 upfront, giving away half of yours felt like handing out cash on the street. But it worked. Oh, how it worked.

A New Model for a New Decade

The early 90s were wild for PC gaming. Hardware was finally catching up—suddenly, games had better graphics, actual sound. But getting those games to people? Still stuck in the stone age. Big publishers controlled every store shelf. If you were a small team—some guys in a garage, coding after work—you had zero shot at getting your game in Walmart or Electronics Boutique.

Shareware smashed that door down. It democratized everything. You didn’t need a million-dollar marketing budget. You didn’t need a publisher’s "blessing." Your marketing was the game. That free first episode? It was the best demo ever—something people could sink their teeth into, fall in love with, and then beg for more.

And BBSes? They were the gasoline. SysOps would post new shareware games like they were handing out free pizza. Users would download them (over 2400 baud modems—hours, by the way), then copy the disks and pass them to friends. Or upload them to another BBS. It spread like digital wildfire.

The genius of it—especially the way companies like Apogee did it—was psychological. That first episode wasn’t just a teaser. It was a complete experience. You’d beat it, feel satisfied… and then the last screen would hit you. A simple message: "Want to see what happens next? Send us $20, and we’ll mail you the rest." It was a cliffhanger, but for games. You had to know. I still remember staring at that screen, debating if I could convince my parents to write a check. Spoiler: I did.

The Titans of Shareware: Apogee and id Software

This revolution didn’t happen by accident. Two companies led the charge—they weren’t just using shareware. They invented how it worked.

Apogee Software: The Shareware Pioneer

Scott Miller started Apogee in 1987 (later renamed 3D Realms), and he’s the guy who turned shareware from a hobby into a business. His trick? The episodic model. Instead of a demo, give away the first full chapter of a multi-part game. It sounds obvious now, but back then? Game-changer.

Their early stuff, like Kingdom of Kroz, laid the groundwork. But 1990’s Commander Keen? That’s when things exploded.

Commander Keen was a side-scrolling platformer—bright, colorful, and smoother than anything we’d seen on a PC. You played as Billy Blaze, an 8-year-old genius who put on his brother’s football helmet (relatable, right? Who didn’t borrow their sibling’s stuff?) and became a galaxy-saving hero. The first episode, "Marooned on Mars," hit BBSes and spread faster than a schoolyard rumor.

People went nuts for it. The charm, the gameplay, the way it felt like a "real" game (not some cheap shareware knockoff). Orders for the next two episodes poured in. Suddenly, the guys who made Keen—John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack—could quit their day jobs. They formed a little company called id Software. Yeah, that id Software.

Apogee didn’t stop. They cranked out hits: Duke Nukem, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Rise of the Triad. If a game had Apogee’s name on it, you knew it was good. Their seal of quality meant more than any publisher’s logo.

id Software: The Tech Wizards

Apogee cracked the shareware business code. id Software? They cracked games—like, really cracked ’em open, making PCs do stuff no one thought those clunky machines had in ’em. These guys weren’t just developers—they were nerd royalty, the kind of programmers and artists who looked at a computer’s limits and laughed.

Their first big hit after splitting off from Apogee? 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D. This wasn’t just “another game.” This invented the first-person shooter. Think about that—before, you’d stare down at your character like you were watching an ant farm. Here? You were B.J. Blazkowicz, the Allied spy stuck in a Nazi fortress. Turning corners, gun in hand, hearing enemies before you saw them… it was visceral. Unreal. Like stepping into a movie, but you held the controller.

And yeah, same shareware trick—first episode free. Uploaded to BBSes, copied onto floppies until the disks were worn thin, passed around like it was contraband (even though it wasn’t). By 1993? 100,000 copies sold. For shareware back then? That was unheard of. Like a garage band topping the charts.

Then December 1993 hit. DOOM.

If Wolfenstein knocked politely on the door of gaming history, DOOM kicked it off its hinges and set the porch on fire. John Carmack’s engine was straight-up magic. Textured floors and ceilings—no more flat, boring levels that felt like you were walking on paper! Lights that flickered, walls that curved… suddenly, Mars’ moons felt real. And the demons? From Hell, sure, but they felt present. The atmosphere? Chilling enough that you’d check over your shoulder. The action? Heart-pounding, finger-cramping chaos.

id decided to self-publish it with shareware. Uploaded the first episode—“Knee-Deep in the Dead”—to a University of Wisconsin FTP server. And then… well. Chaos. University networks slowed to a crawl, like someone dumped molasses in the wires. Corporate IT departments lost their minds—employees were sneaking downloads on company time. Everyone wanted DOOM.

Oh, and the multiplayer? “Deathmatches” where you fought friends over the network? Forget about it. I skipped homework for a solid week just to play against my cousin—shoutout to dial-up internet that cut out every five minutes, but we didn’t care. It was addictive in the best way.

DOOM didn’t just sell games. It made PC gaming mainstream. Suddenly, your dad—who still thought “video games” meant Pong—knew what DOOM was. Your teacher mentioned it in class, like it was a pop culture moment (because it was). It was a phenomenon.

Then 1996 rolled around with Duke Nukem 3D, from 3D Realms—Apogee’s new 3D-focused brand. Duke was a wise-cracking, alien-stomping hero, like if an 80s action movie star got shrunk down into a game. You could shoot vending machines for soda (which healed you, somehow), smash furniture, and quote lines that stuck in your head for years (“Hail to the king, baby!”). It joined DOOM and id’s other banger, Quake, as the “big three” FPS games of the era.

Back then? If you didn’t play those three? You weren’t a PC gamer. Plain and simple. Those games didn’t just define a genre—they defined a generation of nerds huddled over their keyboards, yelling at their screens, and falling in love with what games could be.

The End of an Era, But Not the Legacy

Shareware’s golden age couldn’t last forever. It was a product of its time—BBSes, dial-up, floppy disks. By the late 90s, the web was taking off. CD-ROMs had 650MB of space (unthinkable next to a 1.44MB floppy!). Suddenly, you could download a demo from a developer’s website in minutes. Digital stores would soon follow, making mail-in checks obsolete.

Shareware faded. But it didn’t die. It evolved.

Free-to-play games? That’s shareware’s grandkid. "Try before you buy" demos? Direct descendants. Early access? The same trust—give players a piece, let them fall in love, then ask for support.

The real legacy? It’s the indie scene. Shareware gave small developers a voice. It proved you didn’t need a publisher to make something great. It built a bond between creators and players—one where you didn’t just buy a game, you supported a person. The modding communities around DOOM? That’s shareware’s spirit—sharing, tweaking, making something new together.

It’s wild to think about. A bunch of developers took a risk: make a great game, give part of it away, and trust people to care. That risk turned floppy disks into empires. It turned kids in basements into legends. It turned PC gaming from a niche hobby into something millions love.

Shareware was the gateway for so many of us. What was your first? Mine was Commander Keen—I wore that floppy disk out, replaying "Marooned on Mars" until the drive started making scary noises. Post your first free gaming obsession in the comments. I’m willing to bet it’s a good one.