Re: Software Economics was RE: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board?

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> The original ID games (Castle Wolfensein 3D and Doom) were released
> shareware,

Yes, long after the relatively short timeframe of profitability. Releasing
DOOM as shareware after sales have tapered off to a dribble is a wise
business decision. They're not making any more money at it because it's
already been widely pirated, so you might as well give away the source so
that your competitors get hit as well.

> So perhaps you should ask John Carmack this question. :-)

Carmack didn't release DOOM as shareware. He released it as fee-ware, then
later re-released it as shareware. My question was, if you knew you didn't
have to pay for it ever, even on the first day, how many people would?

> The most popular computer game of all time, Doom 

Considering that Myst has *also* been quoted as being the most popular
computer game of all time, I'm not sure I trust either set of statistics.
How do they know how many people are playing the shareware version? No
citation there.

-- 
Darren New 
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