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

[dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison)]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message news:<3D66792F.F77550E@san.rr.com>...

> OK, put it this way. The latest video game is released. Everyone gets to
> copy it for free. Indeed, before it is announced, everyone knows they'll be
> able to get free copies. How many copies actually sell? How do you pay the

The original ID games (Castle Wolfensein 3D and Doom) were released
shareware, and ID became (and still is) one of the most successful
game companies around. After the first game came out, John Carmack and
the other founders supposedly each went out and bought multiple
imported sports cars. On
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.08/id.html?topic=gaming&topic_set=newmedia
you can read a bit more about their story (including what its like to
ride in John's Ferrari).

Note in particular the paragraph:

The most popular computer game of all time, Doom has sold more than 2
million copies. But that only hints at its popularity. As many as 20
million shareware versions are installed worldwide - unregistered but
perfectly legal copies, distributed free with id's blessing. Myriad
Doom players are creating worlds of their own. By releasing chunks of
their games as shareware, id's marketing strategy turns every player
into a potential distributor and puts the skeleton keys to cyberspace
into millions of hands.

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