From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9b30240b5a381bbf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-08-26 07:14:13 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Software Economics was RE: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board? Date: 26 Aug 2002 07:14:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <4519e058.0208260614.13d33ed4@posting.google.com> References: <3D66792F.F77550E@san.rr.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.115.221.98 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1030371253 864 127.0.0.1 (26 Aug 2002 14:14:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Aug 2002 14:14:13 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28412 Date: 2002-08-26T14:14:13+00:00 List-Id: Darren New 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. :-)