If you enjoy classic role-playing adventures that provide hours of addictive and virtually bug-free entertainment, you should check out shareware titles Geneforge and Avernum from Spiderweb Software.

In a serendipitous turn of events, two of this week's columns just so happen to focus on shareware and demo versions of games--but can you guess which ones? If guerilla-level marketing doesn't spark ...

While Doom's success had been a great validation of the mail order shareware model, the PC was changing in ways that made that model an increasingly poor fit. The traditional publishers started to ...

We look back at the history of indie gaming, from bedroom coders through crowd-funding to the current crowded scene. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

My favorite unappreciated DOS game of all time is Pyro 2, written by Michael O'Brien who went on to be head of Arenanet (Guild Wars) though I didn't find that out till recently. You play a pyromaniac ...

We can thank floppy disks in Ziploc bags for the FPS genre as we know it. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The year is 1982. The ...

You've probably heard the term bandied about in relation to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, but shareware's roots go back far earlier. The concept originally emerged (accounts vary, but probably no earlier ...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Gamers who are old enough to remember the PC experience before AOL brought dial-up internet access into everyone's homes will probably also remember ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A lot of new-school gamers probably read the headline and go..."Huh, shareware? What's that?" us ...