As one of the most influential games of all time, *Doom* was widely distributed at launch through the “shareware” model—essentially a demo version that offered the game’s first chapter for free, with players able to purchase the full version from id Software if they enjoyed it, which included the remaining two chapters.
However, in that era when the internet was not yet widespread, a small number of vendors would package the Doom shareware floppy disks, which should have been free, and sell them directly for prices like $5. Even though these were not the real full versions, and id Software didn’t earn a cent from them, it still successfully fooled many unsuspecting players.
As for how id Software actually handled this situation back then? While attending QuakeCon recently, co-founder John Romero, known as the “Father of Doom,” recalled the situation and said that not only did they not feel dissatisfied, they were even a bit happy.
“Sell as much as you can. It doesn’t matter if we don’t make money—just get the game into players’ hands. You’d go into a store back then and see maybe ten different packages, but they were all selling Doom shareware. I didn’t care at all. Get the game to everyone, spread it out as far as possible!” John Romero recalled his mindset at the time.
Next, John Romero also recounted an anecdote about the Taiwan market, one of the biggest piracy markets in the 1990s. According to him, his team knew that many Taiwanese game vendors were selling large quantities of copied shareware Doom floppy disks. So they specifically contacted the largest pirate game distributor in Taiwan at the time and proactively sold them official Doom game packaging to make the games look more like authentic copies.
Sell the game! Let them have fun. As long as there are players who want to buy the remaining chapters of the game, we’ll make money. We have no intention of making money from the demo version,” he said.
As for why he remained so unfazed by this chaos, John Romero said that id Software officially regarded it as a “distribution method,” because in that era of underdeveloped internet, it was actually not easy for players to obtain the official free demo, and they were always thinking about how to more effectively explore the impact of demo games on the PC gaming market.
At the time, official authorized demo software for games like Doom had to be distributed via BBS, but in that era of dial-up internet, this distribution method was very limited in its reach. Because of this, these unofficial demo versions sold by private parties actually became a more efficient channel, even though these versions were completely unauthorized by id Software.
Part of the reason behind this can also be credited to id Software’s attitude toward copy protection for the Doom demo version, since they had no intention of implementing any protection measures at the time. John Romero believed that if someone wanted to copy their games, they would always find a way, so they ultimately decided not to spend extra money on it.
Source: KOCPC Chinese