Shareware is a software marketing concept where an incomplete or time-limited version of a program is released to entice people into buying the full (registered) version. Doom and Heretic were both initially released as shareware, each containing only the first respective nine-level episode in the unregistered version: Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead and Heretic: City of the Damned.

Part of the reason Doom II was not given a shareware release, according to John Carmack, was that "[a] lot of people consider themselves to have "finished DOOM" when they just finished the shareware episode."^[1]

Notes Edit

1. ↑ Doomworld.com (1999), Interview with John Carmack, (question 15). Retrieved on April 11, 2008.

External links Edit

• Doom: Knee-Deep in the Dead v1.9 (and text file), at the id Software FTP site.
  • Mirrors at Doomworld/idgames
  • Older versions on Doomworld: v1.0 v1.1 v1.2 v1.4 v1.5 v1.6
• Heretic: City of the Damned v1.2 (and text file), at the id Software FTP site.
  • Mirrors at Doomworld/idgames
• Download Hexen 4-level demo at Doomworld/idgames
• Download Strife teaser v1.1 at Doomworld/idgames
• Shareware Wikipedia article