Bofferbrauer2 said:
Ever heard of shareware? This is how most Indies sold their games before the Internet allowed to do it completely without physical media. Another way was to develop your game and then mail it to potential publishers, though they risked having to sell the rights to the games when doing so. Finally, several indies simply went and self-published the games, which in the late 90's was relatively easy (They needed just a jewelcase CD in most cases). As for 90's indies becoming classics, Doom, Wolfenstein, Commander Keen, (well pretty much everything from id software at the time became a hit despite technically being an indie developer until their acquisition by Zenimax in 2009), One Must Fall, The Exile/Avernum series (Avernum was originally just an extended remake of Exile), Constructor/Mob Rule, ADOM, Nethack... |
Nope, never heard of shareware, shown how much indies are willing to use it nowadays. For indie developers digital distribution is a Gods send, much easier to release and distributed their games worldwide. That's why so many games were never released outside some markets in past (many never released outside Japan)
I'm perplexed that you listed using big publishers (at risk of losing their legal rights) as a truly viable way to publishing. Seems something hard to hear if you're a small developer.
From those games I know Doom and Wolfstein, which I'm surprised to discover to be indies.
Last edited by IcaroRibeiro - on 11 July 2022
