The early 1980s saw the emergence of a new breed of software developers who gave their games away for free (usually through dial-up BBSs) in the hope that some players would enjoy the games enough to ...

With Apple’s introduction of an iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) last week, it seems everyone and their brother is hopping on the iPhone bandwagon or considering the jump. There are still some ...

We're rerunning Richard Cobbett's classic Crapshoot column, in which he rolled the dice and took a chance on obscure games—both good and bad. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...

Just like many people close to my age, I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Shareware games on our home PC. Better than a game demo, you could play the first "episode" of a game for free, but then ...

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 ...

Terms such as Freeware, Free software, Open source, Shareware, Trialware, Adware, Nagware, etc are often used to define programs. Does one really know the difference between freeware and free software ...

Who doesn’t remember Commander Keen or Wolfenstein 3D, two great shareware games that helped many a gamer get into gaming. Today we celebrate those games with a gallery of eight of the most ...

Welcome to Ars Gaming Week 2019! As a staff full of gamers and game-lovers, we'll be serving up extra reviews, guides, interviews, and other stories all about gaming from August 19 to August 23.

Games An indie dev worried about being seen as a ripoff after discovering a game similar to the one they were making, but then the original dev responded: 'Don't be discouraged' Survival & Crafting ...

Back before YouTube and Twitch and always online DRM, developers needed more effective ways of marketing than just relying on word of mouth. This resulted in shareware, demos and demo discs, free ...

Capiche is a secret society for SaaS power users, building a new community of people who care about software to make the SaaS industry more transparent, together. Matthew Guay is Capiche‘s founding ...