The Wild History Of Demo Discs, Shareware And Covertapes
Share
Image: Kotaku
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 slices of playable content that spawned one of the most interesting phases in the gaming.
The earliest roots of the demo as we know it can be traced right back to the computers of the ’80s and ’90s. An entire industry built itself around the idea of giving people freely distributed packages, to convince users to buy the full product.
About Us - Who s on the GamesRadar+ team?
gamesradar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gamesradar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Wild History Of Demo Discs, Shareware And Covertapes
Share
Image: Kotaku
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 slices of playable content that spawned one of the most interesting phases in the gaming.
The earliest roots of the demo as we know it can be traced right back to the computers of the ’80s and ’90s. An entire industry built itself around the idea of giving people freely distributed packages, to convince users to buy the full product.
Play editor Ian Dean announced the news on Future s site GamesRadar Friday. Our aim is for Play to go farther and deeper than ever before into the world of PlayStation gaming, Dean said. And crucially, it s made by the same team of writers, editors, and designers, with the same deep industry access, quality of writing, and passion for all things PlayStation.
An accompanying FAQ about the move charcterized the split as mutual, saying, All good things come to an end, and along with Sony we felt that the Official PlayStation Magazine had finally earned a well-deserved retirement.
The first issue of Play launches this week and features Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on the cover.
Sunday, May 02, 2021
The Official PlayStation Magazine (OPM) UK has called it quits after 33 years of being in circulation, marking the end of an era. As reported by Video Games Chronicle, OPM was the last licensed magazine still in circulation following the closures of Official Nintendo Magazine in 2014 and Official Xbox Magazine in 2020. All three were published by Future.
In a press release, Future said that it will now publish a new (unlicensed) magazine for PlayStation gamers called PLAY, with the aim of going “farther and deeper than ever before into the world of PlayStation gaming.” Future didn’t say why it decided to pull the plug on OPM in favor of yet another PlayStation-focused magazine, but the press release alludes to Sony having a say in the decision to not renew the license.
vimarsana © 2020. All Rights Reserved.