| | Shareware is a marketing method for software and games, whereby a trial version
of the game is distributed without payment ahead of time as a
free game download.
Typically shareware games are obtained free of charge by downloading,
thus allowing one to try out the game ahead of time. Shareware is also known as
try before you buy, demoware, trialware and many other names. A shareware program
is accompanied by a request for payment, and often payment is required per the
terms of the license past a set period of time. The term shareware was coined by
Bob Wallace to describe his word processor PC-Write in the mid-1980s.
We offer all of our Mac games and Windows games under the shareware or downloadable
game model. This means you can try our free game demos
and play our games for free before deciding to buy them.
Sometimes, people writing too fast misspell downloads as donwloads, or games as gmaes,
resulting in terms like "free game donwloads", "download gmaes",
"free gmae demos", or even "free gmaes to donwload". Care should be
taken to avoid these common mistakes. Due to language abuse, some people intentionally
write "gamez" instead of "games".
Game cracks and serials
Shareware games and game downloads are susceptible to cracks, serials, and illegal
downloads (also called warez). Sharing game serials with friends may seem harmless,
but game cracks and game serials seriously hurt computer game developers. See
Game Serials,
Game Warez and
Game Cracks for more details.
See also : Game Genres,
Free Game Downloads,
Computer Games.
This article is licensed under the GFDL.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shareware".
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