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John Romero says id Software once sold Doom boxes to Taiwanese pirates so fans there could have legit copies (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 day ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[-] TechLich@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

It wasn't actually piracy, so much as ripping off customers.

What they were selling was copies of the shareware demo version of doom, which was supposed to be free. When id found out, they sold them empty boxes to put the shareware in and keep selling it.

If people bought the demo and liked the game, they would buy the full version from id by mail order.

Kinda shady tbh.

[-] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

From the wiki:

By late 1995, Doom was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 95. According to Wilbur, by June 1996 it had been downloaded 20 million times. According to PC Data, by April 1998 Doom's shareware edition had yielded 1.36 million units sold and US$8.74 million in revenue in the United States. This led PC Data to declare it the country's 4th-best-selling computer game since 1993.

Lots of people still didn't have good Internet access in the 90s, so shareware was often sold for cheap in software stores— especially Doom.

[-] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's hard to recall, but I'm my country you'd get the shareware floppies from a special rack at the computer store. I can't remember the price but it might have been a few dollars

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Not sure if it's better or worse, but I get "full of shit" vibes from this story. Like he just wanted a "look how unconventional we were" story and didn't think through how it sounded. Who knows

this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
146 points (100.0% liked)

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