Many software developers, like myself, have a difficult time finding the right balance between respecting the rights of the users of their software (such as releasing the source code under a license ...

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 ...

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 ...

Some of the largest sites for shareware include Download.com (www.download.com), Shareware.com (www.shareware.com) and hotfiles.com (www.hotfiles.com). These are large, general-interest sites focused ...

More of China's programmers are writing shareware--home-brewed, low-cost software--for fun and small profit, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Unlike commercial software from behemoths ...

I had no idea how important shareware was, and arguably still is, to the gaming industry until today. To me, shareware represented the few games I managed to play for free throughout the '90s. In ...

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 ...

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 look back at the history of indie gaming, from bedroom coders through crowd-funding to the current crowded scene. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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.

Welcome to another edition of GameSpotting, where, if you like what you see, we invite you to upgrade to the full version for a mere $15. In a serendipitous turn of events, two of this week's columns ...