![]() ![]() The use of the shareware business model would revolutionize the software industry and how software was distributed. With two decades of experience in distributing records and VHS tapes, GoodTimes knew all there was to know about physical product manufacturing and marketing, supply chains, and end-consumer needs and habits and would go on to release some of the best-looking and most professional physical shareware releases of the time. Since only a few had online access and with excessive communication rates it was sometimes cheaper going to the store and paying for a physical shareware release, even though it’s a bit counterintuitive paying for something that’s supposed to be free.Īt the time a myriad of different publishers would jump the shareware wagon often resulting in awkward physical shareware releases with appalling artwork, misspelled titles, wrong screenshots, and whatnot. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, shareware software was widely distributed over online services, BBS’s and by companies like GoodTimes. The few with Internet or BBS access could download the software and distribute it amongst friends and colleagues, who would then be encouraged to send in a registration fee to the author, typically by postal mail, to obtain the full product. Prior to the popularity of the World Wide Web and widespread Internet access, shareware was often the only economical way for small independent software authors to get their products onto people’s computers. While shareware was nothing new and had been around in some form or shape ever since the mid-’80s. ![]() ![]() The same year Goodtimes Software, a publishing label of GT Interactive publishes its first shareware titles. The brothers urge to cater for this explosive market and in February of 1993 establishes GT Interactive Software Corporation, a new publishing subsidiary of GoodTimes Home Video, focusing on software products. In addition, GoodTimes released film trailers, classic television programs, and newsreels.īy the early ’90s, the home entertainment landscape was changing again now with computers and video games becoming an ever-increasing financial incentive. A home video company dedicated primarily to distributing media from well-established companies like Columbia Pictures, Orion Home Video, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures to release inexpensive tapes of many of their films and TV series. A decade later, in 1984, when the funky ’70s had turned into the glamorous ’80s, and when VHS and Betamax machines ruled in home entertainment, the three Brothers establishes GoodTimes Home Video. In 1974 brothers Kenneth, Joseph, and Stanley Cayre had established their own record label, Salsoul Records, in New York City tapping into the popular disco movement. The story of GT Interactive Software is essentially the story of three decades of media and entertainment. But before touching on titles published by GT Interactive Software label, I thought I would start with the first shareware titles released when the company was releasing shareware under its GoodTimes Software label in early 1993. Titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake all came to define PC gaming in the ’90s and made everybody aware of GT Interactive as a major player in the game publishing business. I have been wanting to do an article on GT Interactive Software and its many significantly published titles for quite some time. ![]()
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