Programmers: Did you make any money at it? Did you have to put in “nag” messages, or withhold a key feature in the free version, or did people just send you money?
Users: What’s an appropriate price for shareware? How much would you have to use a program before you’d contribute anything? (Or would you?)
Any and all comments appreciated.
I love the game Bejewelled (both PC and Palm) but I don’t feel I love it $15-$20 worth, so I took it off both my computer and my Handspring. I also have a Rummy game from Seahorse software that was $8 to register. I felt that was more than fair so I did register it. I tend to mostly use freeware, and I’ll buy shareware if it’s around $10. For some reason that’s the threashold in my cheapskate mind. (My best software deal was a CD called Blast Thru I got at the dollar store. It’s similar to the old Atari Breakout games but like a million times better. ONE DOLLAR! Sweet!) If I was looking for an actual business application or something I’d probably go to the store and buy it, so if I DLed it and was happy with it I’d most likely pay for it. (I’ve yet to find a download I ended up using, so I haven’t yet. Usually hubby is in charge of cramming the computer with actual softwarel.)
As far as writing the programs, I feel that a nag screen isn’t enough. You have to somehow limit the use (certain number of games, options, pages, etc for free before needing to register.) I’d say to get the person hooked, then they can’t use it anymore is the best way to get your money. If registering will only get rid of the nag screen then I don’t think it’s enough incentive. Also, make it easy for people to get the money to you: have a link to your site that takes credit cards or PayPal and have an address they can send checks to and keep it up to date.
I read an article several months ago (I’m sorry I don’t remember the name of the magazine) about several programmers that developed shareware that made them rich. (One guy developed his during his free time at his regular programming job, and he made enough money off it to quit!) So if you’re thinking of doing it and it’s easy for you, I’d say it’s more than worth a shot.
And well worth every penny. I don’t write music, so this is a great way to get my ideas down. The share version only gives you so many bars to work with, and only one track.
Registering gives you enough bars for an opera, and enough tracks for a symphony.
Yeah, I pay for shareware quite a bit. My most recent purchase was Power64, a Commodore 64 emulator for the Macintosh. It’s fun, is all.
Probably the most I’ve ever registered from any single company are the games I bought from Ambrosia Software. They make great games and distribute them via shareware, you gotta love and support that.
I made a screensaver slideshow of model aircraft and submitted it to a freeware site. I got the software from another free site and just had to add the images.
Fun, and several people loaded it, but I’ll never do it again, and no, I got no money.
Got it down to 2 cents a game and finally gave in and paid the $15. Got tired of changing my computer date to play the registered version. Recently downloaded a game called Pocket Tanks. I may end up paying the $16 to register it too.
I’ve paid for a few - unless it’s really great $10 seems to be the limit.
Nag screens are annoying - so much so that the annoy me out of using the program. Giving out the total product works for me about 30% of the time I find the program useful (again if the price it too high I’m not going to buy)
Limited functionality is a double edged sword - limit it too much and your program is useless and a waste of time to try out (since you can’t try out the whole thing). It is also a discouragement to download cripplewarre.
Sometimes the limited functionality is just right - basically they give you a very useful product - one that can be something on it’s own. But you must pay to get additional features. These products are ones I am happy to support and try to. The danger is that sometimes all you want is the limited function version and really have no need for the enhancements.
Strangely enough, it’s games that I most often find worth the shareware $. And they don’t need to be large and complicated either, though they do have to be good.
Example: Galactix. I bought a copy of this way back in 1994 or so. (DOS version.) Great fun little game. A space invaders clone except with better graphics.
I bought the full copy of the game Shadow Warrior on the strength of the shareware alone. I just happened to like this particular game’s style very much. I never bought a copy of Duke Nukem 3D even though that was based on the same engine and made by the same people.
And to re-iterate what Max said, I love Escape Velocity by Ambrosia SW to death. If they’d port it to the PC I’d buy a full copy in a nanosecond. (But they never will - they’ve been very clear about that. Pity. EV could be the MMOG to end all MMOGs. You thought Tradewars was addictive back in your old BBSing days? You ain’t seen NOTHIN’!)
So, moral here? I guess it’s to make something
that people will really like and find really fun. Unfortunately that’s a rather difficult thing to do for one person, much less a large mass of people.
In short, don’t depend on shareware as your source of income. It’s as much luck and timing as skill whether your programs are successful or not.
-Ben
I use a lot of shareware. In my college-student days, I was way out of date paying for it, but I have since caught up pretty good. See list at bottom of post.
I am not a C / C++ programmer, but I did write a FileMaker database that does Gantt charting (a function not present in Excel and, while present in many dedicated graphing and charting software packages, those tend to cost a bit more than I wanted to pay just to be able to do Gantt charting). I offered it for free until I figured out how to make it handle interrupted intervals on the same line elegantly (e.g., the Presidency of Grover Cleveland, who served two nonconsecutive terms as US Prez), and then offered it as shareware. I disabled access to Field Definitions for non-payers, so they could use it to make their charts but could not incorporate its guts in FileMaker solutions they had developed for free—for that they’d have to pay the shareware. No nagware notices, though.
The shareware I use on a perpetual, everyday basis (this may include some freeware by accident, I don’t always remember):
Remember? (calendar & appointment)
Default Folder (Open/Save/Save As dialog enhancement)
OtherMenu (file & app launcher)
DropStuff / Stuffit Expander w/Enhancer (compression s/w)
Snitch (file Get Info dialog enhancer)
GraphicConverter (image viewer & format converter)
Eudora (I guess you could call it shareware?) (email)
Hogwasher (usenet newsgroup client)
FinderPop (“pintware”) (turns folders & volumes into hierarchical menus of their contents)
X-Assist (application switcher / file & app launcher for OS X)
FruitMenu (configurable Apple menu for OS X)
N2MP3 (MP3 compressor)
NetFinder (FTP client)
MacLink Plus (file format converter)
You too? I’ve been playing it for a long while now on my Mac. And they’re coming out with a new version that’s going to be native to Mac OS X. drool
To answer the OP, I’ve never paid for shareware. Then again, I’m a piss-poor teenager. If it were a good product and the price were modest, say under $10, I would register the program, even if it contained no nag messages or disabled features (which actually discourages me from using the program in the first place). You’ve gotta admire a guy who distributes perfectly good software without nagging you or disabling features for free, and sometimes you’ve gotta admire him monetarily. 
Most of the software I use regularly is shareware. I’ve paid for two that I can remember:
Action GoMac
Panic Software’s Audion
I use Eudora in Sponsored mode
And I got Action Menus for free.
Us MAC folk have many of the same tastes and pay for many of the same things. There is some great shareware out there.
I pay for more and more as the years go by. Most little doohickies are fairly priced under $15. It has to be pretty helpful or damn fun to go over $20.
I actually have paid for desktops! 3 different times, too… but they are so damn great I just couldn’t resist:
I like a desktop to not only be pleasing to the eye, but also be designed in such a way as to encourage organization of my icons. BSH does these perfectly, looking great in the bargain.
One strike against shareware (for PCs, anyway), is that there is quite a bit of high-quality freeware floating around these days, and the internet makes it really easy to find.
Back in the early 90’s I used to buy shareware, but lately I’ve always been able to locate great freeware first. Even if the freeware doesn’t match the shareware in quality and features, it tends to make me far less willing to pay for shareware. And boxed software too, come to think of it. Especially when the freeware is sometimes far superior to the paying alternatives.
I did pay for UltraEdit32, though.
-fh
I buy shareware on occasion. The latest was Pontifex, the puzzle game of building solid bridges on shoestring budgets. It rocks.
I apologize for the hijack; I swear this will come back to your question in a minute - albeit in a roundabout way.
PC USERS! WE CAN PLAY EV TOO!!
http://www.dim.com/~mackys/irregular/current/EscapeVelocity.html
I cobbled this all together last afternoon and I was up almost until dawn(!!) playing EV on my PII-800. I’m up to ~850k credits. Looking for my 2.5M to get that Corvette ship. I’ve go through 4 ships - dogfighting is really tough with the poor framerate under this emulator. So now I just run away.
Okay, on the topic of shareware again…
Here’s an example of what can happen if you really turn out something amazing. This Mac emulator I’m using to play EV costs $150 to buy. I’m using the demo version, but I’m very seriously considering buying a $150 piece of software JUST SO I CAN PLAY A $20 shareware game!!
Again, this is a one in a million shot. For whatever reason, I just really like EV. And I’m willing to pay a lot of money for it because I like it so much. I’m honestly not sure that J Random programmer can emulate this success no matter how hard he tries. EV seems to have been one of those crazy projects that occurs to someone late at night, and it was hacked out in a fit of inspiration. Artificially creating that moment of inspiration is very, very hard. Possibly impossible.
One of the things that Eric S Raymond wrote in The Cathedral and the Bazaar (a book about the success of the open source model of software development) is that the best programs come from a programmer finding something he really needs, that no current product does well, and writing himself a little quickie program to do it. The program then accumulates people who use it, because just like the author, they need a program to do this task and there’s nothing else that does it well. These users give very intelligent, very rapid feedback to the original programmer, who improves the program. This in turn brings more people into the userbase, because the program is better, and the whole cycle repeats.
ESR advocates going so far as to release the source code (ie, “open source”) so that the more technically inclined of your users can actually put in new features for you. I don’t think you can go to this extreme, but there may be a worthwhile lesson here for someon trying to make a successful shareware program: listen to your users. They use your software on a daily basis and if you want to know how to make it better, they can tell you.
-Ben
Another Mac user speaks up:
(Well, I have a PC too…)
I pay for shareware all the time. I just bought Fetch (Mac FTP program). I also have a Outlook Express Archiver (best $12 I ever spent) and a typing tutor program. There are other shareware programs I own too.
Usually, if the software is too disabled, or has too short of a “tryout” time, I won’t even bother to download it. If a few features are disabled, I will usually try it out, and then buy it if it isn’t too expensive. For me, the right price is usually under $15. I’ll pay more if it’s a really great program.
Yeah, I have bought some shareware for my PC too. CuteFTP comes to mind, plus this “CPU Cool” program which basically brought my PC back from beeping hell. (It was overheating all the time, and making ear-splitting beeping sounds whenever it’d overheat.) The best $13 I ever spent on PC shareware.
I think we’ve purchased almost every shareware game that Everett Kaser releases (check out www.kaser.com to see what’s available). They’re all logic/puzzle games, which my wife generally prefers to shoot-em-ups. (I’ll confess that I’m more of a Doom / Quake / Duke Nukem sort.)
Like a lot of other folks here, I’ve paid for DefaultFolder, GraphicConverter, FileBuddy, BBEdit, and several other things on the Mac, and UltraEdit32 on the PC (I’ve actually bought UE more than once, on behalf of different companies I’ve worked for). I’m sure there’re others I’ve forgotten about also.
Obviously, my threshold is higher than some other respondents who’ve mentioned an upper limit of about $10 or $15; most of the things I’ve paid for have actually cost more than that – but all of them had proved themselves worth far more than the shareware fee. I’ll generally only go to the trouble and expense when something is far and away the best available solution, or is nearly equivalent to a commercial product that’s out of my price range.
I registered the Everchanging Book of Names because I used it so much. It was worth the approx. $10 I paid for it.
I have registered several shareware programs over the years. Paint Shop Pro is the most expensive, and I have upgraded it twice since then for even more than the original registration fee. I also use GetRight for downloading and Winzip for compression. None of them is disabled (Or weren’t before I paid for them. I don’t know about now.) and I was willing to pay to help support the companies. And I registered Bejeweled because I was up over 50 games and I was tired of waiting for it to load. 