It's shareware. You can find the image of the full box on Amazon. It states there it's shareware.

https://www.amazon.com/Wolfenstein-3D-Blake-S … n/dp/B000NLD67K

You can download & check here:

https://archive.org/details/wolfenstein-3-d-a … panion-edition/

Hey Rawit thanks for the quick reply! Thats all the confirmation I need. I wonder why that game is on Amazon. 🤣
I wasn't born yet in the 90s and I sometimes ponder why even shareware games had huge boxes. Also if shareware was free why did people buy shareware and then they bought the full game rather than just buying the full game in the first place?
Interesting time period for games and in my opinion the decade when the best were created.

MAZter wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:26:

You can download & check here:

https://archive.org/details/wolfenstein-3-d-a … panion-edition/

Thanks! I'll check that out too. Archive is always a good place to find old games and shareware.

In my opinion from experience I used to get shareware bundles usually half dozen to dozen games mostly popular games with some full version lame games depending on software publishers which would bring some money in for the flops and encourage buying full versions of the shareware.
I usually ended up bootlegging until I could pick up a copy for my collection.

Greywolf1 wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:49:

In my opinion from experience I used to get shareware bundles usually half dozen to dozen games mostly popular games with some full version lame games depending on software publishers which would bring some money in for the flops and encourage buying full versions of the shareware.
I usually ended up bootlegging until I could pick up a copy for my collection.

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense. It's interesting to think about. I guess the slow download times for software on pc made the decision to get shareware on a disc easier too

Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:29:

I wasn't born yet in the 90s and I sometimes ponder why even shareware games had huge boxes. Also if shareware was free why did people buy shareware and then they bought the full game rather than just buying the full game in the first place?
Interesting time period for games and in my opinion the decade when the best were created.

Internet wasn't commonplace till around the mid 90's so most of us were completely offline and wasn't always possible to get a copy off a friend.
Games were also expensive. In Australia you were looking around $60-$80 AUD for a new game (BigMac meal was $3 for a rough price guide)
The same game in shareware was $10 or less.
I suspect the big box helped sales, kids getting impulse purchases and parents more willing to spend $10 for what looked like the same product.
I know when we first got our PC it had Raptor Call of the Shadows shareware Pre installed, Not known any better I purchased the shareware copy for $5 thinking I got a deal. Then had to spend another $30 when I did find the full version.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-01-22, 23:55:

Internet wasn't commonplace till around the mid 90's so most of us were completely offline and wasn't always possible to get a […]
Show full quote

Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:29:

I wasn't born yet in the 90s and I sometimes ponder why even shareware games had huge boxes. Also if shareware was free why did people buy shareware and then they bought the full game rather than just buying the full game in the first place?
Interesting time period for games and in my opinion the decade when the best were created.

Internet wasn't commonplace till around the mid 90's so most of us were completely offline and wasn't always possible to get a copy off a friend.
Games were also expensive. In Australia you were looking around $60-$80 AUD for a new game (BigMac meal was $3 for a rough price guide)
The same game in shareware was $10 or less.
I suspect the big box helped sales, kids getting impulse purchases and parents more willing to spend $10 for what looked like the same product.
I know when we first got our PC it had Raptor Call of the Shadows shareware Pre installed, Not known any better I purchased the shareware copy for $5 thinking I got a deal. Then had to spend another $30 when I did find the full version.

Thanks for the reply. Thats a lot of interesting information and hearing stories about how the gaming industry was in the 90s is mind blowing to me. Shareware is kind of a genius way of marketing and it's always cool to find old shareware games in thrift stores or on eBay. It's a cool idea and I feel like the concept of demos being treated like a full game should be more common now. Something like that on steam would be cool

Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:29:

I wasn't born yet in the 90s and I sometimes ponder why even shareware games had huge boxes. Also if shareware was free why did people buy shareware and then they bought the full game rather than just buying the full game in the first place?
Interesting time period for games and in my opinion the decade when the best were created.

Well, it was a compilation of many things to try out.
Especially shareware CD-ROMs were huge in capacity, about 650 MB of files.

But it wasn't just about games and applications, but also documents like cheat codes, walkthroughs, fan fiction.
Music (MOD music), animations (flick, FLI/FLC), pictures and sound effects (VOC, WAV) and more.

That way, the western world got an early access to Japan animatione (anime), too, I think.
You suddenly had access to screen captures (taken via frame grabber, handy scanner) and fan arts of things like Kiki's delivery service, Dirty Pair, Orange Road, Nausicaä (aka Warriors of the wind) etc.
Some were GIFs from the 1980s, even, according to the file dates!

Personally, I got into contact with "smileys" (emoticons) first time thanks to shareware CDs.
The little freeware game Jiji and the mysterious forest was a Windows 3.1 JRPG that used Japanese smileys : ^-^ rather than :-)

So all in all, exploring those shareware/freeware/public domain CDs was a bit like browsing the internet, too.
Just much cheaper, if you consider that you held over 600 MBs in your hands.

Also, some CDs such as driver CDs also contained copies of websites, too.
So you could "browse" the internet locally.

Other shareware-style compilation CDs did focus on sound effects (for video editors at home), music (MOD, MID, WAVE), graphics (DTP, cliparts, photos, nsfw photos), humorous things etc.
Astronomy/stargazing CDs were also a thing. A mixture of space photos and shareware programs.

Edit: Other CDs with video clips and cartoons/animes had existed, too.
There were VideoCDs/CD-is, but also QuickTime CDs with anime episodes in *.mov format.

Of course, it was also possible to download files instead just like today.
But with a 14k4 or 28k8 modem it required lots of patience.

There had been FTP servers early on, mailbox systems (BBSes) etc.

CompuServe from the US was a big online service and many tech companies had their own forum there, including download sections.

The internet, at the time, was still a place of the educated and the computer freaks/social outsiders.
Universities and other research facilities were the ones with a proper internet connection (better than modem or ISDN).

Edit: https://www.britannica.com/technology/T1

The advantage of the shareware CDs was that they were collections of recent files.
Companies and networks of shareware vendors around globe had collected all sorts of files and kept issuing new shareware CDs each month or so.

But the idea of shareware vendors dates back to early 80s, I think.
That was when you could mail order certain shareware titles on 5,25" floppies, still.
Not that this wasn't possible in the 90s, anymore, but by this time the compilations were more popular.

There was also some sort of competition between the shareware vendors, I think.
That's why all the strange art came to be. Just the files weren't enough.
Shareware packs had gotten cover art that we would classify as "fan art" nowadays. ;)
Shareware magazines had, existed, too. With articles and tips and tricks.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-01-23, 00:40:

Well, it was a compilation of many things to try out. Especially shareware CD-ROMs were huge in capacity, about 650 MB of files. […]
Show full quote

Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:29:

I wasn't born yet in the 90s and I sometimes ponder why even shareware games had huge boxes. Also if shareware was free why did people buy shareware and then they bought the full game rather than just buying the full game in the first place?
Interesting time period for games and in my opinion the decade when the best were created.

Well, it was a compilation of many things to try out.
Especially shareware CD-ROMs were huge in capacity, about 650 MB of files.

But it wasn't just about games and applications, but also documents like cheat codes, walkthroughs, fan fiction.
Music (MOD music), animations (flick, FLI/FLC), pictures and sound effects (VOC, WAV) and more.

That way, the western world got an early access to Japan animatione (anime), too, I think.
You suddenly had access to screen captures (taken via frame grabber, handy scanner) and fan arts of things like Kiki's delivery service, Dirty Pair, Orange Road, Nausicaä (aka Warriors of the wind) etc.
Some were GIFs from the 1980s, even, according to the file dates!

Personally, I got into contact with "smileys" (emoticons) first time thanks to shareware CDs.
The little freeware game Jiji and the mysterious forest was a Windows 3.1 JRPG that used Japanese smileys : ^-^ rather than 😀

So all in all, exploring those shareware/freeware/public domain CDs was a bit like browsing the internet, too.
Just much cheaper, if you consider that you held over 600 MBs in your hands.

Also, some CDs such as driver CDs also contained copies of websites, too.
So you could "browse" the internet locally.

Other shareware-style compilation CDs did focus on sound effects (for video editors at home), music (MOD, MID, WAVE), graphics (DTP, cliparts, photos, nsfw photos), humorous things etc.
Astronomy/stargazing CDs were also a thing. A mixture of space photos and shareware programs.

Edit: Other CDs with video clips and cartoons/animes had existed, too.
There were VideoCDs/CD-is, but also QuickTime CDs with anime episodes in *.mov format.

Of course, it was also possible to download files instead just like today.
But with a 14k4 or 28k8 modem it required lots of patience.

There had been FTP servers early on, mailbox systems (BBSes) etc.

CompuServe from the US was a big online service and many tech companies had their own forum there, including download sections.

The internet, at the time, was still a place of the educated and the computer freaks/social outsiders.
Universities and other research facilities were the ones with a proper internet connection (better than modem or ISDN).

Edit: https://www.britannica.com/technology/T1

The advantage of the shareware CDs was that they were collections of recent files.
Companies and networks of shareware vendors around globe had collected all sorts of files and kept issuing new shareware CDs each month or so.

But the idea of shareware vendors dates back to early 80s, I think.
That was when you could mail order certain shareware titles on 5,25" floppies, still.
Not that this wasn't possible in the 90s, anymore, but by this time the compilations were more popular.

There was also some sort of competition between the shareware vendors, I think.
That's why all the strange art came to be. Just the files weren't enough.
Shareware packs had gotten cover art that we would classify as "fan art" nowadays. 😉
Shareware magazines had, existed, too. With articles and tips and tricks.

This is an awesome post. I didn't know about most of this stuff. Full episodes of TV shows in gif files is an crazy idea. Damn I can't believe how much less corporate games were back in the 90s. Sounds like a creative time of inspiration and innovation in games made by people who cared about what they were making. My friends always think it's weird that I play old games but the games from the time just valued technically impressive workarounds and unprecedented creativity over profit or anything like that. If you compare some obscure less popular shooter from the 90s like Blake Stone with the equivalent today (Concord 🤮) it just shows that even though games were jankier, they focused on improving upon past games and pushing older engines to their limits rather than being generic and playing it safe. Games were smaller than today but they were still big and I think the industry was the perfect size to produce memorable and distinctly creative games full of soul and passion.
I like new games too but I think the old ones didn't take themselves seriously and had a lot of innovation and thought put into them.

Sorry for the rant I take game design seriously and I've made a few games before based around technical limitations

Anyway the shareware concept is cool. Local websites is a funny idea tho

I also remember some shareware were as good as full games as there were still open to lvl editors so you could play fan made levels or maps

Greywolf1 wrote on 2025-01-23, 09:48:

I also remember some shareware were as good as full games as there were still open to lvl editors so you could play fan made levels or maps

One thing I didn't like or that was a problem with shareware was often that first free episode was the best bit of the game.
Makes sense as your trying to encourage people to go buy the rest, but wasn't uncommon the rest was just more of the same, maybe with just a few extra sprites, weapons, etc that didn't really change gameplay

Greywolf1 wrote on 2025-01-23, 09:48:

I also remember some shareware were as good as full games as there were still open to lvl editors so you could play fan made levels or maps

That's interesting and I think doom worked that way right?

chinny22 wrote on 2025-01-23, 23:09:

Greywolf1 wrote on 2025-01-23, 09:48:

I also remember some shareware were as good as full games as there were still open to lvl editors so you could play fan made levels or maps

One thing I didn't like or that was a problem with shareware was often that first free episode was the best bit of the game.
Makes sense as your trying to encourage people to go buy the rest, but wasn't uncommon the rest was just more of the same, maybe with just a few extra sprites, weapons, etc that didn't really change gameplay

Blood's last few episodes had different level and art design compared to the first. Facts