For the majority of people who didn't yet have a BBS or internet connection (or a friend who would copy the shareware onto a floppy), they also sold a boxed version of the shareware version in stores for a low price, like 5 or 10 bucks I think.

When I was a kid there was a discount store in a strip mall by my house that would sell these shareware floppys for like $2 a pop. So i'd pick up Doom, Wolfenstien, etc for cheap. I imagine many peple did the same.

Also keep in mind that the Doom Shareware floppy had like the entire first episode on it and eventually if you managed to get on a decent internet connection or knew someone who had the rest of the game you could copy that to your shareware version.

Also id games were notoriously easy to pirate. I mean hell Quake 3 Arena for example all you needed was to find pak0 and you were pretty much off to the races. Today it's one of the easiest games to "pirate" on linux. I have the damn pak files on a codeberg repo.

You had to pay for the disk it came on; the internet wasn't publicly available until the year this article was published. Demos for games were typically $5 at retail. You'd also find compilations of demos on a single disk being labeled as "50 games in 1!" even tho they weren't even full games.

The shareware version was available multiple ways.

Most probably got a floppy at a local store for $9 or less that had the 1st 9 levels of Doom (basically paying for the disk/shipping, for a fee demo that was still a great game). Then you were supposed to pay full price for the rest of the disks/levels if you wanted the full game ($30-40 I think).

However, you could (though. Most didn't have the ability to) download the shareware for free on a BBS at dial up speed. Then up grade with the full game with the floppy disks/CD (or a copy... Yo ho).

I was just starting college in 95, had purchased my 1st real PC, and had access to university Internet. So I was one of the lucky ones that made copies for my friends, so we could play on LAN.

Also, Eventually the shareware version was released on those CDs with a ton of free software demos and such that came with gamer/PC magazines back then.