How We Found Games Before Steam

Before Steam, finding a PC game could mean borrowing a disk, reading a magazine, dialing into a bulletin board, or examining a box in a shop. Playing it could require a completely different journey.

A shareware episode might arrive through a friend. The instructions for buying the rest were inside the game. A magazine could introduce a title, include a demo on a disc, and leave the full purchase to a retailer.

An introduction, a playable sample, and a purchase could happen in three different places. The developer still needed a player to get from one to the next.

Shareware let the game make the introduction

Scott Miller’s account of Apogee describes a model built around a freely distributed first episode. Players who wanted more could buy further episodes. Copies travelled through bulletin boards, online services, and other players. Benj Edwards, interview with Scott Miller, 2009.

The sample carried the argument. Instead of asking someone to imagine whether a screenshot would be fun, the developer put a playable portion in front of them.

That required the ordering route to travel with the software. A copied disk could become separated from the advertisement or conversation that first introduced it. Instructions inside the package kept the next action available.

Shareware was a distribution and payment arrangement. Its exact permissions depended on the package. The sensible historical question is what a particular developer allowed people to copy and what payment purchased.

For a studio releasing a demo today, the same separation helps. The demo page should say what it contains, which platforms run it, and where a player goes after finishing.

A magazine could be a recommendation engine with a disc attached

A magazine assembled reviews, previews, advertisements, and technical advice into one issue. Its cover and contents page gave readers a selection before they had typed a query.

Computer Gaming World’s preserved issues let us inspect that mixture directly. Issue 142, from May 1996, is a dated example of the publication rather than a reconstructed memory of what every gaming magazine contained. Computer Gaming World, issue 142, May 1996.

A cover disc changed the weight of a recommendation. A reader could have software in hand while reading about games, instead of waiting for each file over a modem. The issue and the disc also imposed limits: space, production deadlines, and a fixed selection.

The modern equivalent is any curated event or collection that puts a playable game beside a recommendation. A studio still needs a useful destination when that initial placement sends someone looking for details.

The official website became part of the route

The preserved Half-Life news archive includes a July 27, 1998 entry linking a preview with screenshots and an interview. Other entries cover E3, multiplayer plans, and release information. Sierra and Valve, Half-Life news archive, 1998.

That page connected activity elsewhere to a place the publisher controlled. A reader could move from a press mention to an official explanation, then follow another reference.

For a present-day PC or console game, give that route a stable address. Use the game name in the page title, a descriptive H1, and a readable slug. Put the genre and supported platforms in text near the top.

Screenshots should show the game clearly and have useful alternative text where the image conveys information. Store buttons need platform names. A row of unexplained icons asks a new player to do work the page could do for them.

Ask Jim to check the route from your demo to your store page.

Steam gathered more of the journey into one client

A client can put installation, a library, updates, and launching a game near one another. That changes the player’s route after the first recommendation, even when the recommendation comes from somewhere else.

GOG’s own history dates its start to 2008 and describes its work making older PC games available. Its catalog creates another route into games whose original boxes, installers, or supported systems belong to an earlier period. GOG, history of its PC-game preservation work, 2023.

The distribution story continues across several models. A console player may encounter a title through a video, find details on the official website, and buy through a console store. A PC player may follow a review to a demo and return to buy much later.

Check the handoff your next campaign will use

Start where the recommendation appears. Follow it on a phone, then on a desktop. Check whether the game’s name, edition, and release status remain consistent at every stop.

Ask another person to try the same route. “Find the PC demo” is a better test than “does this look good?” Watch which link they choose and whether the destination matches the promise.

Keep the game page available after the campaign ends. A review, an old forum thread, or a saved link can send a player there months later. A page that only says the festival is over has forgotten why the player arrived.

The disk, disc, and download client each changed how software reached a machine. The website can still make the next step easier by answering a few ordinary questions well.

Sources and calculations

This history uses a developer interview, preserved documentation and magazine material, a publisher news archive, and company retrospectives. The route diagrams and checklists are Gridlok’s analysis of the tasks at each handoff.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Why a beautiful website can still be an HTML shell
• The internet’s old front doors

References

1. Benj Edwards, interview with Scott Miller, 2009
2. id Software, DOOM v1.8 documentation, 1995, preserved copy
3. Computer Gaming World, issue 142, May 1996
4. Sierra and Valve, Half-Life news archive, 1998
5. Valve, Steam twentieth-anniversary retrospective, 2023
6. GOG, history of its PC-game preservation work, 2023