Bitmap Books' recently released I'm Too Young To Die is a slick, beautifully produced rundown of some of the most seminal years for first-person shooters, chronicling the genre from 1992 to 2002 with insight from key creatives. In this excerpt, author Stuart Maine unpicks some of the key games in an incredible year for the form.
Even if id Software didn’t invent the FPS, Wolfenstein 3D was certainly the moment the genre crossed into the mainstream. Tight gameplay, a compelling theme and the shock of such realistic graphics were critical, of course, but something else that helped Wolfenstein to reach so many players was that it was distributed as shareware.
As hobby products, early videogames had no formal distribution network and were sold through computer stores or software clubs, usually as a disk or tape with photocopied instructions. As a result, there was a certain amount of luck involved in choosing a game; word-of-mouth recommendations were essential. Over time this evolved into more polished boxed products and magazine reviews, but people still had to pay up front for their games and hope they liked them.