Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

Fabien Sanglard - WEBSITE

Aug 17, 2026

Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

In the mid-90s the coolest thing to buy for a PC, besides the incredibly expensive Intel Pentium, was a CD-ROM drive. With their capacity of 640 MiB (three times the storage of PC HDD at the time), CDs allowed enthusiasts to step into<br>a world of multimedia, made of high-resolution 640x480 256 colors palette-indexed photos[1], VOC soundtracks, and play with Video For Windows butter-smooth 12 fps 240x179 videos[2][3] lasting up to several seconds.

For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995)<br>introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). Some added high<br>quality music. My most memorable take on the matter was from id Software's lead developer, John Carmack.

People expect CD games<br>to have tons of digitized speech and video [...] The joke here is that if we ever do a CD version of DOOM, you are going to get the<br>game and “The Making of DOOM” a one hour feature film.<br>John Carmack (Jan '94) for “ATARI EXPLORER ONLINE”

A good idea on paper but bad on CD<br>By June 1996, after three years of hard work, id Software had completed their next title, Quake. As for their previous title, they were going to release both a shareware version and a full version of their game. Since it used a mere 22 MiB of storage, people at id Software had the idea of leveraging the remaining capacity of a CD-ROM. Why not include encrypted versions of the full id catalogue of games? Not only this would cut out the middlemen, it would give instant access to gamers with a simple phone call and a credit card.

The concept was implemented. The CD was announced[4] on July 3, 1996 and released on August 30th[5]. The hacker group GNOMON released Quakecrk.zip only 39 days later[6]. The archive contained QCRACK.EXE, a tool allowing to decrypt every single game on the CD-ROM.

Quake’s shareware retail<br>experiment had proved disastrous. In theory id was going to cut out retailers<br>by allowing gamers to buy the shareware and then call an 800 number to<br>place an order and receive a password that would unlock the rest of the game.

But gamers wasted no time hacking the shareware to unlock the full version<br>of the game for free. Worse, all the mundane aspects of distribution and order<br>fulfillment were spinning out of control. In a desperate measure, id tried to<br>put the brakes on the retail shareware, but it was too late. They were stuck<br>with almost 150,000 CDs sitting in a warehouse.<br>David Kushner (Masters of Doom)

So what happened? Let's dive in!

Getting Quake retail shareware CD<br>Thanks to usenet archives of rec.games.computer.quake.misc, we have detailed discussions[7] of how it worked. A gamer could go to any of the hundreds of CompUSA/Computer City stores and buy the CD for $9.95.

Inside a CompUSA store (1996)

Computer City store (1994) (source)

Quake Shareware CD

The packaging was actually pretty high quality for a shareware product. On my copy, a sticker on the front clarifies this is the "Shareware version" with instructions to call 1-800-669-9342 (or 1-800-ID-GAMES) to unlock the full game.

The phone number is still active today. However you don't reach the unlock center since CompUSA went out of business. The Superstore chain closed between 2007 and 2008. Instead of an unlock operator we get an automated message to sell us elderly stuff.

Upon contacting the operator, users were to also communicate a "SOURCE CODE". It played no part in generating the Unlock code. It may have been a way for the distributors to claim a transaction fee. Browsing eBay, I found many with names indicative of past/present retailers. 12-BSTBY BestBuy, 24-CCITY Computer City, 22-CUSA CompUSA, 88, 11-1111, 38-EB Electronic Boutique, 44-FTRSP Fry's Electronics, 34-EGGH Egghead Software, and 56-MCTR Media Play/ Musicland.

How it was intended to work<br>The first contact was sleek. The GUI was well done. Users could jump directly into Quake Shareware but they could also click on QUAKE UNLOCK.

The CD-ROM also features an ID STUFF section, allowing to browse the catalogue of id games and unlock any of them. Several versions of DOOM are there, along with HEXEN, and HERETIC.

Once the unlock process was started, the GUI generated a CODE NUMBER (which I call CHALLENGE) that was to be communicated to a Service Agent over the phone. Upon paying the fees, an UNLOCK CODE NUMBER (which I call SERIAL) would be received. Checksums on both numbers mitigated issues related to this primitive landline mode of communication.

To avoid replay attacks, the CHALLENGE changes every time the program is run and rotates every 5 min while the GUI is active.

The screen even had the signature provocative tone of the early days of id Software ("those who are too cheap")....