Apogee Software |
Apogee Software, Ltd. is a video game publisher and developer, established in 1987. Today it operates under the 3D Realms trademark. The company is best known for popularizing the shareware distribution model and as the creator of franchises on the Personal computer such as Duke Nukem , and also the publisher of other franchises such as Commander Keen , and Wolfenstein 3D .
= Shareware =
Unlike traditional larger publishers that sold games in retail outlets, Apogee (like many independent developers) sold their products using the shareware method, depending mostly on bulletin board system, such as Software Creations (US) , for distribution of their software. Typically they would provide the first installment of a game trilogy for free and sell the remaining installments by mail order, a method which became known as the Apogee Model .
Apogee s commercial success led to the wide spread adoption of the shareware model by other major publishers such as Capstone, Parallax Software, id Software, Activision and Epic Megagames, and also led to a growth of Software Creations BBS, which would become the largest BBS in North America. Apogee later moved to the traditional retail model through distributors like GT Interactive, however still offers its earlier titles via shareware.
= Background =
Apogee started in 1987 with the release of Scott Miller s Kingdom of Kroz , which used crude extended ASCII characters as graphics. Nevertheless, the game sold quite well and Apogee was born. In 1991 George Broussard joined the company as co-owner, bringing with him several games of his that were previously released under the name Micro F/X. Miller and Broussard run the company to this day.
Apogee published games by other video game developer in addition to its own in-house titles. One of these developers, id Software, contributed to Apogee s success with games such as Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D , but later severed their ties with Apogee with their release of Doom in 1993 (although in its earliest stages, Doom was still an Apogee title).
With the original intent to create a division for every genre of game Apogee produced, the two ), and as a result 3D Realms has in effect replaced Apogee as the brand name to publish games under. Also, by the end of the 1990s, Apogee felt their brand name was more associated with old outdated games and so adopted their 3D Realms brand for all future releases.
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