The thing being sold by the pirates was a free demo of the game that they didn’t have the infrastructure to properly distribute in some places. Letting the pirates sell it drummed up interest for the full game that they were selling.
There were probably plenty of other ways they could have done this without letting people be scammed but this was likely just the easiest.
The article has the answers you seek.
The thing being sold by the pirates was a free demo of the game that they didn’t have the infrastructure to properly distribute in some places. Letting the pirates sell it drummed up interest for the full game that they were selling.
There were probably plenty of other ways they could have done this without letting people be scammed but this was likely just the easiest.
the line between “legit” and “scammer” is pretty blurry assuming they were really just copying the free-to-copy shareware and selling the floppies.