I played that other game Age of Empires many times to. Love that game as it takes s kill and thought as well as two fingers and rapid movement and I became extremely proficient at it as time went by. My computer often struggled to cope with size of my army and enemies that I faced. I would sit there for hours on end, maneuvering, shifting, attacking and withdrawing till sun started to come up on horizon. It would be then that I would force myself away and climb into bed only to resurface two hours later, make a large urn of coffee and re-attack with a vengeance. Although this game never caused me to start charging at other cars on highways or lobbing screwed up notes at others in office it did cause me to take a good look at myself. What would happen if suddenly I started to do this sort of thing in real life? If I started to make deals with my neighbors to attack next door offices or ping elastic bands at mail delivery boy? I’ve stopped playing games now and have become a serious and boring "been there, done that and cured myself" type of person. I do have long and empty hours where I feel urge to take up where I left off and I get extremely jealous when others talk about games or I see others playing them but I resist. I think it must be like smoking where one never loses urge to light up and take a draw – just one! No, No, I cannot! I now sit there and lecture others on dangers of playing games and that they should stop before it is too late. And they? They just nod politely and then disappear to talk amongst themselves............."must be and ex-player", whisper, whisper, whisper.

Many of shareware directories provide ratings and user assessments. Often user reviews provide insight to important feature sets. Allowing consumers an opportunity to assess and compare multiple products prior to making a decision.

Let us not forget delivery advantage shareware model has over traditional retail counterpart. Shareware allows for instant gratification, there is no need to wait for a shipment because consumers can download and use software immediately.

What does this all mean? Marketing via shareware method is far less expensive than traditional advertising, increased customer demands, personalized service and instant satisfaction all provide an added consumer benefits. With Shareware, software developers, have a great method for consumers to evaluate and purchase their software. Consumers can easily determine if software is suitable. Ultimately, by allowing software to sell itself, consumers often obtain top quality software that is priced far less than traditional retail applications.