Absurd Shareware Art from the Troubled Wiz Technology

Yeah I kinda forgot I had all these DOS games. So let's admire their weirdness! Released in the 1990s by Wiz Technology Inc, which the Los Angeles Times called "a troubled supplier of discount software" after they went bankrupt following years of financial sketchiness.
Here's that LA Times newspaper article: www.latimes.co...

[@LGRBlerbs]

It’s possible I may have gotten these as a donation, hrm. I can’t recall, I’ve purchased and received so many shareware collections over the years that they blend together… If you happened to have sent these to me, let me know!

[@phoenixzappa7366]

This was a brilliant video. Really brought me back to the nineties.

[@Njuregen]

@@phoenixzappa7366 I got these things as well from friends and like small stores, but then on CD a little later in the second half of the 90's. I still have a bunch of them ^^

[@bghoody5665]

Maybe we can get a video on the company Wiz Technology in the future?

[@summerlaverdure]

@@bghoody5665 yess another Tech Tales!!!

[@kintozero3169]

I definitely remember seeing shareware collections like these in a few unboxing videos. Might not be too hard to figure out by looking at the collection piles at the end of each unboxing video

[@kirishima638]

The days of buying a mag with a shareware disk and going through the entire thing looking for that one hidden gem of a game or app. I miss that.

[@rasmusolesen5307]

I miss the mags the most. But stuff like the Humble Bundle subscription can sometimes give the same discovery vibe.

[@kirishima638]

@@rasmusolesen5307 the physical aspect was a big part of it though. It’s hard to value purely digital content

[@SimonCallahan]

I remember Wiz Technology! Our family had a CD full of shareware bearing the Wiz logo, as well as their slogan, "Easy to use. Just type Wiz!". Stand out games included Commander Keen and Penny Penguin's Math Bingo. My brother was obsessed with it. Unfortunately, he took it to school one day and it came back broken, he was so upset. No more Penny Penguin.

[@misterkefir]

Just pure 90s insanity. I love it.

[@neveza]

Holy hell, this video has uncovered the 'missing' game that I could remember, but never found. Boppin'. I thought I just misremembered crystal caves. I can now rest in peace.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Oooh. Time for my bi-annual recommendation of this classic video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4HcmIBvmKd6j5I

[@JFD62780]

This game just so happens to be the origin of the word, YEET! It may be a meme verb now, but here's where it all started! XD

[@Robbie-mw5uu]

@@JFD62780 the term yeet is seen being used in King of the Hill in 1999 it became popular from a vine video in 2014

[@volvo09]

"Free Pager" I love that sticker! Totally piece of the era.

[@TimDoherty]

Man this stuff makes so so nostalgic. While it said the $5 computer software store, they sold for $19.95 on my country! I made my own video covering my collection. I’m excited to see what you have and what I never bought back then.

[@TheZero1er]

Ah man Raptor really takes me back. The demo was on my cousin's computer and every time I would go to her house, I played he hell out of it.

[@TooLazyToFail]

The full version is on Steam! It holds up and there will be content there that wasn't on the demo.

[@jugularSignal]

Wiz sounds like they need a Tech Tales dedication. Fascinating stuff!

[@Snev]

1:23 Nice to meet you, Commander Kringe

[@PaulSoth]

Commander Keen looks like the artist just drew over one of his kid's school photos. Reminds me of the art for the American distribution of "Atomic Punk" (arcade Bomberman).

[@TheGreatAtario]

What blows my mind is that this company _had an IPO and was publicly traded._

[@DiceRobo]

Since it has appeared in the video, I need to mention that the creators of Boppin' were going to make another game that was basically No Man's sky but for DOS and it was set in a multiverse exploration instead of just space. They didn't do it and years later one of the creators made huge foundations for anime and manga on the internet for english readers, then they made several web comics that all had huge crazy rules for how the laws of physics worked in their worlds and it was revealed later that they were all connected with some crazy cool stuff about like people turned into a ai that then went back in time to create a splinter universe that is actually a prisim of light through the first universe and... so on and so forth. I didn't explain ANY of that well, but it's just always in my head whenever i see Boppin'

[@negirno]

Yeah _Unicorn Jelly_ is ever/always/is/was a unique webcomic from the early 00's.

[@interactingarts]

Look into Noctis. It was No Man's Sky for DOS.

[@dsallen7914]

Duuude I remember Wiz! The second or third game I ever owned was a copy of Apogee's Pharaoh's Tomb on 5 1/4 floppy in about 1991. Funny thing is, I never saw any of this weird cover art, because all the Wiz-distributed titles I owned were just a floppy and sleeve, sold loose without any packaging, and usually purchased out a a big box of other questionable shareware floppies in a flea market-like setting. 🤔 But they all had that Wizard logo on the floppy label.

[@crescentfreshsongs]

I remember getting Wolf 3D and Duke Nukem II in blister packaging similar to these. No fun weird artwork, but I still check eBay now and then hoping that one of them shows up. It can be so frustrating looking for particularly obscure (possibly even local) releases like that, especially when you're going off of 30 year old memories, but that's what makes the hunt exciting.

[@giz644.]

Thank you Clint. So many of those games I loved and played the hell out of as a kid.

[@fattomandeibu]

Seeing Cannon Fodder in a shareware collection is kinda surreal, I have the big box Amiga version of both 1 and 2. They probably didn't use the original artwork for that one as there was outrage over their use of a poppy with the slogan "War Has Never Been So Much Fun!"(also the lyrics of the theme song in the Amiga version), which is the symbol of Remembrance Day.

[@DavePoo2]

The original box has a camouflage soldier on the front, but he is very well hidden, so the box mostly looks green. It was pretty strange box art for it's day.

[@tomproctor8406]

@@DavePoo2 well blow me down, I've never noticed the army dude!

[@fattomandeibu]

@@DavePoo2 It was changed at the last minute due to the "offensiveness" of the original,

[@moloch5801]

Didn't they claim it was glorifying war and disrespecting veterans? Of course, they never actually bothered playing the game before venting their outrage. If they had, they'd realise that it was one of the most anti-war games ever made; it showed just how much of a pointless waste of human life it is. Everyone should hear the intro song!

[@fattomandeibu]

@@moloch5801 Yeah, moral outrage is typically really strange like that. Brass Eye summed up British newspaper crap pretty well. Of course, the papers were up in arms about that, too.

[@shorty1k]

Oh my god you have a treasuretrove of things that made me happy as a child. Wiz discs were how I played most every dos game back in the 90s. I used to get them in the bargain store in my tiny town every time my mom would take me there. Man such nice memories.

[@zh84]

9:25 I got a magazine cover disc with "Vinyl Goddess from Mars" on it and quite enjoyed it, but was too embarrassed by the prospect of getting a "free" giant poster of a model in a PVC leotard and thigh boots ever to order the paid-for version!

[@TheNightRichard]

I remember seeing racks of shareware at the grocery store on 3.5" floppy for $5 each. Ahhh those were the days.

[@SAM-ru4vx]

Radio shack 😀

[@TimDoherty]

This made me look over my collection to see what I had, but you don't have (at least in your video) and I found the following. Doom, Hugo House of Horrors, Hugo II WhoDunit, Hugo III Jungle of Doom, Duke Nukem and One Must Fall 2097. Also my one says "Halloween Harry" on the cover instead of Alien Carnage! I hope you can acquire the missing pieces.

[@BrotherJP333SP]

Have a funtastic new year Clint. Here's to many more LGR things!

[@mmmlinux]

i never had the packaging but that little wizard icon just brought back some memories.

[@Vermilicious]

I wouldn't mind a comeback for shareware. Fun times.

[@poisonempress]

these shareware discs brought back memories of the few random games I played as a small child, they weren't shareware but it sparked off that old memory and now I need to jump down some rabbit holes to find what I played.

[@JohnKelly2]

We used to get a shareware catalog in the mail. My mom would let me pick out like $20 worth of games. They didn't have any actual packaging, just a disk with a text only label shoved in a generic mailer. The catalogs were just black and white text with descriptions of each game. I remember getting a bunch of the Moraff's games.

[@zerocooler7]

Yes, we did the same. I got a lot of shareware through the catalog.

[@olik136]

So in Germany nobody had credit cards at the time.. so you would have to mail cash money to get the full version of the shareware you got from magazines or friends and stuff.. naturally nobody ever did that so we all were very familiar with the first few levels of Commander Keen 6 and Doom....

[@holisticreviews]

I thought I had dredged my entire memory for all its DOS games but that God of Thunder art caught my eye and that’s one more forgotten game brought to light.

[@samroberts7404]

I can't believe that cannon fodder was a shareware release in the states! It was a great game that was big box in the stores in the UK and well worth the price.

[@DavePoo2]

I assume it wasn't the full game on the disk?

[@v2joecr]

That reminded me of a vending machine I saw back in the 1990's. You put in an amount I can't remember the prices & they would give you a shareware copy of the software on a floppy disk. I want to say it started with laser in the name of the machine. The one I saw was in Utah, but I can't remember which store I saw it in.

[@ZacharyMyers-n3y]

That is amazing. I cannot believe whatever company decided, "Let's put out a vending machine to sell these cheap games!" and then followed through with it.

[@RSK412]

Man I havent seen an LGR video in a long time. Its good to hear your voice.

[@gerald8573]

Happy New Year, your videos help me get through... everything.

[@alehel88]

I miss shareware CDs so much!

[@JustinEmlay]

My local Ralphs grocery store used to sell 5.25 and 3.5 shareware disks for a buck. This was of course LONG before CD-ROM. I had so much fun looking through those. I want to say Pharaoh's Tomb was the first one I got.

[@LimitZer0]

This was my introduction to Solar Winds. I still can't figure out if that game was ever fully released.

[@ExplosiveAction]

This is supremely nostalgic. We had different cheap shareware releases in Australia from different companies. Forgot all about Nitemare 3D!

[@goatbone]

I'm Australian too and I remember buying Wiz

[@chrisellis4400]

I'm pretty sure I bought a few of these from the discount store Chicken Feed in Tasmania in the mid to late 90s.

[@goatbone]

@@chrisellis4400 yep me too

[@MiSambra]

Never have I seen such a collection of cursed imagery.

[@Tofuboi]

I remember these distinct cover arts at the local discount stores here in Australia. I wonder if it was Wiz or a subsidiary but this is pretty much how I got a lot of my shareware back in the 90s. Begging my parents to get the latest disk that was on the shelf at the checkout. :D Thanks for bringing back these memories Clint!

[@OrigamiPhoenix]

I remember playing Warheads for Windows from a massive compilation shareware disc from near the end of that era. I still remember the little tune that played when you started a new game or level.

[@jeffescortlx]

Thank you for showing me raptor call of the shadows. I played it as a young teen but couldn't remember what it was called, just remember playing it. Worked nice on my 486 DX 2 66 MHz.

[@Sevenigma777]

Man its nice to see you upload again. I feel like it was last year sometime since you last uploaded 😉

[@jansenart0]

I finally found the Shareware I was looking for for YEARS! "Foobar vs the DEA"!!!

[@jansenart0]

Aside from the malware, the convenience of a prepackaged CD full of shareware was a boon. I loved MacAddict's CDs back in the day.

[@forbiddenera]

So much nostalgia here for me. I've played almost all of these.

[@einokeskitalo3217]

Having played through Traffic Department 2192, that art definitely made me chuckle. Though you do fly a helicopter in the game at times!

[@awwrelic]

Oh boy....While I don't quite remember WIZ Technologies, I do remember the store I worked at (Schottensteins in Columbus OH, Value City elsewhere) started getting bunches of shareware releases starting around 1995. They were almost always $1 each, and always on floppies. The one group we got had a variety of games like Sango Fighter, Wolfenstein 3D, Nitemare 3D, DOOM, Duke Nukum/Nukem and more. Some of the older stuff was even on 5 1/4" floppies! Another group of software was boxed copies of Epic shareware like Jill of the Jungle and several individual Epic Pinball tables like Super Android and Cyborgirl. And I remember when I first started hunting for titles for my very first CD drive, Micro Center had a goodly amount of shareware/junkware, usually for $4.99 or so. Ah, those were the days.....

[@humidbeing]

I remember these! My mom bought me a copy of Raptor at the grocery store.

[@MetalDeathMusic]

Loved seeing this. I got one of these no name shareware disks of Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold from a gas station in an outdoors mall in Kentucky years ago on a trip with my Grandma. It only cost $1. I wish I knew what happened to it.

[@Islandswamp]

I didn’t understand the whole legality of shareware and I got scared that I was gonna get in trouble for never registering our software.

[@flyingerasehead]

I remember some games would say as you were logging out "If you played my game you MUST register for it now!!!" which scared me.

[@howHumam]

I've owned a few of these over the years. I never thought about how weird the art is for this stuff but it's a good example of a field practically no artists create in. I've seen amazing game boxes, but I've seen so much "we want a cool box now, we don't care" sadness it's soured the whole thing which is mostly antiquated now...

[@swolfington]

i remember buying more than a few of these back in the day. Got them at the grocery store (i think it was probably Safeway), of all places.

[@LGRBlerbs]

That LA Times article specifically mentions them selling at grocery stores, so that tracks!

[@craigrobbins2463]

I was just waiting for you to immediately jump into Raptor gameplay and history specifically because that game is amazing and still available to play.

[@fordfalcon85]

Wow, they're mint! They sold them here in Australia too! I had Monster Bash & Traffic Department, and my brother had Raptor! So cool. We thought we were buying full version games and felt ripped off when we realised they were only the demo versions.

[@freddyk021]

Nostalgia trip for sure! Would get one of these for a whole $2 back in the mid 90s. Going thru the specs on each one just to make sure it would run on my old 286. Major Stryker! Jetpack! Nitemare 3D! Traffic Department 2192! Monster Bash! Epic Pinball! Wolfenstein 3d! All in black and white and pc speaker.

[@A2vov]

Wow this brought back some amazing memories. I was in the shareware business in the early 90's.

[@Katherine_The_Okay]

I'm not sure whether it's sad or amusing how many of those covers are bringing back memories from my high school and college years...

[@Scorpious187]

Wow... I used to *love* Raptor. Such a fun game, I actually own it on GoG now because I loved it so much.

[@Roanski]

Oh my god that Paganitzu cover is the best thing ever. I want to put that on my wall as a piece of fine art.

[@Merylstreep1949]

Yeah! Office Max was NOTORIOUS for having these by the ton!

[@RetroGamingNook]

I have purchased several of these games lately on GOG. Awesome to see these packages that I vaguely remember from working at Staples in the '90s. Peg panels full of these shareware games right at the registers that never sold @ only 99¢ a piece... then having to destroy them all for disposal.😪

[@honuswagnercardman3]

My dad got me a few Wiz Technology disks when he'd go on business trips way back in the 90's, Commander Keen 1 and Hugo's House of Horror are the two I remember the most, they definitely came from an airport gift shop

[@thomasg86]

YES! I was hoping this had Xargon in it. The Wiz version was the one I had and although I hadn't seen this in 20 years I could still remember it distinctly! The only shareware game I used my allowance to buy the full version of!

[@muffythevampirelayer_]

I had so many of those as a kid. When my dad and I would go to Egghead Software growing up in LA, he would always let me pick out one.

[@lostuser6410]

I googled Vinyl Goddess from Mars out of curiosity and interestingly enough under the reception tab of the Wikipedia article it cites a review Clint made back in 2009, I thought that was neat

[@spartonberry]

WOW! A free pager! That just sweetens the deal on the DOS shareware!

[@barrierite]

Ohh these! I remember around the mid '90's here in NZ the ubiquitous retail chain The Warehouse briefly sold these. The '$5 software store' bit was covered up with a sticker and they were sold for $20 (NZD) each. Bought one and thought it was a full version, ahh yeah NAH! These later on (around '98 I think) turned up at Surplustronics, a surplus electronics shop up the top of Queen St in Auckland CBD and were being sold off for a $1, there were still some leftover when I worked there in 2000, bit of a blast from the past!

[@JGreen-le8xx]

Happy New Year LGR!

[@r66fplaysgames]

I had the Math Rescue, Word Rescue, Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf & a few others , from Wiz Technology, on 3 1/2" inch floppy disks. The Fuzzy's World one came on 2 3 1/2" disks. From what I remember, the ones that I had came from a, now defunct, store called Place's, basically a poor man's Wal-Mart, in my hometown of Carrollton, MO.

[@I.____.....__...__]

I remember seeing these on those rotating displays (like the kind you see sunglasses on). I distinctly remember a lot of Apogee games. I still have a bunch of Wiz stuff, mostly CGA games and old DOS programs.

[@TheMrRuttazzo]

It's baffling how much more power artists and illustrators used to have back then. It's not like there was a lack of them, look at the good cover stuff from that time. Cheap companies simply couldn't afford them or mess around with software instead. And if they did, then the difference in quality was a clear night and day comparison like in this video. Today I can still recognize corporate crap-art style, but on a much more subtle and subconscious level. Illustrators today are being straight-up compromised and boycotted on every aspect of their work by those who have never picked up a pencil.

[@JFTC709]

I saw that live-action Commander Keen cover at Radioshack nearly 30 years ago, I remember thinking it was really weird

[@Mech4]

I've got some floppies from Wiz Technology Inc. "Jazz Jackrabbit" and 2 floppies for the demo of "Teen Agent". A bunch of others from, I'm guessing, Australian companies that did similar packages: "RPM Shareware", "JLM Creative Software", "EFESS Software" and "ASIA, AusGames International Shareware Australia". Just a whole bunch of small companies that were interchangeable with each other for cheap shareware compilations.

[@kevinbatdorf]

that gun holding art looks like something by stable diffusion

[@ZimLuvGigan]

This itches my demo disc nostalgia

[@lobstarooo]

Oh wow, I had totally forgotten about Traffic Department 2192. What a game that was.

[@gibgun]

I was hoping Bio Menace was in the pile, but never could I have imagined that would be the cover 😂

[@ChristianBehnke]

OMG nostalgia-rush! I had some of those! Now I wish I still had them all these years later.

[@erikmerchant567]

I love these shareware disks myself, having a soft spot for the free disks enclosed in the old PC and MAC magazines. I have a complete set of MAC Addict mags w/ disks I've been meaning to archive. I hope if you open these you spend a few moments archiving these for posterity.

[@BobSmith-o8c]

My local dollar store used to sell these. This was how I acquired Duke Nukem I & II. They sold them for the recommended $5 - which was a bit steep, considering there was another dollar store a bit further from me that would sell disks for $2 that would have two games on them. I also remember buying a really crappy top down racing game from the Wiz line up which came on a pink floppy disk, which I'd never seen before.

[@JVHShack]

It might be interesting to cover Wiz Technology as an "Odd Tales" episode. Maybe...?

[@graugaarddk]

the first thing that came to mind, when you mentioned the prepaid celular phone thingy, was GTA IVs Wiz Wireless commercials from the radio.

[@TheMoogleMaster]

I remember these from the grocery store back in the 90s as well, and being a kid I thought they were the full version.

[@HSKCHER]

Yooo mystic towers was amazing. We used to have all these shareware games back in the game and I don't think we ever upgraded to the real version of one of them. Can't imagine how many times I played this game and gawked at the demo at the end where it showed you what was to come in the full game

[@PCUnicorn]

4:41 conspiricy time travel theory time: those hands look exactly like something a AI image creator would think was right.

[@HR-wd6cw]

I remember the shareware compilation CDs that you could get through some magazines too. but yes I do remember buying some of these games through the Shareware racks found at various stores (Raptor, for example, I had as shareware). Of course most of these games (the full versions) can be downloaded as freeware or abandonware in some cases.

[@Kamakazie27]

That Nitemare 3D art seriously looks like it was AI generated. Insanity.

[@mattsword41]

Loved Raptor - a shareware great ;)

[@VidweII]

I was 6 to 16 in the 90's, and knew of and actually played either the SW or full release copy of...3 of these games...that I remember.

[@letsseewherethisgoes]

Holy shit, I have some shareware from Wiz still hanging around that came from my cousins back in the day. Pretty sure my shareware copies of Duke 2, Monster Bash, and maybe one other came from Wiz.

[@1973Washu]

I remember back in the day there was this place that would send you a catalog of all their shareware and you would order discs through the mail. It was always a bit hit or miss since the descriptions were somewhat vague.

[@Death_MTL_Dude]

Happy New Years Clint!

[@CezaryAkakios]

How many millions of kids suffered the ultimate disappointment of convincing their parents to buy these and then discovering that they get the Shareware version of the game and not the full registered version. Man, I would have been so pissed. The packaging really should be more clear, but of course they're not gonna say that if it costs them the sale. I guess I feel lucky that I was a BBS person during that period and had no trouble getting shareware through local boards without paying anything.

[@Goludan]

Those "trippy" backgrounds reappeared all over cheap POGs later.

[@ru5t397]

First game I ever bought for my 486 Dx266 (First PC) was this version of Wolf 3d at Australian type Dollar Store for $5. Still remember that cover 28 years later.

[@jorgepais2876]

11:55 that must be the worst nuclear mushroom ever depicted and, at that point, all the buildings around should be shattering...

[@gracekim1998]

Happy new year

[@aukondk]

Reminded me of a few shareware titles I had played to death back in the day but had forgotten about. A few are going cheap on Steam and GOG so I might pick 'em up.

[@gregx5096]

"Tutor by Association" sounds like a felony charge, or at least a misdemeanor 😅

[@flyingerasehead]

Daww, I was hoping you had the Blake Stone game in that stack. I bought it in an Albertson's in 1994 or so. It had the tentacle monster seen at 7:09 behind clipart of a man wearing a flight helmet+oxygen mask.

[@wabbit234]

These were 20NZD a pop down here in New Zealand. My poor parents having to shell out for these because my brother and I would pester them non-stop to get at least one game whenever we would go to the bookstore. They probably got their money back as far as free tech support goes later on down the road, but still, wildly over priced in our funny little country.

[@Solarnova]

Ahh, the days of Nitemare 3D (actually Hugo IV). It consisted of 3 episodes in the full retail: 1- Hugo's House & Gardens of Horrors 2- Hugo fights the Robots 3- Hugo goes to hell I always found it annoying that David P Gray decided on a hell episode for his game, because every FPS around the time of this release seemed to do the same thing.