I have been playing a lot of iConquer lately, and it only has a seven-day trial period, with some added bonuses for registering your copy and getting it fired up for network play.
iConquer is pretty much a Risk clone, with the ability to take plug-ins of extra maps and such, and, of course, network support (which is kind of the bread in the basket for this sort of thing). It’s not an OS X-native version of Risk II (which I consider to be the greatest change to Risk’s system ever, and a great move for the balance of the game in the form of new die roll rules and new connecting lines between countries), but it’s great, and it’s a full-featured, OS X game for $13.
So, like a lot of people are more willing to do on Macintosh computers, I paid for the shareware and was a happy customer with my registered version of iConquer.
Well, something goofy happened with my payment over PayPal. I now know what caused it - I used my old savings account number as the payment account - a bank account that doesn’t exist anymore. Well, I got an e-mail from Alex at KavaSoft, asking me what was up in a very polite manner, and politely asking me to remit payment, even though I had already received my license key from the automated system.
I know a lot of people who would have been a lot less tactful in the same situation, and I know a few people who wouldn’t have ponied up the money.
As a Windows user, I can’t remember ever paying for a piece of shareware, except QuakeSpy back in the day.
But as a Mac user, I’m impressed at the response from a shareware author, and I feel more free to contribute to shreware causes. Must be some kind of “community” thing.