The Accelerated Pace of the Win9x Era (1995 to 2001)
Thank you for taking an interest in my book about the Win9x era. I apologize for the incredibly basic HTML website here, but I envisioned this as a simple temporary home in preparation of my project's release. At the bottom of this page, after the mini FAQ, are a few different ways that you can be notified of when the book is released. I plan on releasing it on the Platform1, Platform2, Platform3, and Platform4 platforms. If a hypothetical physical edition ever emerges, then anyone who buys it will also receive a pdf version for free as well, but I'll cross that bridge if I ever get to it. In the meantime, thanks again for the support!
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Why there's certain games in the image above...
The desktop screenshot simply consists of a random selection of my personal favorites and some obvious popular titles. The actual contents in the book are much more diverse and unbiased.
What's actually inside the book...
There are 39 chapters (divided by seven parts) which covers the Win9x era:
- Brief background history on the Win9x era
- 525 games ranked within 15 tiers, as each game has two screenshots, release info such as years/companies involved/genres, and anywhere between four to seven paragraphs of text
- Quick rundown of 10 prominent 3D companies of the era
- Blurbs on the 10 main genres covered in the book
- Small highlights of 25 freeware games from the era
- Explaining 25 controversies of the era
- Desktop screenshots of the 525 games' icons plus a few random programs' icons
- Listing of 348 games with active (as of 2025) communities
- Highlights from the Win9x era's direct predecessor (1994) and successor (2002)
How games are ranked...
First and foremost, my personal preferences did not affect the rankings. I took a very unbiased yet contemporary approach to both the rankings and the writing overall. You won't find any first-person pronouns in the text either; thus, everything reads in a straightforward historical manner. The rankings are determined by three things:
- #1. A game's actual pros and cons. I try my best to point out the factual traits of a game. Since everyone enjoys different things when playing a game, I put myself in the shoes of someone that typically adores the style. I'm not a mind-reader and I may not always be successful, which is why I considered other factors as well.
- #2. In another section, there's a list of 30+ sources from the Win9x era. After I experienced and wrote about a game, I consulted the sources to see what was written at the time. If something didn't align with what I experienced (or I overlooked something), I went back and re-played or re-wrote it.
- #3. I compared each game to other games of the same style from the same (or previous) year. I did this off-paper, and it was basically a way to gauge expectations.
Explaining the tiers...
I decided on the tier system early on, mainly because it's not meaningful to compare drastically different genres against each other, and also to avoid a forced yet rigid 1-to-525 ranking. For example, someone's #1 game might be a first-person shooter title while another person's #1 game might be a real-time strategy title; thus, all 35 games in tier #1 are considered 1st, all 35 games in tier #2 are considered 2nd, all 35 games in tier #14 are considered 14th, and so on. This creates an even playing field overall due to the mishmash of styles in the era.
Did I really play all 525 games...
Yes, all but four of them (since those four relied on defunct online servers). I actually played more than 525 since I had to exclude/re-include/exclude again/replace games as well. A good handful I've played at one point prior to starting this project as I got my first PC in late 1997, but even those games I revisited over the past few years too. Of course, I couldn't complete every game start to finish (though many of them I did). In those instances however, I played it to the point where I felt comfortable enough to write about it, whether it was two hours of in-game time or six hours of in-game time, it was always different. Since this was just a side hobby, sometimes I spent a week straight on the project and sometimes I took a break for a month; thus, nothing was rushed.
Did I copy anything from somewhere else...
I typed every word, captured every screenshot (except for 16 of them due to offline servers), and formatted every page myself. There is a dedicated chapter for legality credits in the back of the book however.
Choosing 1995 to 2001 as the timeline...
I feel like 1995 to 2001 is the ideal timeframe for the Windows 95/98 era. The obvious bookends are Windows 95's release in late 1995 and Windows XP's release in late 2001. The timeframe also lines up with some of the era's significant moments. From 1995 to 2001, we had:
- Worldwide adoption of the internet as it went from dial-up to cable/DSL within only a few years
- Popularization of new genres such as real-time strategy and third-person shooting
- 3D accelerators enhancing graphics which finally matched the arcade cabinets
- An accessible yet a bit flawed operating system which still eliminated many of the headaches caused by DOS
- An influx of print magazines dedicated to PC gaming
- Laptops which handled gaming to an extent
- Processors reaching the 1ghz mark and beyond
- A rise in professional gaming
- Popularization of influential hardware such as USB ports, compatible sound cards, a mouse with a scroll wheel plus one with optical tracking later on, force feedback joysticks, headphones with voice-over-net technology, ZIP discs, DVDs, CD burners, Bluetooth, and an increased importance on graphics cards
- There were also other non-PC factors such as the economic growth in the US and UK, promotion of alternative stances in the mainstream, a thriving market for the 32-bit consoles, an expansion of the IT sector, record-setting budgets for films and TV shows, and so on
Everything happened in the span of about seven years. No time period is perfect, and there were plenty of downfalls and tragedies along the way, but at least there were a lot of positives as well.
The reason why this is only an e-book...
Publishing a physical edition as the first run proved to be difficult. This is because to the best of my knowledge the Win9x gaming scene has never been written in this fashion before and so it's uncharted territory & the Win9x era isn't an extremely popular topic overall & I'm a first-time author & the large amount of text and images would seem daunting in the eyes of a publisher. Ultimately, I resorted to a digital edition, although if a physical edition ever emerges, there's a lot of additions that I'd like to include (some of which is already written but I had to cut due to limitations).
Donating to charity...
During the first six months that this e-book is on the market, I will be donating 50% of all profits to the RCAOA. Unless I get incredibly lucky one day, writing full-time is not my career. It's just something that I like to do on the side. I figured, if I'm gonna play "a few" games and write about them, then I could subtly help others while I do it.
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Again, I truly thank you for visiting this site and taking an interest. If you'd like to be notified on when the release happens, there are four options:
- Click here to enter in your e-mail. I can promise you two things. First, I won't sell or distribute your e-mail address to any third parties. This is just a simplified way for me to send out updates and I guarantee that your privacy comes first. Second, I will only send you four or five e-mails overall: a confirmation/initial e-mail, a heads up e-mail when the release date is confirmed (probably a month or so beforehand), an e-mail on the actual day of release, a reminder e-mail a few weeks after release, and a hypothetical e-mail if another edition ever comes to fruition. That's about it.
- Click here to follow my account on Reddit. You'll get notified whenever I create a new topic somewhere, and as of this writing, I'll only create new topics when it pertains to the book, such as a release date and whatnot.
- Bookmark this page. I'll post at the very top of this page whenever there's an update. You'll have to check back here manually from time to time though.
- Add me as a friend on Discord. I'll then message you with any updates directly, or if you're just in the mood to talk about whatever.