John Romero has said that id Software deliberately worked with Taiwanese pirates to help distribute Doom during the shareware era of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Rather than trying to stop copied versions being sold, the studio saw them as a low-cost way to expand the game’s reach in a market it did not know well, with revenue expected from players who later bought the full game.

Romero said id contacted major Taiwanese pirates and sold them large quantities of boxes at very low prices so the distribution could be legitimate, while asking them simply to get the game widely circulated. He argued that copy protection was an unwinnable battle and said id’s priority was earning enough from sales to make its next game; the approach also helped establish an audience for future titles.