Trade Wars

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Title screen from v11.20 of TradeWars 2 (1993, John Morris).

Trade Wars is a series of computer games dating back to 1984.[1][2] Inspired by Hunt the Wumpus, the board game Risk, and the original space trader game Star Trader,[3] Trade Wars and its variants became the preeminent BBS door games, played by tens of thousands of computer enthusiasts around the world at the peak of their popularity in the early 1990s.

History

The first game with the title Trade Wars was developed by Chris Sherrick in BASIC for the TRS-80 Model II. Sherrick soon ported it to the IBM PC for the Nochange BBS system in 1984.[2][4]

Though other space trading games appeared earlier, including "DECWAR" (1974) and "MegaWars" (1983), Sherrick has said he was unfamiliar with either game, and conceived his game as a cross between between Dave Kaufman's BASIC program Star Trader (1974), the board game Risk (game)|Risk, and Gregory Yob's Hunt the Wumpus (1972).[2]

Because Sherrick released his earliest versions with a free license, variations of the game proliferated. By 1993, Computer Gaming World remarked "Many versions are circulating ... Except for the core concepts and basic mechanics, no two boards seem to carry the same exact game." [5] Some of these variants include TradeWars 2, developed by Sherrick and John Morris; TradeWars V: Galactic Armageddon by Andrew Vega; and Alan Davenport's TradeWars 1000 and Yankee Trader.

In September 1986, James T. Gunderson, a sysop known by the handle "Lord Darkseid", ported Trade Wars to Turbo Pascal 3 for use on WWIV BBSes. Like most games for WWIV at this time, Gunderson's Trade Wars implementation was written as a "chain" or sub-program. This enabled sysops to install the game without recompiling WWIV, but it required Gunderston to distribute the game as source code, rather than as compiled code. He called his version TW2 for WWIV, and it shared no source code with the Sherrick version, which had been written in Basic.

A succession of sysops and users modified Gunderson's version, making bug fixes, adding new features, and incorporating thematic elements from disparate sources like Star Trek and Superman.[2]

TradeWars 2001

Main article: TradeWars 2001

WWIV sysop Gary Martin also obtained this the source code, which he later described as a "hot mess" that "crashed all the time." In an effort to stabilize the game, he overhauled the core source code, and released his new version as TradeWars 2001 in late 1986. Only 14 sysops paid to register TW2001.[6]

TradeWars 2002

Main article: TradeWars 2002

Martin's next effort, the TradeWars 2002 series, would become arguably the most popular variant of Trade Wars.

In 1988, the author of WWIV, Wayne Bell, ported his BBS software in Turbo C. This major change meant older chain programs would no longer work, so beginning in March 1989, Martin embarked on a total rewrite of TW2001. He added numerous new features, such as the StarDock, where players could interact with each other, buy new ships, and watch "movies" (ANSI art animations). A fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation at this time, Martin decided to give his game a more consistent Star Trek theme, and established the Ferrengi as the game's main antagonists.[6] TradeWars 2002 v1.00 was released in June 1991. No longer just a WWIV chain, TW2002 was a standalone program that could run with almost any BBS software.

TW2002 v1, v2, and v3 were BBS mainstays throughout the 1990s. In 1998, Gary Martin sold the Trade Wars license to John Pritchett, who had written Tradewars 2002 v3 and its Gold expansion. John and his company, EIS, developed a stand-alone game server, TradeWars Game Server, which has allowed Trade Wars to survive beyond the BBS era. Martin and Pritchett together have sold more than 28,000 TW2002 registrations between 1990 and 2025.[7]

Gameplay

Though specifics vary between versions, in general the player is a trader in a galaxy with a fixed set of other players (either human or computer). The players seek to gain control of resources: usually fuel ore, food, and equipment, and travel through sectors of the galaxy trading them for money or undervalued resources. Players use their wealth to upgrade their spaceship with better weapons and defenses, and fight for control of planets and star bases.

Since the basics of the game structure are numerical, these games are not reliant on high resolution graphics or rapid processing, which makes them ideally suited to low-resource computing platforms.

Today, classic Trade Wars is primarily hosted by Windows NT/2000/XP computers running the Trade Wars Game Server (TWGS), which accepts incoming telnet connections and launches the Trade Wars ANSI game. Trade Wars is also run by many of the surviving BBSs, and variations have been ported to the World Wide Web, cell phones, and the Palm OS.

Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1993 rated Trade Wars two points out of three, stating that for many players "there is no other on-liner than Trade Wars ... This game will be around for a while, in one form or another".[5]

The editors of netgames called TW2002 "perhaps the granddaddy of all BBS games" in 1994,[8] the same year Pritchett has said was the peak of the game's popularity, with an estimated 70,000 active players.[7]

In newspaper articles in the mid-1990s about BBSing, Trade Wars was often identified as one of the most popular door games.[9][10]

Legacy

TradeWars 2002 was named the 10th best PC game of all time by PC World Magazine in 2009.[1]

Trade Wars is cited as an influence by game developers including Paul Sage, lead designer of Ultima Online,[11] Josh Johnston, lead programmer of Jumpgate,[12] Eric Wang, producer of Earth & Beyond,[13] and Pete Mackay, a designer of Star Citizen.[14]

Reviewers have compared many games to Trade Wars, including EVE Online[8], Jumpgate,[15] and Spore.[16]

Realm Interactive was developing a major online game based on Trade Wars 2002 in the early 2000s under the name TW: Dark Millennium,[17] later renamed Exarch. After Realm was acquired by NCsoft, the development of Exarch was discontinued.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Edwards, Benj (8 February 2009). "The Ten Greatest PC Games Ever". PC World. Retrieved 2010-01-03.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Pritchett, John. "Inside TradeWars - History - Timeline". TradeWars Museum. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025.
  3. ↑ Sherrick, Chris. "Chris Sherrick Interview". TradeWars Museum. Interviewed by Pritchett, John. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
  4. ↑ Rezvani, Jeon (2008). Guild Leadership: Lessons from the Virtual World. Lulu. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-4357-3955-0.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 William J., Shefski (May 1993). "Mining the BBS On-line Games". Computer Gaming World. Golden Empire Publications. pp. 64–68. ISSN 0744-6667. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Martin, Gary (19 Jul 2019). "Gary Martin, creator of 'TradeWars 2002'". Break Into Chat (Interview). Interviewed by Renaud, Josh. self-published. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Pritchett, John. "Inside TradeWars - Impact - Statistics". TradeWars Museum. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Baker, Derek; Wice, Nathaniel, eds. (1994). netgames. Michael Wolff & Company. p. 141. ISBN 0-679-75592-6. Perhaps the granddaddy of all BBS games, TW 2002 is immensely popular and easy to find on BBSes all over the galaxy.
  9. ↑ Frischling, Bill (7 Sep 1993). "Cyberphiles dish up fun a la modem". Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia Media Network. ISSN 0885-6613. Games also tend to draw people onto boards. One of the most popular, Trade Wars, puts a player at the helm of his own spaceship.
  10. ↑ Patel, Stephen (28 Apr 1995). "Let Your Fingers Do the Talking at Capt. Redbeard's Bulletin Board". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC. ISSN 0458-3035. Wihardja started his first BBS, Starbase Atlantis, in the summer of 1992 ... All he wanted was to play was his favorite game, Trade Wars, with a few of his best friends.
  11. ↑ Sage, Paul (21 Dec 2000). "Paul Sage Interview". RPG Vault (Interview). Interviewed by Aihoshi, Richard. IGN. Archived from the original on 25 Jul 2003. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025.
  12. ↑ Johnston, Josh (Oct 2002). "Developers' Roundtable: Third-Party Software" (PDF). Massive Online Gaming (Interview). Massive Online Gaming. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 Feb 2004. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025. As for other online games, the only third-party game software I can remember using very much is TradeWars Helper — I was a TradeWars junkie.
  13. ↑ Wang, Eric (17 May 2006). "Developers' Roundtable: Third-Party Software". GameSpot (Interview). GameSpot. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025. The development team has drawn inspiration from games like Elite, Privateer, Tradewars 2000, Starflight, and Starfleet Battles.
  14. ↑ Mackay, Pete (2013). "The Economy: An Interview with Pete Mackay & Rob Irving" (PDF). Jump Point (Interview). Vol. 1, no. 8. Cloud Imperium Games. pp. 28–29. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025. The foremost inspiration for the economy comes from Privateer ... but Pirates! Gold, Transport Tycoon and TradeWars 2002 are other games in the cargo hauling genre that are fondly remembered by the team.
  15. ↑ McConnaughy, Tim (22 Nov 2000). "Jumpgate (PC)". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 6 Feb 2005. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025. In short, Jumpgate is sort of like the old BBS game Tradewars.
  16. ↑ Tyson (9 Sep 2008). "Review - Spore". videolamer. Retrieved 17 Aug 2025. Spore is an original game that borrows snippets from other games like Civilization, The Sims, Trade Wars, and Pokemon.
  17. ↑ Adams, David (13 April 2001). "Trade Wars: Dark Millennium Q&A". PC Games. Gamespot (Interview). Interviewed by Walker, Trey; Parker, Sam. CNET Networks. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 2 Oct 2025.

External links

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