hedwards: ...but it's also easier to buy games legitimately now than it was back then.
HoneyBakedHam: Curiously, when was "back then" for you?
I bought Doom by ordering it directly from iD. I sent them an order form and a check in the mail. They sent me a nice box from Texas. :-)
But I usually just walked into Egghead, Software Etc, Babbages, CompUSA, Best Buy, my local shareware and used PC game vendor, or any of a number of locally owned PC stores, and a few other places I cannot remember and bought games with cash.
How was it hard?
Sure, today with digital distribution it is "easier"... But on the other hand, I did not have a credit card back then. I imagine for many teens and a few young adults, buying games digitally might actually be at least a little bit harder today because retail support for PC games blows, and needing a credit card might be a barrier.
The 90s, I didn't have access to the internet and none of those stores were particularly accessible to me. We didn't have any of those places in my neighborhood at that time. We still don't, but I've got the ability to look online before I plunk down for bus fare to go browse. I think right now the only places I've got that I can physically go get games is Office Depot and I think Barnes and Noble might have some.
But back then it was a fairly lengthy drive if I wanted to go to a store, the only places I can recall back then were dedicated computer shops, which weren't that common. I think the only one that I knew of at that point that had a decent supply was Ballard Computer and they were at least a half hour drive away.
It got a lot easier in the late 90s when I had some sort of decent internet connection, but back then it was a real challenge and they wanted you to pay for everything, regardless of whether or not it was a demo.
Like I said, it was a completely different situation.