Will we ever again see just plain "giveaways"? No lotteries, no becoming a Steam member, just download a game?
Win one of the 100 Free Licenses
(17 posts) (5 voices)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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I'd say that the answer is "yes".
On the old GGOTD site we had games every day for a while, then it moved to the Weekend, and then dry spells of no games at all became so prevalent that WR started announcing when games would be offered so we wouldn't miss any.
The free games dried up because the developers didn't see an uptick in sales following the free game "advertisement". The best way to guarantee free games is to buy games 2,3, 4, etc in a series after game 1 is given away. The developers don't care squat about facebook, twitter or any of that other nonsense, they care about sales. Show them that free games generate sales and more free games will follow.
The biggest disadvantage of GGOTD versus GOTD is that games amount to one time use programs. You finish the game and that's it. There's no upgrade to the next version for new features or bug fixes. The only way to show developers that GGOTD works is to buy the next game.
The new system with limited offers is better than nothing but communication regarding the "enhanced feature" was non-existent and "Join to Win" should never have been placed under the "Game Giveaway of the Day" banner. The limited offers should have been in a sidebar and clearly labeled "Contest" because joining doesn't get you the game. The limited offers cheapened the brand simply because of the way it was implemented and all of that was easily avoidable.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I agree with what you say Chris. Pity the giveaway team didn't do it that way. It would have been a much better way to promote such games.
At this point in time I'm not sure what's going to happen. apart from the MyPlayCity games we've had over the last few weeks, this is the longest we've gone without any game giveaways, and there is no sign of a let up.
Indie bundles are on the increase, with new bundle sites popping up everywhere. A lot of the bundles offer you at least $100 worth of games for as little as $2 or $3 and some even offer you duplicate or up to 10 keys for each game so that you can gift them to your friends. These extra keys cost virtually nothing. (see Otakumaker), If you pay above the average for DIG bundles which is usually around $10 cents more than a single bundle yu get two keys for each game, and if you buy a second bundle via Indie Gala while Happy Hour is on you can get up to four more bundles for the price of one.
I believe a combination of games being reduced in price significantly (prior to the crash of 2008 most arcade games cost almost $20), plus the advent of the Indie bundle and more free game sites opening with access to over a thousand arcade games 24/7 and maybe even crowd funding have contributed to the lack of games being freely available like they used to be.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I believe a combination of games being reduced in price... the advent of the Indie bundle and more free game sites... maybe even crowd funding have contributed to the lack of games being freely available like they used to be.
I'd agree, but also note that it takes as little as a couple days to a week for a single dev to get an Android or iOS game up for sale, with revenues of up to millions in rare cases. And while I strongly disagree with hyped [often click bait] stories & articles re: the PC is dead, PC/laptop sales have been in a slump, & declining, so banks & investors don't look at any sort of Windows software as a growth market they're interested in. Then you hear of Microsoft shutting down game studios, refusing repeatedly to bring the one HALO game to PCs, & the chairman of the MS board says in an interview the CEO isn't moving MS away from their Windows biz fast enough.
Unless you were planning a AAA title, I don't imagine a biz plan or proposal for developing a PC game is going to be a winner nowadays. I think it's only for pure love of what they do that Indie devs get their wares up on Steam, and take part in the bundle offers. Thankfully. If it wasn't for the Indies, I'm not at all sure there would be enough life in the PC Game market to give hope to the relatively few companies left releasing PC games [outside the big name titles].
Posted 8 years ago # -
Some interesting background. Thanks.
"The best way to guarantee free games is to buy games 2,3, 4, etc in a series after game 1 is given away. "
A valid hypothesis IF games 2, 3, and 4 are different enough from game 1 and from each other to warrant buying all. But this, to me, is rarely the case, so I buy the one I, for decidedly subjective reasons, like the best.
I wasn't here when there was a daily game (it must have been quite difficult to get thirty free games each month unless the offerings were quite repetitive); but one game each Saturday, and on occasion one on Sunday also, was a good schedule ...in my opinion. FWIW, I probably d/l'd a game every five or six weeks on average, and probably purchased one out of five of those. (Many others I enjoyed but saw little "replay factor" in them.)
If Steam wants to offer "free" games here, then actually make them free - no mandatory registration to the Steam Community, no mandatory installation of any software other than the game. And I dislike the MPC offerings because they want to start other software on my system, which is, to me, unacceptable (if for no other reason than I must grumble for sixty or more seconds while Firefox loads all its plugins and several pinned tabs before I can close the gamesite tab then the browser ...or remember to not exit the game but ALT+TAB out and kill the process in Task Manager, which is actually quicker); if they want to have ads display while the game is loading, without running other software, I wouldn't complain.
Posted 8 years ago # -
If Steam wants to offer "free" games here, then actually make them free - no mandatory registration to the Steam Community, no mandatory installation of any software other than the game.
That's an unrealistic desire. The games Steam gives away don't belong to Steam, they either have to buy them or get the publisher to donate them.Steam sells a service, they're giving away games on GGOTD to get potential new customers in the door.
What you're suggesting would be akin to Home Depot offering a free table saw to all customers and letting you pick it up at Lowes or any other retailer. You want the saw (game) you have to go to Home Depot (Steam) to get it.
I just heard from Obi-Wan Steamobi... you're not the gamer they're looking for.
Posted 8 years ago # -
That's an unrealistic desire... you're not the gamer they're looking for.
FWIW Chris, I think that's part of the reason for the popularity among Android & iOS devs for the in-app or in-game purchases. And among the stores for that matter, as they get a chunk out of those revenues too. The individual gets a game for free, & it is often fully playable & functional, but it takes you longer to get whatever premiums, if you can get some or all of those premiums, if you don't pay. It's kind of like the old shareware principles. I'm a little surprised that hasn't trickled down to PC games yet, or maybe it has & I'm just not aware of it yet. Maybe because the means to collect that money aren't widespread outside the stores? If that's the case, maybe folks like jgf could do themselves some good [assuming they thought it was a good idea] to encourage & support Microsoft's store? I'd guess that that's the surest way to have free PC games paid for by in-game advertising, as jgf suggested.
At any rate, as you've pointed out Chris, somehow folks have gotta either pay or be satisfied by the free games available, whatever their baggage.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"...either pay or be satisfied by the free games available, whatever their baggage. "
The problem with Steam is you are stuck with the baggage when you pay for a game. That is what has always been the bottom line deal-breaker for me.
"...you're not the gamer they're looking for"
Lol, the understatement of the year.
I think a more apt analogy would be Home Depot offers you a "free" saw. But you must create an account with them, an account which can never be deleted, and forever be a member of the Home Depot community. And you must accept installation of a camera in your shop, a camera which occupies six square feet of floor space and reports to Home Depot not only how often you use that saw but what other shop equipment you have, when and how often you use it, how large is your shop, what type of lighting it has, what do you build, who visits, etc. Of course if you find that invasive you can turn that camera off (so you are told) but you must leave it in place.
The difference with Steam is ... you get the camera even when you buy the saw.
I still check here every weekend in hopes of seeing Alawar, Playrix, et.al. again; but will eschew anything requiring more than simple registration, installing anything other than the game itself, or a game running any other software on my system. Just my personal idiosyncrasies.
(FWIW, malware possibility isn't an issue; this is one of the few sites I trust.)
Posted 8 years ago # -
The problem with Steam is you are stuck with the baggage
True enough, but the same could be said of Windows nowadays, F/Book, Google [including Android], Apple, loads of streaming services, lots of cloud storage services, lots of cloud services like Ofc 365, Outlook, PC games & such using Amazons downloader apps, games requiring clients other than Steam, the list goes on & on. If Microsoft is successful with the Universal Platform, Windows will effectively be a client, similar to Steam.
It may not be fair -- it may not be right -- but frankly an individual, or a great many individuals does not, do not matter. As long as the numbers are there of people who don't mind -- too much -- that's all it takes to be an accepted status quo. I could see a future -- & I'd be interested in Chris's take or thoughts on this -- where the only way to opt out is with an older version of Windows in a VM or using Wine on a Linux PC.
I still check here every weekend in hopes of seeing Alawar, Playrix, et.al. again
Seems if you check Google's Play store, more [most?] of Alawar's, & a lot of Playrix resources have been going to the iOS & Android games rather than PCs. I'm NOT saying the GOTD team won't secure anything from those 2 publishers, but rather that they have less to offer GOTD than in the past.
Just my personal idiosyncrasies.
And IMHO there's nothing wrong with that...
It's just a sort of a Star Trek reenactment thing where like the Borg famously repeat, over & over, you will be assimilated, resistance it futile. Eventually there will be no such thing as being off-line, regardless your preferences or personal activities -- the UN etc. is planning on, working on a universal sort of electronic ID stored in databases worldwide for every person on Earth. Many folks just take a measured approach as possible, figuring it's gonna happen, so might as well get some of the benefits today. Steam doesn't have the numbers that Facebook does, but their stats give an idea of what a huge force they are.
store[.]steampowered[.]com/stats/
store[.]steampowered[.]com/stats/content/
store[.]steampowered[.]com/hwsurveyPosted 8 years ago # -
Similarly, I saw Warcraft today. They gave me a card with the details of how to get a free World of Warcraft game. However I have to join Battle.net and play through that. Does anyone know anything about that site? I'm not even sure what kind of game I'll be getting.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Just my personal idiosyncrasies.
As Mikiem said, there's nothing wrong with your idiosyncrasies; mine, on the other hand...However, you do seem to have a bit of trouble recognizing that your particular idiosyncrasies either limit your options or make life a bit more difficult (or both). And, I should know as I share your idiosyncrasies to greater or lesser degrees. Your credit card company tracks every purchase (which is why I use cash for most things), the grocery store "rewards" card tracks every purchase (do I really want that brownie mix on my permanent record?), Google tracks every search, the phone company records every number you call (and, consequently, every number that calls you), your car tracks your driving habits, etc, the list of people wanting to track you is truly endless.
Your issue with Steam is easily resolvable - buy a gaming PC and use it strictly for Steam (and Origin if you're feeling bold). Let Steam track your Steam activity. It would cost you some money but everything has a cost. If you want to Play then you have to decide how you want to Pay-to-Play. Most people have decided to pay in personal information; since that's not to your taste you need to either find another way to Pay or not Play. Your idiosyncrasy makes you an outlier and it's up to you to determine how to join the club, it's not up to the club to let you in.
I could see a future where the only way to opt out is with an older version of Windows in a VM or using Wine on a Linux PC.
Well, if by "future" you mean "last year". In my dark version of the future (next week) you won't be able to "opt out". You'll be required to participate in Facebook, the greatest surveillance system ever created. Governments are already talking about doing away with cash and there's a general consensus of "if you're not doing anything wrong then you shouldn't mind" but I do mind. I'm a free citizen and my lawful business is my business but every(busy)body is intent on creating what Heinlein called "bad luck".Posted 8 years ago # -
"...F/Book, Google [including Android], ... Windows will effectively be a client, similar to Steam."
With the exception of Farcebook I use none of those; have four FB pages, none in my real name, all created via "ten minute emails", and use FB Purity to block all the ads, all the "You may know...", and all the "You may like..." drivel. Will never "update" to W10 because of its known privacy issues. Will never use the cloud for the same reason (both MS and google, the two largest cloud operators, sidestepped the privacy issue by burying in the TOSs that by the very act of uploading anything you give them permission to "inspect" those uploads, even to a supposedly "private" account, and delete or block them at their discretion). I have never used "downloader apps"; wherever I go to d/l something, if the d/l isn't the file I'm after I cancel it, close the tab, and move on. And I have nothing to do with gargle, er, google, who proudly boast of their datamining of everything into which they get their tendrils.
"...an individual, or a great many individuals does not, do not matter. As long as the numbers are there of people who don't mind -- too much -- that's all it takes to be an accepted status quo."
"Your issue with Steam is easily resolvable - buy a gaming PC and use it strictly for Steam..."I've no aspirations towards changing anything, neither Steam nor google nor MS nor FB even know I exist. Which is the status quo I want to maintain. Plus, it is too late for public opinion to sway Steam; had all those who claimed to share my opinion of Steam acted in unison years ago Steam would have had to change or gone "belly up" in their first year. "It is easier to retain rights than to regain them."
It is a matter of principle to me. I find Steam's business model so ethically reprehensible that your resolution is not a viable option. It doesn't matter on what computer the game is installed, if I purchase anything from Steam, as it exists, then my money will be supporting something I find objectionable. The height of hypocrisy.
"...where like the Borg famously repeat, over & over, you will be assimilated, resistance it futile."
Lol, I made the same comparison in another thread here."Many folks just take a measured approach as possible, figuring it's gonna happen..."
It WILL happen. If everyone sits around and meekly accepts it.
"their stats give an idea of what a huge force they are"
That just means they've been quietly accepted. When I see such statistics I'm reminded of something we all heard as children, "I suppose if all your friends jumped in a fire you'd have to jump in after them".
"...your particular idiosyncrasies either limit your options..."
Ha! The game developers are limiting my options ...in one small area of my life. If they do not want my money there are many other places to spend it.
"...I use cash for most things..."
Ditto. And give phony information to those merchants who ask for addresses and phone numbers as part of the transaction."...the grocery store "rewards" card tracks every purchase..."
Lol, there is a group of us, a few dozen and growing, who routinely swap our cards around whenever we meet, especially if someone is going out of state. Just a little dig at the system."the list of people wanting to track you is truly endless. "
And abominable. But my main issue with all this is that we, the individuals, are never given the right to opt out of such tracking."up to you to determine how to join the club"
Lol, that is just the problem - I don't want to join any club. I just want to buy a game and play it. As I've done, with computers, for twenty-five years."...there's a general consensus of "if you're not doing anything wrong then you shouldn't mind" but I do mind. I'm a free citizen and my lawful business is my business..."
Exactly!
Posted 8 years ago # -
In my dark version of the future (next week) you won't be able to "opt out".
Well, my nightmares of the future just got a bit more depressing... There was a GAO report of the FBI's use of the image databases they maintain for facial recognition. The FBI is ignoring the rules [laws, regs etc.], & those databases are I'm sure as insecure as anything the gov maintains, probably worse. threatpost[.]com/report-fbi-doing-poor-job-securing-411-million-facial-recognition-photos/118724/
Now if I were a criminal I'd think it very nice to attach whatever names the gov might know me by to the faces of other people. Likewise in acquiring another identity, having my picture associated in gov records with that new ID could be useful, along with whatever other biometric data [e.g. fingerprints] I could alter. It's hard now, but could be impossible in that future to get your ID, records, SS etc. back, because any means you'd have of proving your existence had been taken from you.
Now no one has my fingerprints that I'm aware of, & I don't opt in when there's some security feature that's supposed to make more certain I'm me, because that just makes it harder to prove if it's hacked. The face photos the FBI gets from the DMVs.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"...use of the image databases they maintain for facial recognition"
What is so bad about these systems is too many people, especially in law enforcement, treat them as gospel. We are not in a Star Trek world where a computer can scan billions of photos in a nanosecond and produce an accurate match; what we have is a computer that can take hours to scan a few hundred thousand photos and produce a couple of hundred that may be relevant.
Micro$oft has already been challenged in court regarding their image recognition software that scans the cloud for "pornography".
Posted 8 years ago # -
Hi Terri, Battle.net is basically a game client just like Steam; well not exactly Steam, but a client that gives you access to all of your blizzard games. Seems like all of the big developers now have game clients (Vale = Steam, Ubisoft = uPlay, EA Games - Origin and Blizzard = Battle.net. The trend will just continue as the model has obvioulsy been accepted by the majority of gamers. I think partly becasue if you don't subscribe to their clients you won't get the games for example I've always been a massive fan of the Battlefield series, ever since the first Battlefield 1942, to play the last four Battlefield games you have to have Origin installed. There's two Valve games I absolutely love, Left 4 Dead 2 and Half Life 2, both of those require Steam, I love the Assassins Creed franchise, my Tom Clancy games and the now ageing Silent Hunter V (a submarine simulation), but to play those I have to have uPlay installed. I would never forgo the pleasure of playing those games, so I have to install all of those clients despite in my heart not liking them. Prior to being forced to install Steam back in 2009 (becasue I'd unknowingly purchased some Steam works games via IGN's Direct to Drive and although had seen the words Steamworks had not realized what it had meant). As for Blizzard, I've never been into Warcraft. I did own a copy of the original Starcraft, but the nearest I've ever got to Starcraft II was buying my son a Razer keyboard with a Starcraft theme to it. That is now in the spares box as he hates the theme.
I've come to accept Steam, uPlay and Origin, partly because I've made a lot of friends using their community add-ons, as well as bought a lot of games in their sales. My only worry for the future is if they closed down the clients, and if they did, what would happen to the games I'd paid good money for? a case in point was Microsoft's Game for Windows (GFW) client, which Microsoft cut because it wasn't profitable. Quite a few of my games were tied to Microsoft's GFW client which was shut down a couple of years ago. a lot of those games either no longer work or parts of the games are disabled. GFW had this annoying habit (please excuse the anthropomorphism) of forcing you to sign into their client if you wanted to save your progress, so now some the AAA games I purchased (most of which cost $50 or more) with the GFW requirement can still be played, but because you cannot save your progress, you basically play from the beginning over and over. Thankfully Valve have converted the best of those games to Steam versions, and fixed the save issue; (e.g. Red Faction Guerilla, which remains one of my favorite games from several years ago), unfortunately not all of the GFW games have been modified and still remain unplayable. If Steam did close it's doors I'd be losing a vast collection of games as I have almost 8000 games with almost 5000 dlc's for those games tied to my Steam account (I have a second Steam account which I created so that when friends of my children stayed over, they could play coop games together, that account has around another 1500 games tied to it), both of which, even with sales has cost me a small fortune over the last seven years (over £50 000/$75 000).
When Reflexive arcade sold off their assets to Amazon, Amazon reneged on a promise to keep the activation servers open for those games. All of their games were DRM driven. Every time you updated your operating system or upgraded parts of your computer or wanted to install the games onto a new computer you had to re apply for a new activation code. This was no longer possible once Amazon bought out Reflexive. I paid $19.99 each for over 900 arcade games from Reflexive. Amazon gave owners of licenses about 3 months to install and activate all of their games, then support vanished. Thankfully I found one of those code generators that allows me to still activate about 95% of my games, but I've still lost around 50 games that I can no longer activate, each one costing me almost $20, that's around a thousand dollars wasted on games I can no longer play. The best of those I've actually re purchased, but it still annoys me what happened. I've also lost around 30 games that I purchased via another distributor called Sandalot games, who disappeared about 4 years ago, and even more games due to other small developers going out of business who also used drm to protect their games from theft.
I used to buy all of my games as hard copies, but it became impractical after my accident because I couldn't visit my local game stores. The online Game UK helped, but it got to a point I no longer had space on my book shelves. Now most of my hard copies, as well as all of my thousands of books and a percentage of my movie collection are stored in boxes in the attic and lofts. My wife worries that the weight of all of those books will bring the ceilings down, lol.
Hmmm! as usual I seem to have strayed off the point a little. I was originally replying to Terri, but the discussion got mixed up with the other discussions on this thread. Not that I answered anything. Seems more like I was ranting. lol.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Hi Terri, Battle.net is basically a game client just like Steam; well not exactly Steam, but a client that gives you access to all of your Blizzard games. Seems like all of the big developers now have game clients (Vale = Steam, Ubisoft = uPlay, EA Games - Origin and Blizzard = Battle.net. The trend will just continue as the model has obviously been accepted by the majority of gamers. I think partly becasue if you don't subscribe to their clients you won't get the games for example I've always been a massive fan of the Battlefield series, ever since the first Battlefield 1942, to play the last four Battlefield games you have to have Origin installed. There's two Valve games I absolutely love, Left 4 Dead 2 and Half Life 2, both of those require Steam, I love the Assassins Creed franchise, my Tom Clancy games and the now ageing Silent Hunter V (a submarine simulation), but to play those I have to have uPlay installed. I would never forgo the pleasure of playing those games, so I have to install all of those clients despite in my heart not liking them. Prior to being forced to install Steam back in 2009 (becasue I'd unknowingly purchased some Steam works games via IGN's Direct to Drive and although had seen the words Steamworks had not realized what it had meant). As for Blizzard, I've never been into Warcraft. I did own a copy of the original Starcraft, but the nearest I've ever got to Starcraft II was buying my son a Razer keyboard with a Starcraft theme to it. That is now in the spares box as he hates the theme.
I've come to accept Steam, uPlay and Origin, partly because I've made a lot of friends using their community add-ons, as well as bought a lot of games in their sales. My only worry for the future is if they closed down the clients, and if they did, what would happen to the games I'd paid good money for? a case in point was Microsoft's Game for Windows (GFW) client, which Microsoft cut because it wasn't profitable. Quite a few of my games were tied to Microsoft's GFW client which was shut down a couple of years ago. a lot of those games either no longer work or parts of the games are disabled. GFW had this annoying habit (please excuse the anthropomorphism) of forcing you to sign into their client if you wanted to save your progress, so now some the AAA games I purchased (most of which cost $50 or more) with the GFW requirement can still be played, but because you cannot save your progress, you basically play from the beginning over and over. Thankfully Valve have converted the best of those games to Steam versions, and fixed the save issue; (e.g. Red Faction Guerilla, which remains one of my favorite games from several years ago), unfortunately not all of the GFW games have been modified and still remain unplayable. If Steam did close it's doors I'd be losing a vast collection of games as I have almost 8000 games with almost 5000 dlc's for those games tied to my Steam account (I have a second Steam account which I created so that when friends of my children stayed over, they could play coop games together, that account has around another 1500 games tied to it), both of which, even with sales has cost me a small fortune over the last seven years (over £50 000/$75 000).
When Reflexive arcade sold off their assets to Amazon, Amazon reneged on a promise to keep the activation servers open for those games. All of their games were DRM driven. Every time you updated your operating system or upgraded parts of your computer or wanted to install the games onto a new computer you had to re apply for a new activation code. This was no longer possible once Amazon bought out Reflexive. I paid $19.99 each for over 900 arcade games from Reflexive. Amazon gave owners of licenses about 3 months to install and activate all of their games, then support vanished. Thankfully I found one of those code generators that allows me to still activate about 95% of my games, but I've still lost around 50 games that I can no longer activate, each one costing me almost $20, that's around a thousand dollars wasted on games I can no longer play. The best of those I've actually re purchased, but it still annoys me what happened. I've also lost around 30 games that I purchased via another distributor called Sandalot games, who disappeared about 4 years ago, and even more games due to other small developers going out of business who also used drm to protect their games from theft.
I used to buy all of my games as hard copies, but it became impractical after my accident because I couldn't visit my local game stores. The online Game UK helped, but it got to a point I no longer had space on my book shelves. Now most of my hard copies, as well as all of my thousands of books and a percentage of my movie collection are stored in boxes in the attic and lofts. My wife worries that the weight of all of those books will bring the ceilings down, lol.
Hmmm! as usual I seem to have strayed off the point a little. I was originally replying to Terri, but the discussion got mixed up with the other discussions on this thread. Not that I answered anything. Seems more like I was ranting. lol.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I saw Warcraft today. They gave me a card with the details of how to get a free World of Warcraft game. However I have to join Battle.net and play through that. Does anyone know anything about that site? I'm not even sure what kind of game I'll be getting.
If you haven't been able to answer your questions yet, &/or if WR's post didn't help, please let us know & I'll try to pick my son's brain a bit. At one point he was heavily into WOW but has since left, so he could probably give a decent pro/con summary.
What is so bad about these systems is too many people, especially in law enforcement, treat them as gospel.
One of the big problems most people don't know about, or forget about, is sort of an extension of the old question: "Who watches the watchers?" Most all of the big data analysis algorithms & code is protected, so no one ever gets a look at it, let alone can do Any sort of analysis. We know software models of real life are very often [usually?] inaccurate & sometimes down right wrong. We know there is no such thing as software completely free of poor design &/or bugs. And we know that the companies selling their exclusive software analysis make money off them, & have a huge amount of self-interest in making sure no one ever knows how they actually work, since that might reveal all sorts of problems, like being in some cases worthless.
Human nature makes the problem worse... if you're the person who recommended &/or approved the purchase of some analytical service, if that service proved useless you'd look like an idiot. So the very people who have the power to force some sort of auditing, because they're the ones paying for whatever service, are the very people who want to make sure no unbiased auditing is ever performed.
Posted 8 years ago #
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