Comments on: Amazon Casual Game Portal

By: cheeba

cheeba — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:30:16 +0000

Doubly silly as most other casual/indie stuff doesn’t tend to bother with region limits. And why would they?

By: Quijote3000

Quijote3000 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:52:07 +0000

i don’t know about rest of the eu, but beeing in poland i can’t even download 3 “free” games.
Same here (Spain). I’ve been trying to use hotspot shield, that works with Hulu, but still no luck
Kind of dumb. Hey, If I’m willing to put my money for buying a game, what’s exactly the problem for amazon?
Anybody know how to bypass that regional limit?

By: moa

moa — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:04:25 +0000

…so am I being an idiot or is this only for US customers?”

i don’t know about rest of the eu, but beeing in poland i can’t even download 3 “free” games.

By: danielcardigan

danielcardigan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:25:03 +0000

One of the free games is called Build-a-Lot – “Send the housing market through the roof as you build, buy, and sell houses in the new strategy game, Build-a-lot. ”

Too soon…. too soon.

By: evil vitamin c

evil vitamin c — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:18:35 +0000

Are any of those free games worth playing?

By: Morph

Morph — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:06:01 +0000

Chicken Invaders 3 is a poor entry in the Chicken Invaders series. Gone is the isometric viewpoint, instead the game is a first person shooter – and not a very good one at that. The script has lost a lot of its humour and the voice acting is terrible, even from Liam Neeson. Oh and the ending sucks.

I have no idea what I’m talking about.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:07:15 +0000

The fact that they bought Reflexive would explain why a) the catalog looked really familiar and b) why most of it was match 3 clones and other such casual junk.

One reason I never patronized Reflexive. For every game that was actually aimed at gamers proper (like, say, Kivi’s Underworld now) they had 60 match 3 clones, 60 find the hidden object games, and 60 breakout clones. And no way to suss out the good stuff.

By: bansama

bansama — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:52:07 +0000

Impulse vs. Steam vs. Amazon’s rumored digital store vs. Gamersgate (which will supposedly offer direct downloads instead of a shitty client)

Yup, the client ceases to be this week. So GamersGate may well actually get my custom again. For one thing, they sell a few games globally which Steam restrict to US only.

By: mister slim

mister slim — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:29:22 +0000

@keith If you’re going to plug something maybe include more than an acronym. A big colorful link would be good.

To RPSers, note: Keith Nemitz’s design and writing skills are far superior to his self-whoring. Check out Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble.

By: Keith Nemitz

Keith Nemitz — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:19:48 +0000

Given the economies around the world, lowering the price of games may keep sales up and developers flush. However, adding 600 games all at once is a mistake. If you’re not on the front ‘games downloads’ page, you’re ‘little people’. Wonderful gems like, (plug!), DHSGiT, will languish.

By: cheeba

cheeba — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:05:32 +0000

@Rich_P: Gamersgate have indeed dropped their shitty client, and now just offer plain old direct downloads without having to go through their curious, quarter-finished ‘front end’. Good for them.

By: Rich_P

Rich_P — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:49:25 +0000

Impulse vs. Steam vs. Amazon’s rumored digital store vs. Gamersgate (which will supposedly offer direct downloads instead of a shitty client)

Whoever loses, we win!

Anyway, as a PC gamer (and not a dev!) I’m really excited about the future of digital distribution. If pricing isn’t of concern, you can pretty much write-off retail purchases altogether.

Once the majority of gamers start buying digitally, the economics of the business will change dramatically. Infinite supply, no shelf space competition, increased lifespan of your game.