TotalGaming Tries Yearly PC Subscription Gaming 21
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the announcement of Stardock's TotalGaming.net PC indie gaming subscription service. The press release explains: "While users can purchase games individually, Stardock expects the real appeal of TotalGaming.net to be in the subscription. For $89, users receive a host of good games plus everything added to TotalGaming.net for an entire year afterwards", and goes on to note: "For the initial launch, Stardock has put together an impressive list of games that will be available on day one, such as Galactic Civilizations, Celtic Kings, Orb, The Corporate Machine, LightWeight Ninja, and a new compilation of Disciples II called Disciples II Ultimate Edition... [and] plans to add a new game each month for the rest of the year starting with The Political Machine in August." Notably, the announcement mentions: "Even if [users] choose not to re-subscribe, they can still re-download the entire game years later." Does this approach appeal more than somewhat similar monthly services offered by Comcast, Atari, and Yahoo?
TotalGaming (Score:1)
Heh. (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Heh. (Score:2)
Penny-Arcade (Score:1, Redundant)
Corporate Machine (Score:1)
I will say that StarDock's Corporate Machine is a very fun little strategy game. Quick paced and doesn't take hours to play. While compared to modern games the graphics are abyssmal, I still find myself loading it up for a quick run every now and then. Great "beer and pretzels" strategy gaming in the same way the Rails Across America is.
That being said, the game is available at very low cost
Re:Uhh... (Score:2)
Nothing new, not even for StarDock's tired stable (Score:2)
2) Stardock *had* a service like this before - it was called djijon or something funky like this. Except it was all the same games but only cost ~$40.
3) All of those games are old/mediocre. They were mediocre when they came out years ago. I conceed that GalCiv is quality but it's over a year old and can be had for $20 on a real disc in a box.
4) Corporate Machine is fun but Entrepreneur was better.
Drengin.net (Score:2, Interesting)
On the opposite side of the spectrum though, I'd be a little worried with this "game released every month" thing. I've got a feeling games are going to be rushed, especially near the end. If a game has to come out on a certain
Re:Drengin.net (Score:1)
Here's the thing - for most games released these days, they are rushed. You've got to have a guaranteed best seller like Half Life 2 or Doom 3 in order to delay release dates. I don't think that such a release schedule is going to lead to any more of a rush th
Re:Drengin.net (Score:1)
That is indeed exactly what Stardock is doing.
Re:Drengin.net (Score:2)
Ripoff.. (Score:1)
Personally, the only such kind of service I'm interested in would be a Netflix-like mail-in service that for $20 a month you could have out 5 games OR 5 movies.
Re:Ripoff.. (Score:1)
About time (Score:1)
1) $90 for the first year, $50 after that.
2) 6 games so far, plus one a month (Though they said one a month for the rest of this year, not necessarily one a month forever). That comes out to at least 5 more games by the end of '04... 11 games total, even if they use the sneaky wording and stop after that.
3) So we have $90 for 11 games. They seem like
No subscription (Score:2)
Re:No subscription (Score:2)
Re:No subscription (Score:2)
Whether or not you resubscribe after that, you retain rights to all of those games that came out before or during your subscription, and can download them at any time through Stardock Central if you lose them.
Re:No subscription (Score:2)