Topic: GameTap: Simultaneous Online/Retail Releases, Online Store, Free Basic Service

[idolminds]

Neat

Gametap will start to offer games to download on the same day as their release, starting with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Not all games will be like that, but its still kind of cool.

GT will also have an online store where you can purchase and download games to own, instead of their regular subscription model. Again, not all games they offer will be part of this, but as one site mentioned even if they only had a fraction available they'd have as many or more titles than Steam.

And lastly, free accounts! Theres regular random user free, then the registered user free (Green accounts), and their regular pay stuff. Supported by banner and video ads. Starts May 31 with these titles: Taito's Bust-A-Move and Space Invaders, SNK Playmore's Metal Slug, and Midway's Joust, Robotron: 2084, and Rampage to Crystal Dynamic's Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend. Don't know about you guys, but I am so playing TRL for free.

[Pugnate]

Yes that is pretty cool of them, but the only way I'd be convinced to download a game rather than buy it off the store is when the price is low enough to compensate for the lack of DVD, DVD case and manual.

Again that's pretty cool if it becomes the trend. They are the only ones offering the new Sam & Max episodes right? Apparently the last episode was pretty awesome.

[MysterD]

Interplay's joining up w/ GameTap.

Fallout, MDK, and Earthworm Jim will join their party.

Free Fallout & More on GameTap [June 02, 2008, 8:16 pm ET] - Viewing Comments
GameTap announces an expansion of their distribution deal with Interplay that will bring Fallout, Descent, and MDK to the free-to-play area of their game portal:

    ATLANTA – June 2, 2008 – GameTap, the first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), announced today an expanded partnership with Interplay Entertainment Corp. (OTC BB: IPLY) that now includes multi-year worldwide rights for the company’s titles to be available for digital download in its online store and for subscription play. Under the new agreement, Interplay titles will also be made available for free play on GameTap’s ad-supported website www.gametap.com.

    “Interplay has been and continues to be a great partner of GameTap,” said Ricardo Sanchez, vice president of content and creative director for GameTap. “By expanding on our previous deal, GameTap will now feature more of Interplay’s top titles including their widely successful Fallout titles.”

    As part of this expansive agreement, GameTap will now feature additional Interplay titles, including the critically acclaimed Fallout, Descent and MDK. New and previously featured titles, such as the Earthworm Jim series, will be added to the subscription service, GameTap’s ad-supported website, and also sold in GameTap’s online digital retail storefront.

[MysterD]

GameTap is bringing back Myst Online again.

GameTap gives Myst Online back to Cyan. Cyan says it's opening the game to fan development

After several months of negotiation, Spokane-based Cyan Worlds regained the rights to its complex immersive game, Myst Online.
Cyan President Rand Miller said Monday the deal with the game's publisher, GameTap (owned by Turner Entertainment) will allow Cyan to once again turn on the game and allow fans to interact and even create new content for Myst Online.

GameTap operated Myst Online for about a year, then closed it down in April 2008, saying the closure was due to business reasons.

Ardent fans of Myst and Myst Online have been vocal about having a hand in resurrecting the game and adding more content to the project. Up to now, Cyan Worlds has resisted approving that option, pending the regaining of the publishing rights from GameTap.

Miller said the new plan is for the game's fans to have that freedom to create new environments and new content.

He added it's uncertain if the revival will lead to a longterm commitment by Cyan to continue developing the game. The regaining of the rights is a step in that direction, but Miller said it's unclear where the experiment in shared, user-created content will lead.

Cyan Worlds itself has downsized its game-development staff to less than 10.

The delay in regaining the rights to Myst Online was due to both Cyan and GameTap working through a gradual understanding of how the game's development might proceed.

Miller said Cyan did not pay anything to regain the publishing rights. But at some point, if a commercially successful revival comes about, the two companies have an agreement on how each will be compensated, he added.

"They realize that unless something happened (to revive Myst Online), it wasn’t going to live. And if it didn't live, no one would ever get anything out of it."

Cyan Worlds made its first breakthrough game, Myst, in 1994. Later versions elaborated upon the notion of a lost D'ni civilization and its "ages" or areas where participants are allowed to explore.

The online version of Myst was an ambitious 3-D world with rich and constantly changing circumstances and interaction with other game-players.

Miller said the new, revived version will charge participants a minimal fee of perhaps $25 per six months.

"That's not being done to make money," he said. Rather the charge will be to cover the costs of adding servers at Cyan Worlds to handle the game play, said Miller.