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The Internet Entertainment Games

GameTap Rom Rental Service to Launch 21

Posted by Zonk from the there-are-worse-ways-to-spend-your-money dept.
Mirkon writes "Several months ago it was revealed that Turner Broadcasting was working on a service called GameTap, where a monthly subscription gives users access to an all-you-can-download buffet of games. As indicated by the "GameTap is Coming" box, the service has not yet launched - but it appears to be gearing up for a release in the very near future. An OReillyNet blog from a few days ago tells Brian Jepson's experience with the service: "Although it's not officially launched, they are letting users trickle in." But the real signs of an impending launch are from a comprehensive Web marketing campaign. You may have already seen commercials for the Institute for Additional Dimensional Adjustment Therapy, ending with the URL whatisadat.org. This imaginative site poses as an informational/educational source about and for a disorder called "3rd Demensia" and is full of videogame references. If you look closely at the banner advertisements throughout the site, you'll find that it's only one of a network of game-spoof sites (like First Person Getaways and the Department of Gameland Security), and by exploring these various sites you're bound to find semi-hidden "PowerUp" pages that allow you to sign up for the GameTap service. Unfortunately, the service requires Windows 2000 or XP, but even Mac and Linux users can enjoy the viral marketing campaign."
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GameTap Rom Rental Service to Launch More

GameTap Rom Rental Service to Launch

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  • Skip the searching: (Score:3, Informative)

    by kraiger ( 704911 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @06:34PM (#13662522)
    Just go to http://www.gametap.com/launch/Home [gametap.com] and you can register to play today, without looking at any of the dummy web-sites. Enjoy.
  • Nothing to see here, then. Move along.

    *Yawn*
  • Anyone find a list of games, and an estimate of how freequently we'll see new ones? If there's enough decent games for it, I'd be interested.

    • Re:Games list? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tringard ( 595737 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @07:29PM (#13662878) Journal
      Took some searching, but found it here [gametap.com]
      • Sounds like a great service. The lack of Nintendo titles is disappointing, but with their Virtual Console service on the way, I'm not surprised.

        I guess the deciding factor will be the price of Virtual Console's downloads. Gametap is over $10 US per month - pretty pricey unless you play nothing but old ROMs anyway. I guess the price I'm looking for is about $5 CDN per N64 game, and SNES and NES ROMs for cheaper. Nintendo could rip into Gametap's market by getting Sega and Atari on board as well.

        Ponder, ponde
    • Hi AuMatar, We add new games each week. I hope to have a list of upcoming games soon! :::waving::: Mary GameTap www.gametap.com
  • I was laying in bed watching Adult Swim when the commercial came on. I reached down for my phone and brought up the website - couldn't remember it right - "www.adat.org"?

    Some kind of religious organization - and it seemed plausible. [adat.org]

  • Who are they targetting? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Castar ( 67188 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @07:30PM (#13662889)
    I can see there being a market for this - less-computer-savvy people who are nostalgic about past games and want to play them again. However, I doubt that those people would be willing to pay $15 a month for the privilege - especially given the somewhat-smallish list of games available. There's also the fact that when you're playing with a keyboard, you lose a lot of the feel of the original game. I think the cheap retro joystick sets are probably competitive with this service in every way.

    Anyone who is knowledgable about computers, though, will probably just set up some type of emulator - you still have to play with a keyboard, and deal with intermediate software and loading the ROMs, but you have access to many many more games.

    I think the only way a download service like this can work is when it's paired with the classic controllers, and there's a minimal setup/interface to deal with. If Nintendo pulls it off, the Revolution download service could be all these things (of course, only classic Nintendo games would be available, but there are a lot of those).

    Actually, the fact that _all_ NES games are missing from the GameTap list makes me think that perhaps the Revolution service will have games from all NES publishers, not just Nintendo... That makes their offering much stronger.
    • Smallish list?!

      They have (or are soon going to according to an interview by the CEO on television) something like 1500 games.

      Aside from the legal aspects, if I can't acquire the various emulators and all the ROMs for less than 10 minutes worth of work per month, then the convenience is worth $15. I could also hunt and kill bison for food with a bow and arrow, but the $3/lb for meat at the store is worth the convenience.

      As for the controllers - you can make your own with a simple conversion. There are instr
      • Of course it's possible - I play emulated games all the time with a gamepad (actually I recently just got a DualShock to USB converter, which I recommend), but I'm obviously not the target market for these games (since I can set up an emulator).

        The casual "The last video game I played was Super Mario Bros." crowd, however, isn't going to want to have to buy a separate piece of hardware and deal with calibrating it in order to play their games. They'd much rather buy a $20 dollar "15 classic games!" joystick
  • I looked at the list of games and they are all old titles, the most recent are from about 4 years ago. I was wondering how can they make money form such a system. Most of these games should be freeware by now, have been riped off as new flavours of a classic, or are available in public libraries. You just have to look a bit harder, so I'm not sure it's a well thought idea, unless it markets to very casual gamers, with little or no experience.
  • So they are going to start a "legal" emulation site, charging monthly to play old video games? Legality aside, I think only the most clueless of videogame fans will be interested in this - though the entertainment stuff sounds like it might be interesting enough to watch. But I'll be damned if I'm paying $15 a month to play asteroids or double dragon in its original glory.
  • Is this actually emulation?
    Is the emulation code any good? (Is it taken from any known emulators?)
  • I think "powerup" (without quotes) is the code for a free month and then two months at $14.95 Not sure if it's the standard starting deal anyway but that's what I found on one of their promotional sites.

    It's not all old mame style arcade games. I see Beyond Good & Evil, Capitalism(TM) II, onquest: Frontier Wars(TM), Swat 2, well....a lot of UbiSoft PC games. I don't know how good any of them are but at least it isn't just old arcade games.
    • If you only stick around for one month, $15.00 US is a great price for Beyond Good & Evil. Granted, I played the GameCube version, but I can't imagine that the PC version is much different.

      BG&E is easily one of the most underrated games of this console generation. It's nice to look at, runs on a great engine (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time used its "Jade" engine), has good, varied gameplay (Legend of Zelda style combat, hovercraft driving/racing, amatuer photography), and a good story.

      If you ha

  • It's just advertising and not a story. The editors are playing right into the hands of the marketing folk who come up with this crap.

    ...Unfortunately, the service requires Windows 2000 or XP, but even Mac and Linux users can enjoy the viral marketing campaign.

    It's not enjoyable, and it's only viral [slashdot.org] because the /. editors keep posting [slashdot.org] about it.

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