green-man-gaming posts

We got some PC game sales to tell you about so listen up because one of them gets you a free game:

• Green Man Gaming is giving away Reign: Conflict of Nations from now until Sunday if you put in the promo code REIGN-100PC-RPSPO (thanks Rock Paper Shotgun). The same site has a number of other strategy games on sale this weekend.
• GoG.com has a 50 percent discount of games from publisher 1C Company this weekend.
• Impulse has Scrapland on sale for today only for a mere $2.49.
• The OnLive streaming PC game service is selling Unreal Tournament 3 for today only for just $5.

We like free games, you like free games, everyone likes free games. And in today's PC game sales report we turn your attention to a free game download.

• The PC Gamer web site has a way to download a free version of the historical strategy-city sim game Imperium Romanum: Gold Edition from the Green Man Gaming web site.
• Impulse has the recent space strategy game Star Ruler available for download and on sale today only for $10.
• Direct2Drive has the original version of Serious Sam: The First Encounter on sale for today only for just $4.95. It also has Company of Heroes on sale for a limited time for $9.99.

Want to get a really cool real-time strategy game for free? Of course you do. Now the Green Man Gaming web site is offering the opportunity to get one of the best indie strategy PC games ever made. It's Defcon, the global war game with a WarGames--like art style from developer Introversion Software that first came out in 2006.

From now until December 27, you can download the full version of Defcon from the Green Man Gaming web site by heading to this link and putting in the promo code DEFC0-N4GMG-FUTU4. Then you can start playing your own version of Global Thermonuclear War.

[Via Computer and Video Games]

Without a doubt, Valve has helped to bring the PC game industry back as a viable game platform with its Steam download service. Now rumors are hitting the internets that Steam may soon launch a new feature that will allow its users to trade or exchange games on the service.

The rumors come from Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter who told the NowGamer web site, "Steam's about to let you do that supposedly, you know like trade and exchange, but they're going to take a fee from it." We've emailed Valve for comment but so far have yet to hear from them on this subject. The idea of getting credit from trading downloadable PC games is nothing new. The Green Man Gaming web site, launched earlier this year, has such a feature.

Update: Valve's Doug Lombardi tells Big Download of Pachter's statements, "Untrue. We've never actually met with Mr. Pachter."

Launched earlier this year, the UK-based PC game download web site Green Man Gaming tried something new in the digital download marketplace. It let its customers download and buy titles and then sell them back to the web site for credits to purchase future games. Apparently the service is doing very well, MCV reports that according to Green Man Gaming it has "exceeded all revenue and sales targets" since it went live last May (specific sales and revenue numbers were not disclosed).

The company is also expanding, hiring new people and launching plans to offer a mobile version of its service next year based on the Android operating system. It also says it is "looking to partner with a large US retailer."

As promised, the UK based Green Man Gaming PC game download site is officially online. The site's owners hope to launch a new business mode for downloadable games by offering customers a way to sell back their license key for games purchased on the site for credit to pay for future game purchases.

The service is localized just for UK customers (although anyone can purchase and download games from the site). They have a few games on the site that are priced at just one pence for a limited time. That includes games like World of Goo, Darwinia and Necrovision: Lost Company. In theory you could purchase these games and then sell them back to the site for credit at some point for far more than what you paid for the games.

Earlier this year we reported that a new PC gaming download site was in development in the UK. Green Man Gaming claimed that they would allow people to purchase and download PC games from their site and then sell off the license to the game once they are done with it back to the web site for credit (not cash) to purchase other games from the site. Now comes word that the site will officially launch on Sunday. The site is primarily for UK users but anyone can purchase and download games from the site; you just have to purchase the games in UK pounds.

Videogamesdaily.com (which admits it has entered into an agreement with Green Man Gaming to provide a blog on their site) has more info on how the used PC game site will actually work. It also reveals some of the publishers contributing games on the site including Paradox Interactive, 1C Company and others. We are still highly skeptical about this service (we think hackers could disrupt this site's business plan) but if it works perhaps it will offer PC gamers an alternative from other sites like Steam.

[Via Blue's News]

It's a new year and the first month of January 2010 was a busy one for PC gaming news. Part of the reason was the annual Consumer Electronics Show where there were a few interesting announcements that concerned PC gaming. However there were also plenty of other news items in the past 31 days that will affect us in the coming year.

In fact our normal top 10 list was so full of things we could report that we managed to stick in a couple of extra items as honorable mentions. If this list is any indication 2010 will be a very busy year for news in our industry.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Top 10 PC Game News Stories For January 2010

Earlier this month a UK-based company called Green Man Gaming announced plans to offer a PC game download service that would allow its users to trade in a PC game and get some of their money back. Now Gameindustry.biz has posted up more info about the service based on chatting with its founders.

The article (free to read with registration) says that the creators have created an algorithm that calculates a PC game's trade-in value via demand and the location pricing. When a person buys and downloads a title from Green Man Gaming that person is also given a price for the game as a trade-in. When a game is ready to be traded-in the gamer gets a credit that can go towards the purchases of other games on the site.

The creators of this upcoming service claim that the publishers will get a percentage of each PC game sold and re-sold on their site. The service is supposed to go live in the UK in March. A US launch has yet to be finalized.

The big advantage of PC game download services is convenience; you can purchase and download legal copies of PC games directly to your PC hard drive with no need to hold onto a disk. The problem is that you also cannot resell or trade in those games as you can with a boxed PC copy or boxed console games.

Now a newly announced service called Green Man Gaming is claiming to offer a way for gamers to trade in PC game titles they had downloaded and purchased. The UK based site says it will launch near the end of March and will have 400 games to purchase with over 2000 games available by the end of 2010. Unfortunately the press release announcing the service doesn't go into much detail, saying only that they will use "leading edge technology" to facilitate the trade-ins and adding that they will "pay significant royalties to the publisher each time the game is traded in perpetuity." We hope to get more info about this service including if it will be made available to US customers.