metaboli posts

Earlier this week, our sister site Joystiq reported that GameTap, the PC download-subscription based service, was not closing down its US operations. As it turns out that's just partially true. Joystiq is now reporting that GameTap is in fact closing its Atlanta offices where its "technical and support team" is located. The shut down, according to a company rep, is expected to happen by the end of October. GameTap's tech operations will now be based in France, the home of the company's parent Metaboli which purchased GameTap in 2008. There's no word on how many people will be affected by the closing of the Atlanta office.

GameTap is preparing to launch a new tech update by the end of the month that will add a new download technology to the service. It also has plans to hire 10 people to its San Francisco offices in order to "strengthen [GameTap's] presence with major U.S. partners, distributors or publishers." GameTap also plans to offer a wider range of more recent PC games to its service.

It's the end of an era over at Gametap as the PC game download service has released the final two episodes of American McGee's Grimm on their site. The episodic series of game that take twisted views of classic fairy tales ends with their version of Snow White. This will likely be the last original game that Gametap releases on their site. Since the purchase of the service by Metaboli last fall its executives have stated they have no interest in continuing that kind of service.

In related news, Gametap has put up Eidos' classic action-RPG Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition as a free game to play for the next week. In addition they have added the THQ off-road racing game MX vs. ATV Unleashed to its list of premium games.

Last week's revamp of the Gametap PC game download site wasn't a smooth one and it appears that the issues are continuing to affect the level of customer service for the site. Gametap's blog site reports they have gotten a lot more "tickets" with issues from their from their users than they predicted. As the site states, "As a result of this exceptionally high volume, we have been unable to respond immediately to every ticket that is sent into our system." Some of them include problems with canceling an account, not being assigned to the correct Game Package and password issues.

The blog site states, " . . . we will be making every effort to return to an acceptable Service Level Agreement once we are over this hurdle." In the meantime the service is still adding games. Earlier last week GameTap announced it was adding over a dozen games from publisher Focus Home Interactive. Today Epic Games announced that the entire Unreal series, including Unreal Tournament 3, would be added to both Gametap and the company's European branch Metaboli.

Earlier this month we reported that the game download service GameTap was planning to launch a major revamp of their business. With that relaunch now scheduled for sometime next week, the service's official blog site has begun revealing some of what they have planned. One of the changes is the service's pricing structure.

Previously there had been just two types of service on GameTap; one where you played a selection of games for free and the other where you had access to all of the games in the GameTap library for a monthly fee. When the revamp happens, GameTap will have three tiers of service.There will still be a free service and a premium level where you can play all the games for $9.95 a month. However there will also be a new Classic Pack service which will allow people to play all of GameTap's console, arcade and DOS games for $4.95 a month.

By the way, the annual fee for the premium service will be going up to $79.95 a year after the revamp. Current annual subscribers will still have their $59.96 fee locked for life. You have until the end of the day Sunday to sign up at the current price point.

With the sale of the GameTap game download service from Turner Broadcasting to Metaboli, people have been waiting to see if any major changes would be coming to the service. The short answer is, "Yes," The long answer is over at GameTap's official blog site today.

The blog announces, "In just over 2 weeks, you will have access to a completely re-designed GameTap website full of new features, an improved digital download store, and a new way to access and launch your games." Among the additions are Desktop and Start Menu shortcut support for every game you get from GameTap, support for in-browser playing in Firefox, faster loading times, an updated store with "a better selection and competitive prices." and more.

However there's some bad news. Some current GameTap features won't be supported at first in the new revamped version. The big one is Mac OS X support which will likely not please the many Mac gamers out there. There's no word on when the Mac support will be put into the new GameTap.

If you enjoy playing the free games that Gametap has been offering on their game download site, you had better hurry to play your favorites now. The service's official blog site has posted up word that they will be removing nearly 100 games from their free list starting on January 22 and placed in the site's Gold premium (i.e. paid) version.

The folks at Gametap try to make a positive spin on this, saying that they will still offer over 40 free games and they will continue offering one week free trial versions of their Gold titles. As we have previously reported, Gametap's owner Turner Broadcasting announced a deal in September 2008 that will see Gametap's ownership transfered to European based Metaboli.

On Wednesday we reported that Turner Broadcasting was selling off its Gametap online game download service to Metaboli, a European company that has a similar business model (Turner will have a minority stake in the new business arrangement, however). Variety chatted with Metaboi CEO Pierre Gaudet about the deal and it looks like one of Gametap's unique features may be going by the wayside.

That feature is launching original games on Gametap such as Telltale's Sam and Max series and more recently American McGee's Grimm. There hasn't been any announcements on new titles coming from the service and it looks like Gaudet might put that aspect of Gametap to bed, saying, "We are not doing that in Metaboli and for the time being it's not in our plans." Telltale Games might decide to simply release future episodes of Sam and Max on their own for the PC as they have done for their second epiodic series Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People.