Six months ago the GameTap gaming-on-demand service abruptly dropped their contract with Electronic Arts and pulled three classic Wing Commander from their library. Insiders credited the move away from classic gaming licensing to a focus on creating gaming-related video content to complete with the likes of the G4 cable network. As any Wing Commander fan could have told them in November, that was a stupid idea. Now Wired reports: Good riddance! Now let's see what's left of the service fix what it broke - my subscription money will be eagerly awaiting the return of Wing Commander. -- Original update published on May 28, 2008
I didn't even know that they offered stuff like this, I thought that it was an online game library. Maybe I'm out of their demographic, but they really blew it moving away from their primary source of income and into a poorly-publicized money sink.
Yes, it's a shame - we've said it all before, but the changes made to GameTap six months ago were stupid, stupid, stupid. When it stops being a service for emulating and preserving old games then it stops being worthwhile. As for people being fired... boo hoo. The staff of the GameTap 'Watch' and 'Read' sections were hired away from places like IGN and GameSpot. If there has ever been a group of people who so singularly need to be killed in a train accident, it is "gaming journalists". The profession shouldn't *exist*, much less be tricking people into thinking they have promising careers being cynical jerks on the internet. (These same people, of course, were nowhere to be found when their amazing new idea was screwing *us* over... so I doubt they'll have some problem with my hoping the door doesn't hit them on the way out.) (Being a cynical jerk on the internet is something you have to do out of a sheer and honest love of cynicism.)
Ohhh... the internal conflict.. Giving them money, they made such terrible decisions, and people got fired. I feel responsible. Now they have recanted their previous goals and have returned to their original objective. I feel used. They have Wing Commander. Sold.
