It Sure Was Good While It Lasted (December 4, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
We've put together a quick tribute to those nine glorious months of Wing Commander on GameTap. It includes screenshots of all the 'bonus material' presented in the client along with copies of the games' manuals, the video trailer for Wing Commander I and other bits of GameTapicana. For those unfamiliar, the service will stop hosting Wing Commander I, II and IV on December 11th. The GameTap archive is available here.

We've also learned that the games are being removed because GameTap opted not to continue paying Electronic Arts' for their use. Their failure to report on the issue or to deal with the aftermath is at least as infuriating as the fact that we've been paying them for a service which doesn't work as promised. We urge anyone affected by this debacle to post to this thread at GameTap's website - let them know what you think!





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Original update published on December 4, 2007
 
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Things like this always happen to me; here I was the night before last, thinking about signing up for GameTap to get Wing Commander, since my ol' copy of Kiltrathi Saga ran a little goofily on my machine. Looks like that plan's gone down the tubes.

Sounds like GameTap has a big customer relation situation going on over there over this. Serves them right.
 
I rarely enjoy (or advocate) tilting at windmills (beyond simply being a Wing Commander fan in 2007)... but I'm having quite a time yelling at the GameTap forums. It won't get us anything, but gosh darnit I'm angry.
 
I noticed that over on their forums. Nobody's stepped up yet, and I've seen a lot of good points made by customers. I wonder if this is some sort of (asinine) legal issue.
 
No, no legal issue - GameTap simply decided they didn't want to renew their contracts with EA, Interplay and others.
 
Talk about impulsiveness. Those publishers/developers pretty much are the only ones making the service worthwhile. Wing Commander is probably the only title that would have gotten them my money.

Short-sighted marketing, and piss-poor customer service.
 
Talk about impulsiveness. Those publishers/developers pretty much are the only ones making the service worthwhile. Wing Commander is probably the only title that would have gotten them my money.

Short-sighted marketing, and piss-poor customer service.

I think this sucks too

Behind closed doors though it seems like EA and the others, because of their desirability, probably charge more than the other companies to use their titles. Propably some accounting nobody decided that the returns on the EA liscense and others wasn't justifying the cost. THer probably wasn't the huge boost in subscribers since before the EA contracts so they decided to save money. I don't see how they get away with remaining silent on the issue though.
 
It was quite neat that Wing Commander IV made it to Gametap... Considering the amount of disk space required. It had a lot of FMV; and videos usually take up a lot of HD space... I remember a dosbox video I recorded being ~300MB! Videos are very large files, indeed.

Though I never signed up for Gametap... It sure would have been neat to experience these classics in their former glory on your modern PC.
 
You know what's REALLY funny? Gametap is now promoting Daikatana as a reason to get the service.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/romero.s-baby/gametap-sets-daikatana-free-330328.php

To quote the article...

Kotaku said:
GameTap really hates us. Don't believe it? Just look what they've given us for Christmas. From now until December 31st, John Romero's masterpiece Daikatana is free for everyone to play.They've even posted a retrospective covering the game's history for you to giggle at. If you missed out on what some game reviewers at the time called "BWAHAHAHAHAHA", and "Is this a joke?", then now is your chance to experience all the pulse-pounding terror of robot frogs! *insert horrific violin squealing incidental music here*. Seriously though, you can't make fun of it unless you've played it, so there it is. This article is the gaming equivalent of eating something bad and going, "Ew, this is horrible! Taste this!"
 
That's not funny, it's entirely calculated - they know "GAMETAP RELEASED DAIKATANA, HAHAHA" will eclipse media interest in "GAMETAP LOSES ALL THEIR GOOD GAMES."

...apparently it's working.
 
That's not funny, it's entirely calculated - they know "GAMETAP RELEASED DAIKATANA, HAHAHA" will eclipse media interest in "GAMETAP LOSES ALL THEIR GOOD GAMES."

...apparently it's working.

Yes, very smart marketing tactic - replace blockbuster franchises with a single wet fart of a title. I don't know. With this sort of management I don't see GameTap turning into anything but another PopCap outlet or outright closing its doors.
 
That's not funny, it's entirely calculated - they know "GAMETAP RELEASED DAIKATANA, HAHAHA" will eclipse media interest in "GAMETAP LOSES ALL THEIR GOOD GAMES."

...apparently it's working.

Ah, but that's where word of mouth kicks in. No EA games = no Sim-games (big draw for casual players), no Need for Speed titles, and no Origin titles... which draws us folk.

We'll see how they're doing next year, but I'll bet they'll end up like Ion Storm Dallas. Which, given that they're basically Eidos' bitch, isn't at ALL surprising.
 
EA could redeem themselves for me if they created a modern M.U.L.E.

But there's as much a chance of that as an actual Wing Commander.
 
It depends on what you call an "actual" Wing Commander. I don't like Arena's style very much, either, but it is as much an "actual Wing Commander" as every other WC game.
 
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