GameTap to Discard Pile (August 8, 2008)

[Bandit LOAF]

From the not-so-tragic-when-it-happens-to-them department: Gamasutra is reporting that Turner Broadcasting is preparing to sell off the poorly run GameTap service:

Time Warner says that GameTap parent Turner has decided to sell the subscription and ad-based PC gaming service.

The parent media company's second quarter financial results released this morning showed an $18 million writeoff credited to the decision.

"There is considerable marketplace interest in the GameTap business and brand," said a Turner spokesperson of the pending sale. "We are considering various strategic options, but have reached no final agreement as yet. When there is a resolution, we will announce it."

At the risk of editorializing: when Ted Turner's business model can't support your crazy project, it's time to close up shop. They should have stuck with Wing Commander! Better days:

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Original update published on August 8, 2008

 

[Sinclair_K]

I'm a long time GameTap user, and I have to agree that it is poorly run. In the recent past it suffered from it not being allowed to be what it, and the community, wants it to be; which is a classic gaming library. They went off that and tired to make it a multimedia experience. I don't give a severed Kilrathi head what the gaming tastes of crappy musical bands. Ironically it seems most of the games they loved were not ones GameTap had anyway. Smart move. Talk up a product you don't have. Stop with wasting money on media production and buy game rights! What's wrong GameTap excs? Sound too logical?

-SK

 

[Haliwali]

We are not a sympathetic bunch when people wrong us, are we? Anyway, yea I tried out Gametap a couple months ago, played a few games I missed (FINALLY finished Psychonaughts) but never really got THAT into the service. Neat concept, but just didn't hook me in.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

This is a special case - it was more the manner in which they wronged us: promising things they never delivered, stealing our money, betraying their core concept for new age pop flash and then refusing to apologize or even recognize the situation (after being happy to accept our help in promotion and support)... it's a satisfying thing watching GameTap flounder.

 

[t.c.cgi]

We are not a sympathetic bunch when people wrong us, are we?

It's hard to be sympathetic for the reasons LOAF cited. IIRC the CIC went so far as to provide GameTap with the manuals for the games and the Kilrathi Saga Secret Missions/Special Operations, as well as play tech support/bug hunter for the ports. I could be wrong though, but I remember there being money and help exchanged on the hope that GameTap would be a utopia of classic gaming.

Frankly Gametap was a very half-assed project from the start and then it was hijacked by foolishness. Removing a massive chunk of classic EA titles from a retro gaming service is an excellent way to gimp yourself and kill your customer base. In that sense I'm happy to see them go. We have plenty of game companies helmed by morons as it is.

 

[ChrisReid]

It's hard to be sympathetic for the reasons LOAF cited. IIRC the CIC went so far as to provide GameTap with the manuals for the games and the Kilrathi Saga Secret Missions/Special Operations, as well as play tech support/bug hunter for the ports. I could be wrong though, but I remember there being money and help exchanged on the hope that GameTap would be a utopia of classic gaming.

When WC1 first went up there was nothing that gave people the copy protection codes, and so we had answers online in a few hours for that. At one time you could go on and download the WC1 Blueprints and stuff like that and see that they were identical to the scanned files we host here. We all (me at least) went out and bought subscriptions the day the first advertisement went up for Privateer on gametap, and Privateer never actually ended up being posted on the service.