Words about games
unSavyGamer: A thing I am doing on twitter
I’m going to be using @unSavyGamer to track all the gaming rip offs and bad deals. Think of it as the opposite of SavyGamer.
4The Hut are very dishonest
Update: You can find a rather unsatisfactory update to this post here.
As an affiliate of lots of retailers, I get frequent emails from them telling me about their amazing offers. Sometimes they aren’t particularly good, sometimes they are, and I have to sort through them to find the best deals.
I got an email from The Hut telling me this:
Come celebrate your bank holiday weekend with www.thehut.com/home as we have gone voucher code crazy! These codes are available on EVERYTHING so don’t miss out this weekend! Massive savings and commissions are to be made!
So then I spent ages sorting through the games that they sell, and finding which ones were already a good price, so that they could be made even better by using the coupons. My policy with SavyGamer is that I never ever want to link to somewhere that isn’t the cheapest place to get a game from.
I found a bunch of great deals on games that they were already selling for cheap. Posted them up on SavyGamer along with the instructions of how to use the coupons. These offers were available for a short amount of time when I first posted them. Then, because they are dishonest, The Hut increased the prices of most of the games that were actually good deals when using those coupons. Here’s what they did:
Halo: Reach, Xbox 360 – was £37.93, £35.93 with coupon. Increased to £39.93, £37.93 with coupon.
Halo: Reach [Limited Edition], Xbox 360 – was £55.93, £51.93 with coupon. Increased to £59.93, £55.93 with coupon.
Brink, PC – was £24.93, £22.93 with coupon. Increased to £26.93, £24.93 with coupon.
Nier, Xbox 360 – was £17.93, £16.93 with coupon. Increased to £29.93, £27.93 with coupon.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Wii – was £17.93, £16.93 with coupon. Increased to £23.93, £21.93 with coupon.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Xbox 360 – was £23.93, £21.93 with coupon. Increased to £39.93, £37.93 with coupon.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, PS3 – was £23.93, £21.93 with coupon. Increased to £39.93, £37.93 with coupon.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, PC – was £14.93, was £13.93. Increased to £29.93, £27.93 with coupon.
Batman: Arkham Asylum [GOTY], Xbox 360 – was £16.93, £15.93 with coupon. Increased to £17.93, £16.93 with coupon.
Napoleon: Total War [Imperial Edition], PC – was £12.93, £11.93 with coupon. Increased to £17.93, £16.93 with coupon.
Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, DS – was £17.93, £16.93 with coupon. Increased to £24.93, £22.93 with coupon.
GTA: Episodes From Liberty City, Xbox 360 – was £13.93, £12.93 with coupon. Increased to £29.93, £27.93 with coupon.
Forza Motorsport 3, Xbox 360 – was £12.93, £11.93 with coupon. Increased to £14.93, £13.93 with coupon.
As you can see, for the most part their prices were far better before the ‘discount’ coupon was made available. If I were cynical, which I definitely am, I’d say that this was a deliberate deception to increase traffic to their site without actually offering any discount at all. Some of these are preorders, so it’s hardly like there would have been issues with them running out of stock forcing them to increase the price.
I’m going to speak to them on Monday and see what they have to say for themselves. But from now on I am definitely going to keep an eye on how they fiddle with their prices whenever they do have discount coupons.
14Meet Team Meat: Super Meat Boy Interview
First thing’s first, check out the latest footage of super meat boy.
Looking pretty great, no?
I caught up with Edmund and Tommy from Team Meat to check up on how the game’s going. This is what ensued:
Team Meat on Super Meat Boy
Super Meat Boy is coming to PC, Mac, XBLA and Wiiware this summer. Follow the game’s development on the Team Meat blog here.
0Rockstar appear to be breaking their games on Steam
If you have Rockstar games on Steam, you might want to prevent them from allowing to autoupdate. They appear to be breaking some of their games with patches.
3Privates: Not allowed on the Xbox?
Xbox spokesman David Dennis spoke to seattlepi (via VG247) about Zombie Cow’s “Privates“, he said:
This game has not been submitted to our pre-publication peer review process, and it has not been approved for distribution on Xbox Live Indie Games. We have guidelines in place that closely track requirements of content ratings boards worldwide and, among other things, prohibit the publication of strong sexual content. While we haven’t seen this game, we can confirm that if it is consistent with the description we have seen on the Internet, this game would not pass peer review and would not be permitted to be distributed on Xbox Live.
I spoke to Dan from Zombie Cow to see what he had to say for himself.
0Red Dead Redemption Winners
Congratulations to “Mandy” and “Samartriot”, you have won the copies of Red Dead Redemption, courtesy of Zavvi.
3Trine – Review
Trine, PC – £4.99 delivered
Review by Laura Michet
A friend of mine sidled over and took a peek at my laptop screen. “Wo-oah,” he said. “That’s pretty.”
3Green Man Gaming – Probably not very good
I have severe doubts about the idea of digital trade-ins as proposed by Green Man Gaming. After the embarrassing failure to start after the countdown simply froze three days before it was supposed to launch, it is now open for custom.
8Don't any of you dare vote Tory.
Don’t you dare, you’ll not be welcome around these parts if you do.
703 Years of SavyGamer
As of today, SavyGamer has been around for exactly 3 years.
I certainly wouldn’t still be doing it today if it wasn’t for you lot. Thanks to all of you for support.
As a special reward, listen to our third Birthday Podcast Special (it’s just a normal podcast, but birthdayier) to be in with a chance of winning Red Dead Redemption on your console of choice. It’ll be up at some point today.
I’ve had a few people express an interest in making donations to SavyGamer, as a thank you for the hard work I put in. I’ll be frank, SavyGamer isn’t going to disappear if no one makes any donations, I make more than enough from running the site to pay for hosting and make a profit at the end of each month. If you’d like to buy me a pint, but aren’t near enough to go to the pub with me here is a paypal donation button.
If you want to help me out in a different way, spreading SavyGamer to anyone you think might find it useful is a big help to me. I don’t really do much marketing, and word of mouth is probably the best way for the number of people using this site to grow.
Extra special thanks to:
Will, for always being near a computer when I am not, always agreeing with me when I am right and disagreeing with me in the right way when I am wrong.
Everyone who has ever contributed any articles to SavyGamer, particularly Rob who will no doubt soon be snapped up by a publication that will offer him money for his nice words.
Alec, Jim, John and Kieron, for letting me put my words on their web site every week.
All the nice PR people who have given me free games.
All the lovely developers who have talked to me as if I was a proper journalist.
All the retailers that have some semblance of competition, and sometimes have good deals.
Anyone who has ever linked to, RT’d or read anything on SavyGamer.
Hugs, kisses and hi5s all round.
Lewie
PriceMinister is a web site that you can buy and sell games from
It’s true, it is. I’ve just spent the afternoon looking at it, and it seems OK.
It’s like Goozex would be, if they actually operated in our economy and not in some imaginary points economy that they can’t balance properly. Or maybe CEX if they ran a competent business.
You can buy and sell games in a similar way to Amazon Marketplace, and they have a lot of good introductory offers at the minute.
Using this sign up link, you get a free £5 spend (as will I). They are also giving a £10 voucher to anyone that sells 10 items or more before the end of July.
I’m probably going to buy something on it tonight. Let me know what you guys think of it too – it might be worth keeping a close eye on.
8SavyGamer Steam Group
You might have listened to this week’s podcast, where we said that you should join the SavyGamer steam group.
We realised just now that it didn’t actually exist. Until now.
Remember this Friday is SavyGamer game night, we’re playing L4D2’s new mutation mode, which is going to be Bleed Out. Join the steam group to play the PC version, and add We R SavyGamers to play the 360 version.
0Splinter Cell: Conviction – Review
Splinter Cell: Conviction, Xbox 360 – £27.95 delivered
Apply code “APRIL2”
Review by Lewie Procter
I’m not sure exactly how to approach distilling my opinion on the new Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell™ game down into text. Unlike the game itself there is more than one way I could accomplish that goal. Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell™ has had a complete overhaul. Remember how in the old Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell™ games you had to think? Not any more. In the place of intelligent stealth action is flashy whiz bang punchy shooty nonsense, where the most complex challenge you’ll ever have to solve is “how do I press the button that the game tells me to”.
11Infinte Space Winner
Congratulations to hydra9, you’ve won a copy of Infinite Space, it’s on it’s way to you now.
2WIN: Infinite Space!
Would you like to win a copy of Platinum Games’ Infinite Space on the DS? Well, you’ve come to the right place. In conjunction with Zavvi (who have had some excellent deals recently too), we’ve got a copy of the space game thing to give away.
1Persona 3 FES, PS2 – Review
Persona 3 FES – £14.95 delivered
Review by Bobby Foster
Routine is important. I get that. Like most people, I learnt young that failing to brush your teeth every morning has disastrous consequences both hygienically and socially. And although I’ve always kinda felt that the alarm clock is the cruellest machine mankind ever made, I’ve come to accept that you have to use one to be successful in the modern world.
4The internet is an important thing, and our politicians are failing us.
The Digital Economy bill is a piece of legislation that, if passed, will give the government the ability to censor the internet, at an ISP level. It serves simply to protect rights holders, such as record labels and film studios, at the expense of individual privacy and liberty.
It is a big deal.
This is what the House of Commons looked like as it was being debated:
Via fscked.co.uk
Both parties that are trying to push this bill seem to be happy to break the rules it outlays too.
Evil/Oblivious, you decide, but they are certainly hypocrites. Are they trying to make me vote lib dem?
12Book Bitchez: Let's show those boys that girls can read books too
I’ve had enough of those silly boys acting like girls can’t read books.
I’ve decided to assemble an elite team of hot chicks who can show those boys that girls can kick ass at reading too! It is going to be awesome. Go super-feminism! You can dominate those boys if you try hard enough!
Phase 1: A competition. I need to find girls that can read the most words in a day, to prove that they have the most attitude and mad literary skillz. Being able to read lots of words proves that potential Book Bitchez have got what it takes to be supreme literacy aspiration figures, and just have lots of fun
Phase 2: Then we get all the successful Book Bitchez candidates from phase 1, and have a photoshoot of them reading books, to see who has got the real spirit within to spread the power of feminine reading to the world, and show once and for all that girls can read too!
Phase 3: Once we have picked our team of extra-awesome Book Bitchez, we set up blogs where the world can see the real side to our hot girls. We photoblog, videoblog, and most importantly wordblog about what it takes to fight the power, and promote reading for girls around the world! Go lady literacy!
Phase 4: Then we send our team of Book Bitchez to book events to push whatever the publishers that give us financial backing ask us to whore out, and spread the word about how girls can read just as well as boys. That way everyone can hear our message of female word power!
If you think you have got what it takes to be a figurehead for gals who like reading, email us at pleaseobjectifyme@formoneyandattention.com
Notes:
No fatties
Bit.Trip.Runner: Impressions
I felt kind of sad for Bit.Trip.Runner.
There was a huge hustle and bustle at the Aksys booth at PAX. A teeming crowd of geeks were crowded around their screens. All clamouring to take part in a BlazBlue tournament to win a T-Shirt or something. There was a screen with a Wii controller balanced next to it, and no one playing. I wormed my way to the front to see that it was playing Bit.Trip.Runner. I asked “Can I play this please”, and the nice PR man said “sure!” and gave me a badge.
I was a happy Lewie.
2Hello Games: "We hate Monaco"
Those guys sure are bitter about missing out on the IGF. I couldn’t get them to shut up about how much they hate Monaco.
Sean and Grant from Hello Games
In all seriousness, I caught up with Sean and Grant from @hellogames whilst at PAX, because why not fly halfway round the world to interview people who have also just flown halfway round the world.
They talk about the process they went through to decide which platform to release on. Joe Danger is on PSN for now, maybe other platforms (including Game Gear) later. How come they went to PAX, and what the hell “Indie” means to them.
Follow the game’s development here.
0Interview: Twisted Pixel's Mike Wilford
At PAX East 2010, Twisted Pixel were showing off their upcoming game, Comic Jumper. The CEO, Mike Wilford, took some time out to chat with us about the game and their previous work.
Twisted Pixel on Comic Jumper and more
See the game in action here.
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