Amazon PCDD - Important Update New Community Manager Incoming!

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Hey CAGS,

I’ve got some news I’m both excited and sad to share with you at the same time. I’ll be leaving the Digital Video Games team in Mid-March to join the marketing team for Amazon.com’s Loyalty and Rewards program, Amazon Coins. My boss and I have talked extensively about how to maintain and continue our presence here and across the other communities we’ve created in the past couple of years. To that end I’d like to introduce you to Josh, who take over monitoring, updating, and responding to this thread. Josh will be ramping up over the next couple of weeks, he  will be posting shortly to introduce himself.

Now that the “what’s going on” part of the message is out of the way I want to tell you all how much I love CAG and the posters here. This was the first community I joined when I started this job (anyone still remember that first thread?) and all of you have had a huge hand in shaping how we think about and execute Community Development and Management here at Amazon, which has in turn shaped my career these last two and a half years.

I started to write out a section calling out the regular posters and realized the list would be both overly long and incomplete at the same time. Instead I’d like to thank you all again, you all have my deep and sincere gratitude. I’ll still be around and my gaming accounts aren’t going anywhere so feel free to hit me up anytime you want to chat. I’ll probably still hang out in the thread too :).

Thanks again everyone, let me or Josh know if you have any questions!

The Indie Store has launched!
Amazon.com is launching a storefront dedicated to supporting and promoting PC/Mac/Web-based Indie Games. Our Digital Video Games team is a small group of passionate gamers and we’re all really excited to help Indie developers reach more customers quickly by providing a quick and simple process for bringing their games to market. Additionally we’ll be supporting the Indie Store with a ton of promotions, both at and after launch. Many of these promotions are designed to give the developer the opportunity to maximize their revenue. For example, Amazon is forfeiting all royalties from bundle sales and passing them along directly to the developer, we’ve also created an “Indie Spotlight” program to help customers learn more about the games and developers they love. We view the Indie developers as some of the most creative in the industry and we want to help them continue to create new and innovative experience for customers.

Why we are doing this:

  • Allow customers to discover an entirely new category of games on Amazon.com
  • Help developers reach new customers quickly. Our onboarding process is straightforward and we want to sell every Indie game available
  • We want to leverage our strengths to support and help the developers who are driving forward innovation and creativity in the games industry
General Information

Hi CAGs,
I'll be posting deals we're running on Digital Games (PC/Mac, Free to Play, Sony/Microsoft Points/Subs).

I'm also here to answer questions you might have, get you closer to the developers by hosting Q&As, setting up podcasts, live streaming gameplay etc. If I don't respond to a question you have in thread please send me a PM. These ping my email address and make it more likely that I will see your question and respond more quickly.

Cheers,
Tony


FYI. EA Games sold by Amazon will not activate on Steam.
F.A.Q.S.:

1. Does the game I'm buying from Amazon Activate on Steam/Origin/Uplay? What DRM does the game use?

There are two places to identify DRM on a digital video game detail page:

At the top of the page, below the title:

16hm7a8.png


In the "Product Description" section:

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2. Note on Electronic Arts Games - For the most part, EA games sold on Amazon do not activate on Steam. Most activate on Origin.

3. Note on DRM with limited activations:

Our Policy



4. Sometimes I'll do giveaways.

5. I work with developers and publishers to get fun (or at least what I think is fun) content to share with you all. Here are some examples:

a. Check out the Pax Gameplay videos here: Xcom: Enemy Unknown I played Xcom with Jake, the Creative Director for the game, a few months before the game came out Also, on this page, check out the Q&A, also a community driven event.

b. Check out the interview on this page: Borderlands 2 we did this interview at E3 with Randy Pitchford this year.

c. We've partnered with the ++GoodGames Podcast to feature many of the games we carry. They talk to the developers about the game development process, how the games are conceptualized and managed, all kinds of fun stuff. I'm working on putting together full link list and will update when I have it.

What else do we sell?

Xbox Live Points and Subscriptions:

1600 Microsoft Live Points
4000 Microsoft Live Points
12 Month XBOX Live Subscription
3 Month XBOX Live Subscription]
12 Month + 1 XBOX Live Subscription

PSN+ Subscriptions and PSN Points:

$20 PSN Points
$50 PSN Points
12 Month PSN+ Subscription
3 Month PSN+ Subscription

We also have a Free-2-Play store supported by our GameConnect technology. Gameconnect allows you to link your Amazon.com account with free-2-play and MMO accounts so that you can buy things like in game currency, premium game time/subscriptions, in game items, etc. on Amazon.com using your Amazon.com payment options and have this content delivered directly into your game.

5. Price Matching notes: Generally we do not match international retailers (GMG, Gamersgate, etc) or physical retailers (Best Buy, Newegg.com, etc.)
To check out the Free-2-Play games we offer you can visit our storefront here: Free-2-Play Store

 
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As far as subscription MMOs, I'd have to say ESO is much better than FFXIV at the moment.  I bought FFXIV during the last sale and have been extremely let down by it. It's a beautiful game... the world and the characters... it just seems dead to me.  Probably has to do with the audio (or lack thereof).  Some of the music fits the event/location.  Other music is really out of place.  And there is just about zero talking by NPCs, questgivers, etc.  I had no idea I'd miss the voiceovers from other games... even if it's gutteral sounds from just clicking on people.  I probably wouldn't mind if I was the type of person who liked to listen to my own music while I played games.

 
spacejunk said:
Are you ever really clean and sober from that game? I haven't played it for about a year and I still feel its pull.
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I have a playtime of 230 days on it and though it was hard to stop I find it easy to now avoid because it bores the heck out of me whenever I try any new MMO - WoW expansions included. I'm kind of immunised against the effects of MMO's :D

Unfortunately my new hobby appears to be other games which I probably spend more on over a year than my WoW sub was.

 
Someone can have this Elder Scrolls Online Beta Key.

FJXCKX4XN34PXEGY7DGN

 
spacejunk said:
As far as subscription MMOs, I'd have to say ESO is much better than FFXIV at the moment. I bought FFXIV during the last sale and have been extremely let down by it. It's a beautiful game... the world and the characters... it just seems dead to me. Probably has to do with the audio (or lack thereof). Some of the music fits the event/location. Other music is really out of place. And there is just about zero talking by NPCs, questgivers, etc. I had no idea I'd miss the voiceovers from other games... even if it's gutteral sounds from just clicking on people. I probably wouldn't mind if I was the type of person who liked to listen to my own music while I played games.
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Eh, I don't think full-blown voice-acting is always necessary in RPG's.

I think having full-audio can be a very nice touch - when what's there is voice-acted very well. I think for any sort of really important quests (i.e. main quest stuff - especially if the main quest is very strong) and any really important faction quests (i.e. think like Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood type of stuff), great voice-acting can really enhance the hell out of a game.

Do really "Go kill X", "Find X people" or "find X locations" type of quests really need voice-acting? Eh, I think not - I think doing VO on that kind of questing can be waste of time.

Another problem is when voice-actors get repeated - and you notice the hell out of it! I think this is especially true if you have very important NPC's voice-acted by the same people as unimportant characters - crap, Gothic series was famous for this; of course, when huge RPG's like Gothic & Oblivion first-arrived w/ full-blown voice-acting, it was kind of a new thing for that genre, at that time.

Other problems - voice-actors don't seem to fit their role very well (bad casting); and a voice-actor just doesn't seem into their role.

 
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Idiotekque said:
What makes me sad about ESO is that a fuckton of people will buy it anyways, subscribe and play the shit out of it, just because it's Elder Scrolls and they're starved for more of the franchise. I don't know why people waste money on subpar, money-grab shit like that, but you bet they will.

The game ain't gonna go F2P, ever, in my opinion. It's on the same level as WoW, the Final Fantasy MMOs, and EVE. Regardless if the games have issues or suck, they're going to have dedicated fans that keep it going no matter what. Unless ESO horrifically bombs (which, from playing it myself, it probably won't, because it's still playable), it's going to be a waste of money from now until the servers shut down in the distant future.
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That shit makes me mad

 
FFXIV has been pretty great here. It's been really fun so far, though the backtracking is starting to get a bit annoying. The lack of voice acting was a bit off... for the first 5 minutes. Easy to get used to since voicework never was that important to a game. The way the class system is done which... well, as a person whose favorite gameplay mechanic is the job system, has me playing a couple hours a day now on it. 

Also helps that Lalafell are adorable. ESO meanwhile, I've no hopes for and it's feeling a lot more like SWTOR Part 2.

 
The Elder Scrolls Online [Redacted by NDA] NO WANT! Is bad. Hard drive no huge! It cry.

 
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DarkZero104 said:
FFXIV has been pretty great here. It's been really fun so far, though the backtracking is starting to get a bit annoying. The lack of voice acting was a bit off... for the first 5 minutes. Easy to get used to since voicework never was that important to a game. The way the class system is done which... well, as a person whose favorite gameplay mechanic is the job system, has me playing a couple hours a day now on it.

Also helps that Lalafell are adorable. ESO meanwhile, I've no hopes for and it's feeling a lot more like SWTOR Part 2.
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I also played as a Lalafell ! FFXIV was good at first, but all that backtracking was so tedious....... I bought a 180 days subscription the moment my 30 days ran out, and only played like 3 weeks after that. I still have 2 months left, but the new content won't bring me back.

What's sad is, I had an extra copy of the game+30 days and was looking for someone to give it away to for free. But that was before I discovered CAG.

 
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MysterD said:
Eh, I don't think full-blown voice-acting is always necessary in RPG's.

I think having full-audio can be a very nice touch - when what's there is voice-acted very well. I think for any sort of really important quests (i.e. main quest stuff - especially if the main quest is very strong) and any really important faction quests (i.e. think like Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood type of stuff), great voice-acting can really enhance the hell out of a game.

Do really "Go kill X", "Find X people" or "find X locations" type of quests really need voice-acting? Eh, I think not - I think doing VO on that kind of questing can be waste of time.

Another problem is when voice-actors get repeated - and you notice the hell out of it! I think this is especially true if you have very important NPC's voice-acted by the same people as unimportant characters - crap, Gothic series was famous for this; of course, when huge RPG's like Gothic & Oblivion first-arrived w/ full-blown voice-acting, it was kind of a new thing for that genre, at that time.

Other problems - voice-actors don't seem to fit their role very well (bad casting); and a voice-actor just doesn't seem into their role.
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Yeah I think if it's really repetitive, that can be boring too. With FFXIV though, you have these nice ambient sounds and then utter silence when you're reading NPC text. Might be a subjective thing... some people obviously have less of an issue with it than me. I think that's the part I liked about SWtoR and GW2.

Neuro5i5 said:
Not necessarily, but if you tell Chistopher Walken to say anything it immediately becomes 357.62% better.
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Seriously.

 
All of the recent Elder Scrolls games are horrible. I have no idea why anyone expected the MMO flavor to taste any better.......In before Mooby posts my playtime.

 
I guess I'm going to be the voice of dissent and say that I like the voice acting in the quests, even the fetch or kill X ones. It makes them a little less bleh for me. At least the first time around. When you're doing then for the 4th or 9th time (like I did with SWTOR; there's a lot of overlap when playing different character types) then it definitely gets old.

In the earlier betas some of the npcs hadn't had their real voice acting done and attached yet so they used text to speech generators with various accents. A couple of times are very first they fooled me into thinking it was voice acting, but after a few seconds I realized it wasn't.

Still, I think that technology is getting close but not quite there yet. Once it gets believable I think it will make games like this much easier to add new content for. SWTOR got very little in the way of new fully voice acted storylines after release. Almost all the updates were more geared toward the MMO side of things so those who play it more or less as KOTOR3 were pretty much left with the same content on release.

pasports31 said:
these were the days, amirite...

images_q_tbn_ANd9_Gc_Qoh_JZe5hx1k_TRkrseae_Gf6otg5_Ie_S.jpg
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You joke but those games were good for the time and in some ways ahead of their time. Elder Scrolls was doing real time action based swing your sword combat in CRPGs before anyone else pretty much. And Daggerfall had procedurally generated terrain, which is something I think could be revisited now that technology has advanced a bit. ESO for instance could do well with a little bit of procedurally generated terrain.

Daggerfall also had the first instance of store specific DLC that I can recall with an exclusive quest if you bought from CompUSA. (remember them?) Not that that is something to be proud of, but it's a first nonetheless.

 
Motoki said:
In the earlier betas some of the npcs hadn't had their real voice acting done and attached yet so they used text to speech generators with various accents. A couple of times are very first they fooled me into thinking it was voice acting, but after a few seconds I realized it wasn't.

Still, I think that technology is getting close but not quite there yet.
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The temporary voice over replacements sounded like THIS which was released over 35 years ago. So .. yeah I'd say it's def not close and has some work to do. Even Stephen Hawking sounds better. :)

 
pasports31 said:
these were the days, amirite...
images_q_tbn_ANd9_Gc_Qoh_JZe5hx1k_TRkrseae_Gf6otg5_Ie_S.jpg
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While I have Arena & Daggerfall from those FREE DL's from BethSoft's site and barely touched them - Morrowind was my first real entry w/ Bethesda and their games. And since Morrowind, I've been hooked on ES series for its SP-experience that has ridiculously huge game-worlds and just tons of stuff to do. And if that ain't enough for me - I can always look for some MODS!

I think b/c ES is going MMO for ESO, this might be the first ES game from Zenimax & Bethesda that I might actually just flat-out skip.

 
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Motoki said:
Daggerfall also had the first instance of store specific DLC that I can recall with an exclusive quest if you bought from CompUSA. (remember them?) Not that that is something to be proud of, but it's a first nonetheless.
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I still have my box with the CompUSA sticker on the front of it. It always annoyed the hell out of me when they stuck stickers on the box itself and not the shrink wrap.

 
Sepioth said:
The temporary voice over replacements sounded like THIS which was released over 35 years ago. So .. yeah I'd say it's def not close and has some work to do. Even Stephen Hawking sounds better. :)
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The weird thing is that while most sounded like that there were a couple of instances where they were almost passable. I'm not sure if it was the words they had them saying or the accents or what. I also thought it was funny that they had English speaking text to speech programs with foreign accounts. There was one female Khajiit in Mistral who had an East Indian accent to her stilted computer speech.

 
TONY .. PLEASE HELP .... WE NEED A SALE AND WE NEED IT SOON....

I Think they may have already gotten Spoder .... it's only a matter of time before they get the rest of us too .....

Tumbleweed_trouble_557870000_411972_ver1.0_320_240.jpg


 
The hamsters are tired from too many sales.  They're out on holiday.  One is in Tahiti.  One is skiing in the Alps.  One is currently being frisked and stripsearched just trying to get into Sochi for the Olympics.  One is sequestered at home, paws around some honeys, doin' some blow, and watching an Orange is the New Black marathon on Netflix on the down-low.  Corporate might have a problem, but he registered the Netflix account under a pseudonym, "Obb."

Bob's always been a rebel, though.  Tony's sent Amazon Black Ops to infiltrate Bob's massive estate and drag him into Corporate.  They are going to have him account for his traitorous actions with Netflix to Bezos himself.

The rumor is Bezos has already pronounced him guilty...

Sales r srs bsns.  They ruin lives, drive good hamsters to do bad things, and sales weariness has left many a hamster in a pet store, banging against the cage, pining for the life they once had.

Long ago.

 
Meh, I'm fine with the ES talk. If the sales come back I'm just going to get pissed off again that early and loyal buyers from Amazon get penalized because they bundle newer stuff with the older stuff but don't put it on sale by itself.  :bomb:  :twoguns:

 
Got to level 3 before hitting my first game-breaking bug in The Elder Scrolls.  Finished a quest and the game keeps me locked into talking with the NPC, despite the fact the dialogue is over.  Nothing I do can remove me from the talk dialogue screen.  Even logging out and logging back in doesn't fix it. 

Level 3.  Game-breaking bug.  This is being released when? 

PS: I'm perfectly happy with no sales for a bit, gives me time to play games :)

 
Mippo said:
Got to level 3 before hitting my first game-breaking bug in The Elder Scrolls. Finished a quest and the game keeps me locked into talking with the NPC, despite the fact the dialogue is over. Nothing I do can remove me from the talk dialogue screen. Even logging out and logging back in doesn't fix it.

Level 3. Game-breaking bug. This is being released when?

PS: I'm perfectly happy with no sales for a bit, gives me time to play games :)
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I hit that bug a number of times... however logging out back to the character selection screen and coming back it resolved it for me every time.

 
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