Games for Windows: Age of Empires III: 10 cents

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EliotAndrews

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Hey, all.
Games for Windows Marketplace just relaunched with a new, web-friendly system. To celebrate, they're doing "Deal of the Day's" all week.

Monday: Grand Theft Auto IV: $11.99 (40% off)
Tuesday: Borderlands: $9.99 (50% off)
Wednesday: Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY: $11.99 (60% off)
Thursday: Red Faction: Guerrilla: $5.99 (70% off)
Friday: Saints Row 2: $5.99 (80% off)
Saturday: Bioshock: $1.99 (90% off)
Sunday: Age of Empires III: 10 cents

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/

It should be noted that, so far, Steam has offered these games for less in the past. Therefore, I'd say "wait for the Steam Holiday Sale." (A CAG phrase that has been popular for about 6 months now.)

Thursday: I admit, Red Faction: Guerrilla at this price is a bit insulting since both Steam and D2D have offered the game for $4.99 in the past.

Saturday: This is easily the most surprising of the deals. Bioshock has been $4.99 at the lowest over at Steam. So, if anyone's interested, this is the perfect time to pick the game up.

Sunday: I'd like to know which CAGer's can resist a 10-cent game. (CAG TIP: Due to the "exchange rate," using your Microsoft Points costs you more money.)


Though it's not part of this deal, I thought I'd add that Bioshock 2 is the Deal of the Week: $9.99 (50% off)
 
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I cant believe I even had to reconsider this....I gave my 360 away to my bro a year ago and apparently had 140 pts left in my account...literally free
 
[quote name='DirkBelig']To the people who are getting [/QUOTE]

Heh, the only person completely freaking out is you. WHen you get off your soap box, please let us all know.
 
[quote name='Nesrie']Heh, the only person completely freaking out is you. WHen you get off your soap box, please let us all know.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately there are some butt-hurt people here, and he has had quite a few well put points. I'm glad he's posted.
 
[quote name='friedram']Unfortunately there are some butt-hurt people here, and he has had quite a few well put points. I'm glad he's posted.[/QUOTE]

Not really he doesn't. He is just playing to the stereotypes of what he thinks is going on. He doesn't actually know, and the people who are backing him up are doing the same thing. But hey, I guess if he wants to worship Ubisoft DRM and thank EA for trying to do us all a favor with Spore's DRM, he can continue the mantra and get as many people lined up behind him all he wants.

Someone asked about DRM in this game and he pounced. THere is nothing valid about that.
 
The deal is 110% legit so no fear there for people who still have that fear (check out the Games For Windows facebook or twitter like htis http://twitter.com/#!/GFWL/status/6429742571982849 )

I'd imagine that the server just ran out of CD Keys, but don' tomorrow they'll get you new ones.. patience people. I know it sucks, I want to play too, but I'm sure Microsoft isnt' sitting back thinking "hey let's screw people!"
 
"Due to the overwhelming success of the Age of Empires III sale, we have temporarily run out of keys to unlock the game. You can still buy the game at this amazing price and you will get/see a key in the next week. When new keys are added to the system you will be auto-assigned a key, there is no need to call support or take any other action from your end. We will post here on the forums when the keys are available and the next time you click 'View Game Keys' for the game you should be assigned one.


Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy the game."

Pulled that from the Games for Windows Live Forum


http://forums.gamesforwindows.com/p/15700/135170.aspx#135170
 
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[quote name='SoulFinder']"Due to the overwhelming success of the Age of Empires III sale, we have temporarily run out of keys to unlock the game. You can still buy the game at this amazing price and you will get/see a key in the next week. When new keys are added to the system you will be auto-assigned a key, there is no need to call support or take any other action from your end. We will post here on the forums when the keys are available and the next time you click 'View Game Keys' for the game you should be assigned one.


Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy the game."

Pulled that from the Games for Windows Live Forum


http://forums.gamesforwindows.com/p/15700/135170.aspx#135170[/QUOTE]

Heh, who would have thought gamers might be willing to try a new store, or service at the rich price of 10 cents :cool:.
 
this is from the games for windows live forums:

"Due to the overwhelming success of the Age of Empires III sale, we have temporarily run out of keys to unlock the game. You can still buy the game at this amazing price and you will get/see a key in the next week. When new keys are added to the system you will be auto-assigned a key, there is no need to call support or take any other action from your end. We will post here on the forums when the keys are available and the next time you click 'View Game Keys' for the game you should be assigned one.


Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy the game."
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='DarkPGR']There are no Download limits
There are no Install limits

THe only limit is the online portion of the game: One key per account.[/QUOTE]

That's awesome. I thought there was a 10 install limit; was that just the old marketplace?
I'd definitely consider GFW more if they finally removed that. Got a link?

Edit: I should add that I jumped on this for .10 cents. Even with an install limit and gfw interface, that's a HELL of a deal (regardless of opinions on steam vs. gfw). Certainly worth testing personally for less than a dollar.
 
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Game runs fine, works great. Just a tip, if you are installing and it seems the installer gets stuck at 5% just wait. The installer likes to stop at random intervals and not update it's percentage.
 
[quote name='Phokis']That's awesome. I thought there was a 10 install limit; was that just the old marketplace?
I'd definitely consider GFW more if they finally removed that. Got a link?

Edit: I should add that I jumped on this for .10 cents. Even with an install limit and gfw interface, that's a HELL of a deal (regardless of opinions on steam vs. gfw). Certainly worth testing personally for less than a dollar.[/QUOTE]

Each game has a different limit set by the publisher.

Some games have 10, some 15, some no limits, and some use SSA (the game is tied to the account that is used to activate it, and has unlimited installs)
 
[quote name='phokis']jumped on this for .10 cents[/quote]

How did you get 99% off?!

EDIT: Hmm -- forum auto-trimmed my all caps. Even though it was sarcastic. =(
 
For 10 cents, I couldn't pass this up. It does suck about not getting the keys though. But Steam also has this happen from time to time. One thing I'm disappointed about is that the download stops and asks for the cd key. If it completed the download first, you might have been able to play the game via a crack (but then that is probably why it works the way it does ;)).
 
Speaking of running out of keys, totally off topic too, but I'm putting my bets on Steam running out of keys on 7 games this Thanksgiving Sale.

On topic, my brother ordered this as well as about half of my friends. Some of them don't even really like RTS games but for $.10 what's there to lose.
 
[quote name='SoulFinder']"Due to the overwhelming success of the Age of Empires III sale, we have temporarily run out of keys to unlock the game. You can still buy the game at this amazing price and you will get/see a key in the next week. When new keys are added to the system you will be auto-assigned a key, there is no need to call support or take any other action from your end. We will post here on the forums when the keys are available and the next time you click 'View Game Keys' for the game you should be assigned one.


Thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy the game."

Pulled that from the Games for Windows Live Forum


http://forums.gamesforwindows.com/p/15700/135170.aspx#135170[/QUOTE]

I appreciate the update. I read through 18 pages of bitchin' before I looked or called support. I can wait it out. I never complain when games are this cheap. Thanks to everyone else that posted usueful info, including the OP.
 
Oh wow, I had 30 microsoft points and I had no idea what to spend them on. Now just to figure out what to do with the 20 points I have left. Thanks OP.
 
Not sure if anyone else has been having this problem.
The GFWL Client keeps crashing, and the download pauses. It hangs if I choose to send an error report, if that matters, and simply closes if I choose not to. If I hit cancel download and restart, it starts downloading again and then crashes.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the client, thinking that would help, but it doesn't show up under Control Panel and Add/remove programs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running Windows XP.
 
[quote name='dkl415']Not sure if anyone else has been having this problem.
The GFWL Client keeps crashing, and the download pauses. It hangs if I choose to send an error report, if that matters, and simply closes if I choose not to. If I hit cancel download and restart, it starts downloading again and then crashes.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the client, thinking that would help, but it doesn't show up under Control Panel and Add/remove programs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running Windows XP.[/QUOTE]

I don't have a solution for you, but you are not alone with this problem. I have been trying most of the day to download the game and the furthest I get is about 34% before it crashes. I am also using XP
 
[quote name='dkl415']Not sure if anyone else has been having this problem.
The GFWL Client keeps crashing, and the download pauses. It hangs if I choose to send an error report, if that matters, and simply closes if I choose not to. If I hit cancel download and restart, it starts downloading again and then crashes.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the client, thinking that would help, but it doesn't show up under Control Panel and Add/remove programs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running Windows XP.[/QUOTE]

My client kept crashing on me not long after I started trying to download the game, seemed like it was a memory leak or so. Even just leaving the client idle with no download had memory usage spiking up, this was on XP SP3. Doing what a post I found at the GFW Forums said, installing .NET Framework 4 fixed the problem. Memory usage went from 500K at launch before Framework 4 install, to around 121K~ or so, going down to 27k after a while. Client kept crashing above 1,200,000K and 1,600,000K memory usage before Framework 4 install.
 
I think this is one of those sales where they just want to rope in as many people as possible that don't have the GFWL client installed on their PC hoping that it will lead to future (impulse) buys.
 
[quote name='avwjase']I think this is one of those sales where they just want to rope in as many people as possible that don't have the GFWL client installed on their PC hoping that it will lead to future (impulse) buys.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. It's the same as the Bing Rewards Program, which oddly enough, paid for my 10 cent copy of AoEIII. I have gotten nearly like 600 MS points from it for just taking less than a minute of my day to search for random crap. In exchange for the points, they get me to use their search engine. So, maybe, I might actually decide I like it. Even if I don't, they can flaunt decent usage numbers for the time in which the program is running.
 
"The price of one or more items in your cart has changed since it was added."

Que'st-ce que c'est? This is irritating.

The price is still 10 cents/10 points on the store page. Every time I add it to my cart and try to check out I get this :/

edit: I guess that means the deal's done. But it's still listed at 10 cents on the store page. Continuing the Microsoft tradition of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. :p
 
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Sale was officially over at 10pm pst. Even amazon has that problem where the old price still shows up right after the sale ends in searches etc.. .
 
You can close the program and keep it downloading in the background too, I had to as it was eating up memory insanely fast. Installing .net framework 4 is probably a better solution overall, but just closing it is easy. Haven't gotten around to installing it yet though, no keys!
 
I purchased the deal yesterday , Such a great deal . I would recommend buying it but indeed it ended yesterday.
 
It goes without saying (though I've said it before). You'd think they'd put Gears of War on sale for less than a dollar. They'd draw a LOT of people in with that. And besides, it's ancient. What will they lose?

They really need to offer something for low, low prices that has achievements to emphasize their little system's one advantage over Steam (that it connects to your Xbox achievements). Imo.
 
Waiting for them to replenish the keys. If Microsoft wanted to show people how simple their service is with this offer, they didn't think it through very well did they?
 
[quote name='venturin']Waiting for them to replenish the keys. If Microsoft wanted to show people how simple their service is with this offer, they didn't think it through very well did they?[/QUOTE]

even steam underestimates their sales and they have been in the business far longer...
 
The Credit Card transaction fees had to be more than the 10 cents they charged people. My theory is they just wanted new customers to download the client and put a CC on file to make impulse purchases easier.
 
[quote name='pROvIs']The Credit Card transaction fees had to be more than the 10 cents they charged people. My theory is they just wanted new customers to download the client and put a CC on file to make impulse purchases easier.[/QUOTE]

of course! seems fairly obvious..

but hey.. if it gets me a 10 cent game. no complaints at all.
 
[quote name='smoger']of course! seems fairly obvious..

but hey.. if it gets me a 10 cent game. no complaints at all.[/QUOTE]


Yeh, it works for me. And if I buy more games down the road because of more great deals, it works for MS. Although, I do think they missed a good pr opportunity by not offering Gears Of War during the sale. I would have bought it for cheap, even though I already have the X360 version.
 
.net Framework 4 fixed the client for me. Thanks for the help internet! Too bad Microsoft is getting a ton of users with this sale and many are having serious problems even getting their "cool, new service" to work....
 
Keys are supposed to be in next week. But if this is their try to get me to buy games of games for windows live instead of steam. Its not going well. You should have enough keys.

I'm not going to complain to much as it was just 10 cents. But it doesn't make their service look good.

It was an a very interesting move by Microsoft but i think it has back fired in their face.
 
[quote name='James161324']Keys are supposed to be in next week. But if this is their try to get me to buy games of games for windows live instead of steam. Its not going well. You should have enough keys.

I'm not going to complain to much as it was just 10 cents. But it doesn't make their service look good.

It was an a very interesting move by Microsoft but i think it has back fired in their face.[/QUOTE]

the whole "No keys" problem happens to steam all the time, so I doubt it makes a difference.
 
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