Amazon PCDD - Important Update New Community Manager Incoming!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Amazon DVG Deals

Amazon DVG Deals

Official Representative
Feedback
4 (100%)
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:

r06ykl.jpg


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

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Trusty Mutsi said:
1. Anyone have any thoughts on "How to Survive" after playing it?

2. Anyone playing "The Secret World" that wants to play together some time? I'm at a point where I could use some help.
Click to expand...
I am still on the fence about TSW, but if I do end up getting it I definitely wouldn't mind joining up with some CAGs.
 
Trusty Mutsi said:
1. Anyone have any thoughts on "How to Survive" after playing it?

2. Anyone playing "The Secret World" that wants to play together some time? I'm at a point where I could use some help.
Click to expand...
2. What point? I'm still at kingsmouth (I enjoy doing every quest).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I picked up Burnout Paradise and am waiting on the dlc stuff next.  For an occasional race need, will it be sufficient?  Or does Need for Speed: Most Wanted have something that BP doesn't?    Does this price with the EC coupon make it a must buy?

 
I'm interested in the original Alice. If I purchase the Alice complete pack will it overlay with my current Origin slot for Alice: The Madness Returns or will I have a second Alice: Madness Returns The Complete Collection  entry in my library?

 
jcruze7 said:
I picked up Burnout Paradise and am waiting on the dlc stuff next. For an occasional race need, will it be sufficient? Or does Need for Speed: Most Wanted have something that BP doesn't? Does this price with the EC coupon make it a must buy?
Click to expand...
Finish Burnout Paradise before installing the DLC, it unlocks every car which ruins the point of the single player campaign.

 
jcruze7 said:
Thanks, will do. Will you/have you picked up NFS Most Wanted too? I think BP will be plenty but what do you think?
Click to expand...
I've been going back and forth on Most Wanted for a week. I keep changing my mind, but at $4.50 I'm leaning toward buying it. I won't buy the DLC cause it'd be another $7 and the game has a glitch where the DLC only shows up in the game half of the time. I don't know if you'll want both games, I don't see why not. They're good prices.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Woodlands said:
I'm interested in the original Alice. If I purchase the Alice complete pack will it overlay with my current Origin slot for Alice: The Madness Returns or will I have a second Alice: Madness Returns The Complete Collection entry in my library?
Click to expand...
I can't guarantee that it won't overwrite your current vanilla version of Alice: MR, but when I activated my complete collection on Origin it shows up as "Alice: Madness Returns™ - The Complete Edition". I also ended up biting on TSW, too bad it doesn't activate on steam :/.

 
I noticed the SimCity dlc packs have two versions - What's the difference between "Instant Access" or "Online Game Code". Game code I assume is the actual Origin code, is the other one just directly linked to your origin account?

 
Trusty Mutsi said:
1. Anyone have any thoughts on "How to Survive" after playing it?

2. Anyone playing "The Secret World" that wants to play together some time? I'm at a point where I could use some help.
Click to expand...
1. I played through about half of How To Survive and I really need to get back to it. It's like a hack n slash, adventure RPG mixed with Dead Island. It's pretty fun and has a some good personality with a lot of jokes in the survival guide you put together as you play. For the price amazon has it with a coupon, it would be a definite buy for me.

 
Motoki said:
Is that even possible that a game could run terrible on one person's PS3 and perfectly fine on another person's? Isn't it the same hardware?

Sorry, I'm a bit of a console noob. (well I had stone age consoles but the PS3 I just bought several months back for Ni No Kuni)
Click to expand...
I know there have been changes between the fat and slim systems, so I could understand that. All I can account for is my own personal experience. (That being on a old school fat system.)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Naked Snake Eyes said:
I've been going back and forth on Most Wanted for a week. I keep changing my mind, but at $4.50 I'm leaning toward buying it. I won't buy the DLC cause it'd be another $7 and the game has a glitch where the DLC only shows up in the game half of the time. I don't know if you'll want both games, I don't see why not. They're good prices.
Click to expand...
asheskitty said:
I like BP more than MW (2012), but for the price it's hard to pass up MW (base). NFS titles bottom out at $5.
Click to expand...
I know the price is good, but is the game? What makes you guys want this? (Insert most wanted joke here) I've seen too many reviews saying it's a poor PC port.

 
Neuro5i5 said:
I know there have been changes between the fat and slim systems, so I could understand that. All I can account for is my own personal experience. (That being on a old school fat system.)
Click to expand...
Yeah, they have done hardware changes with each new iteration of the PS3. I think at one point they combined chips or something to save money.

 
Motoki said:
Is that even possible that a game could run terrible on one person's PS3 and perfectly fine on another person's? Isn't it the same hardware?

Sorry, I'm a bit of a console noob. (well I had stone age consoles but the PS3 I just bought several months back for Ni No Kuni)
Click to expand...
The game is on Unreal Engine, which is known to have performance issues on PS3. Enslaved has frame rate slow down and screen tearing when it gets stressed. I believe it's more a case of Neuro not noticing or not remembering the issues, than them not being there. No offense!

Too Damn High said:
I know the price is good, but is the game? What makes you guys want this? (Insert most wanted joke here) I've seen too many reviews saying it's a poor PC port.
Click to expand...
It does sound like a terrible port, but ashes says that they fixed the performance to some degree in a patch after release. This game actually has some PC graphics settings unlike Hot Pursuit, and just seems like it's probably worth the $4.50 to me. If they hadn't improved the performance since launch I definitely wouldn't be buying it. I've been wishing for a Burnout Paradise sequel since 2008, and I think this is as close as we're going to get.

If it wasn't for the super low price I might suggest you just play Burnout and wait on Most Wanted, but I don't think it's going to get any cheaper than this.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Naked Snake Eyes said:
The game is on Unreal Engine, which is known to have performance issues on PS3. Enslaved has frame rate slow down and screen tearing when it gets stressed. I believe it's more a case of Neuro not noticing or not remembering the issues, than them not being there. No offense!
Click to expand...
Well, I will say this much, I've had some of my nerdy graphic geek friends complain about a shitload of stuff on some PC games and I've been like "wut?" I just don't really care about small things like that. Short of a game just freezing completely, frame rate slow down is probably something I'd never notice if I didn't have that little program installed.

Edit:

Also doesn't seem like it's a PS3 only problem:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1439302/enslaved-odyssey-to-the-west-screen-tearing

And also, I see nothing wrong with those screenshots they have posted.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Gonna chime in with an unpopular opinion here and say I actually enjoyed NFS: MW (2012). It kind of reminded me of NFS:HP without the weapons and ability to play as cops, mixed with a little TDU open-city driving. I didn't really have too many issues with the handling - I find that the handling is different in pretty much every racing game and takes getting used to. Once you get used to it it's not too bad. While it is true that there isn't any real sense of progression - you just find cars scattered throughout the city - I actually enjoyed that. With so many games in my backlog library, I don't really have time to beat the campaign just so I can drive that one car that I like. At least this way, I can drive whatever car I want, whenever I want. Each car has about 6-7 races (some races are recycled for similarly classed cars) that allow you to unlock upgrades for that car, so if you really wanted to you can try to get all the upgrades for all the cars but for now I'm just enjoying upgrading the cars I like to drive. Another cool feature is that your car will get banged up but you can fix/paint it by driving through any of the gas stations strategically scattered throughout the city. Oh, did I mention the city and cars look absolutely fantastic? I guess it's because most of the racers I played are a bit on the older side, but this is hands-down the best looking racing game I've played. The map ain't GTA-V or JC2 big, but it's a decent enough size. Now that I think about it, it kinds of also reminds me of when I played GTA-IV by modding in real cars - I'd have endless hours of fun just driving around liberty city and getting my car FUBAR only to throw it away and get me a new ride. I'd say this game leans toward more of a TDU/GTA-like style open city driving than a real hardcore racing game. 

It's not without it's faults however - the constant crash cam can definitely be annoying, as well as NPC car traffic during races. Also I've got to say, the police in this game are very.. well, good at their job, I think I've gotten busted more often than I'd like to admit. Sometimes the lens flare/bloom when coming out of tunnels is disorienting (that, plus travelling at 150+ mph can lead to some disastrous results.) Although at this point I'm having enough fun that I'm able to overlook most of these faults. 

Also I've only played the game for 5-6 hours - and only in single player, at that. I don't have any Origin friends (boohoo) so I couldn't tell you too much about the multiplayer component, which I hear good things about.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Motoki said:
Is that even possible that a game could run terrible on one person's PS3 and perfectly fine on another person's? Isn't it the same hardware?

Sorry, I'm a bit of a console noob. (well I had stone age consoles but the PS3 I just bought several months back for Ni No Kuni)
Click to expand...
While it's possible, it's much more likely that something bothered one of them and didn't bother another. Some people are much more sensitive to frame rate drops while others are more sensitive to tearing or aliasing. Best bet would be to read a few reviews to see if there were any consistent issues noted across all of them.

 
Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
Well, I will say this much, I've had some of my nerdy graphic geek friends complain about a shitload of stuff on some PC games and I've been like "wut?" I just don't really care about small things like that. Short of a game just freezing completely, frame rate slow down is probably something I'd never notice if I didn't have that little program installed.
Click to expand...
Same here. Although I may be noticing stuff and just not knowing what it is. I'm willing to admit that if I say "the fighting was sort of clunky" the issue may have been low framerates throwing off my reactions or something. But, yeah, most technical complaints about games go over my head.

 
Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
Well, I will say this much, I've had some of my nerdy graphic geek friends complain about a shitload of stuff on some PC games and I've been like "wut?" I just don't really care about small things like that. Short of a game just freezing completely, frame rate slow down is probably something I'd never notice if I didn't have that little program installed.

Edit:

Also doesn't seem like it's a PS3 only problem:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1439302/enslaved-odyssey-to-the-west-screen-tearing

And also, I see nothing wrong with those screenshots they have posted.
Click to expand...
That's very true, some people just don't notice or care.

I'm not seeing tears in those screens either, this guy hasn't done a very good job of illustrating his problem.

Just bought Most Wanted and am down to 2 credits left, I may regret having used one up on How to Survive if there are any better deals coming up.

Son of a bitch, can't stand how Origin makes you log in again every time it updates, I have to go look up my password each time. Evey Uplay remembers your pw!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Naked Snake Eyes said:
That's very true, some people just don't notice or care.

I'm not seeing tears in those screens either, this guy hasn't done a very good job of illustrating his problem.

Just bought Most Wanted and am down to 2 credits left, I may regret having used one up on How to Survive if there are any better deals coming up.

Son of a bitch, can't stand how Origin makes you log in again every time it updates, I have to go look up my password each time. Evey Uplay remembers your pw!
Click to expand...
I have to admit that on one hand I am jealous that these friends can see things I can't, but on the other hand I feel fortunate I don't see them so they don't affect my gameplay. To see guys like the one in that post talking about how he had to mess with a million things and the game still isn't running like he wants and it affects his enjoyment makes me feel a bit lucky.

Funny thing, is if you play an Origin required mobile game, it remembers your password with no problem every time.

 
Too Damn High said:
I know the price is good, but is the game? What makes you guys want this? (Insert most wanted joke here) I've seen too many reviews saying it's a poor PC port.
Click to expand...
I've written about this several times before. It's okay. It has it's appeal. It is not as good as it's predecessors (BP & HP). At release it had terrible performance issues that got patched up a bit ~3 months later. It still has performance issues but I tweaked it to play around 45-50 fps and never dipping below 30 fps (some areas are rough on fps) on my X3 720 + GTX 660. No wheel support fyi.

The map is small (the city is interconnected corridors). The car handling is pretty samey. It's not challenging for me (this could be an upside for many). My highlight was driving a Countach QV5000. With that stated it's otherwise quite competent. I was expecting more from Criterion, and more from a game carrying the beloved Most Wanted title. If you want to play MW (2005) hunt down a (physical) copy and add the texture mods and ENB -- it looks quite nice. Same for Underground 2.

DLC has issues where it flat out works/doesn't-work/works-sometimes.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
tfr said:
Want to get most wanted DLC, but I don't like the idea of DLCs being more expensive than the game.
Click to expand...
Shhhhh. The EA guy reads this forum. He's going to see that and the logical conclusion will be "Don't discount base games too much, it will discourage people from buying the DLC."

 
Since the sale is due to return, I guess this is relevant:

SimCity will support single player offline play from its next patch!

All it needs now is those bigger city areas and what was already my favourite game of last year will be one of the greatest games ever - despite its appalling launch.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
I have to admit that on one hand I am jealous that these friends can see things I can't, but on the other hand I feel fortunate I don't see them so they don't affect my gameplay. To see guys like the one in that post talking about how he had to mess with a million things and the game still isn't running like he wants and it affects his enjoyment makes me feel a bit lucky.
Click to expand...
I just consider myself lucky. Ignorance is bliss and all that. Sort of like people who can't stand MP3's for sound quality. I believe they can tell the difference but I'm glad that I personally can't 'cause, hey, more cheap music and enjoyment for me.

 
Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
Shhhhh. The EA guy reads this forum. He's going to see that and the logical conclusion will be "Don't discount base games too much, it will discourage people from buying the DLC."
Click to expand...
Dear EA guy,

I don't like the idea, but I bought the DLC anyway.

So you better discount those Mass Effect 3 DLCs like RIGHT NOW.

sincerely,

tfr

 
Cheaplikeafox 3.0 said:
Shhhhh. The EA guy reads this forum. He's going to see that and the logical conclusion will be "Don't discount base games too much, it will discourage people from buying the DLC."
Click to expand...
Honestly my biggest issue with the DLC is a technical one -- it doesn't always work... initially none worked for me. I full-reinstalled and then 3/4 always work and Terminal Velocity works half the time when I start the game. It really sucks to not get what you paid for.

There is a MW GOTY edition (showed up around August iirc). I think it's nice of Tony/EA to have the base and DLC separately. I first bought the base game and made sure my PC could handle it before buying the DLC (back around Turkey Day). I might have been hesitant to bite on a GOTY pack since I was uncertain if my PC could handle it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Naked Snake Eyes said:
The game is on Unreal Engine, which is known to have performance issues on PS3. Enslaved has frame rate slow down and screen tearing when it gets stressed. I believe it's more a case of Neuro not noticing or not remembering the issues, than them not being there. No offense!
Click to expand...
None taken. I am more forgiving than some when it comes to slow down, pop in, stutter, tearing, etc, but I'm still aware of it. From what I can recall, if I I had any of the issues mentioned for Enslaved, it was minimal enough to not take a firm set in my memory. Also, the display devices, TV in this case, can mask or enhance said issues, fwiw. I believe I played this on my DLP, so that may make a difference. A more recent game I had horrible tearing with was Riptide in that I actually had to enable Vsync/tripbuff due to how annoying it was. Though, I remember having the same issues with DI as well. But, both of those were on PC, of course.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
bread's done
Back
Top