TotalGaming Tries Yearly PC Subscription Gaming

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the announcement of Stardock's TotalGaming.net PC indie gaming subscription service. The press release explains: "While users can purchase games individually, Stardock expects the real appeal of TotalGaming.net to be in the subscription. For $89, users receive a host of good games plus everything added to TotalGaming.net for an entire year afterwards", and goes on to note: "For the initial launch, Stardock has put together an impressive list of games that will be available on day one, such as Galactic Civilizations, Celtic Kings, Orb, The Corporate Machine, LightWeight Ninja, and a new compilation of Disciples II called Disciples II Ultimate Edition... [and] plans to add a new game each month for the rest of the year starting with The Political Machine in August." Notably, the announcement mentions: "Even if [users] choose not to re-subscribe, they can still re-download the entire game years later." Does this approach appeal more than somewhat similar monthly services offered by Comcast, Atari, and Yahoo?

Comments

Drengin.net

[BlueCup]

They did this before with Drengin.net, which I thought about joining, but despite their other year long subscription having almost weekly updates Drengin hardly ever changed. It didn't seem worth it to me to spend 50 dollars for a service with at the time only one quality product.

On the opposite side of the spectrum though, I'd be a little worried with this "game released every month" thing. I've got a feeling games are going to be rushed, especially near the end. If a game has to come out on a certain date there is a large chance that it wont be at its full potential. Not to mention the short time for development. Assuming they have 6 teams (probably high for a company the size of Stardock) developing games, thats a game every six months! Chances are these wont be games competing with other mainstream games. I'm not saying this endeavor is without a doubt going to fail, but I certainly will not be one of the first people to give them a shot.