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Companies Offer AAA Games For 'Free'

Posted by Zonk on from the depends-on-your-definition-of-free dept.

Both Ubisoft and EA are offering up free games to cash-conscious gamers this week. For the low, low cost of nothing you can play titles like Command and Conquer Gold, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Far Cry. The catch? Well, EA's offering is totally gratis; 1995's C&C Gold is a gift to gamers for supporting the series for all these years. The Ubisoft games, though, are only "free". They're available from Fileplanet in ad-supported format.

3 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. For Posterity by tcolberg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    These companies are finally allowing people to play these great, (some) historic games without the legal ambiguities of abandonware hanging around their neck. For us old farts and the occasional curious young gamer, being able to play C&C95 at any time is not only a great marketing tool for EA, but it is an important piece of gaming history that is now freely available. GJ to EA (for once) and Ubisoft. Oh, and not to snub Prince of Persia: I love PoP:SoT, which has a significant place in the history of platformers, and hope that it will eventually be phased to freeware (I understand the ads for now, due to bandwidth costs).

  2. Bandwidth costs? Doubtful. by JonTurner · · Score: 1, Interesting

    >>(I understand the ads for now, due to bandwidth costs).
    If that were the issue, a simple bittorrent seed would be a solution.

    It's about creating a revenue stream from an otherwise worthless intellectual property.

  3. hmm... by XmasterX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "you must live in the U.S. to play the game"
    why the european people never get the good things? :\