• A Bleak Christmas?

    From Spalls Hurgenson@spallshurgenson@gmail.com to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action on Mon Dec 8 12:04:02 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


    Last year, I announced that I wasn't going to do another Holiday
    Give-Away here on c.s.i.p.g.action and no, I'm sorry to tell you that
    I'm not going back on that.

    But one of the reasons for my decision is that it hardly felt
    necessary anymore, what with Epic and GOG and Amazon (and sometimes
    even Steam) just tossing so many free games our way. We were already
    drowning in games; the lack of my sparse contributions (I thought)
    would hardly be noticed.

    So of course, what happens is that the corporations ALSO seem to be
    backing down on their generosity. Maybe they just assumed that their
    free games wouldn't be missed if I were still giving stuff away? ;-)

    Anyway, usually by this time of year we're already getting into the
    swing of things... if not with actual free games, then at least the
    usual ANNOUNCEMENTS that we'd be getting free games. But if any of the publishers are intending to give us presents this year, they sure are
    keeping it close to their chests.

    Which, sure, it's not like they OWE us free games... or even that we
    NEED more games (raise your hand if the total count of your backlog of
    games outnumbers the fingers on your hands. Oh, it's all of you?). But
    c'mon, who doesn't like getting presents over the holiday season?

    Sure, we'll still be getting the usual freebies from Epic on Thursday,
    and Amazon has it's 'sorta-free-if-you-pay-us' offerings on Prime...
    but it's not quite the same.

    It looks like it might be a bleak Christmas.

    (But on the plus side, maybe that will convince me to do a give-away
    next year?)


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  • From Justisaur@justisaur@yahoo.com to comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action on Mon Dec 8 14:14:43 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

    On 12/8/2025 9:04 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

    Last year, I announced that I wasn't going to do another Holiday
    Give-Away here on c.s.i.p.g.action and no, I'm sorry to tell you that
    I'm not going back on that.

    Bleak indeed.

    But one of the reasons for my decision is that it hardly felt
    necessary anymore, what with Epic and GOG and Amazon (and sometimes
    even Steam) just tossing so many free games our way. We were already
    drowning in games; the lack of my sparse contributions (I thought)
    would hardly be noticed.
    Which, sure, it's not like they OWE us free games... or even that we
    NEED more games (raise your hand if the total count of your backlog of
    games outnumbers the fingers on your hands. Oh, it's all of you?). But
    c'mon, who doesn't like getting presents over the holiday season?

    Prime and the other 'live services' do as they promised them as part of
    their subscriptions. I don't think anyone has Prime for the games
    though, and it's just a small bonus, and if they got rid of them no one
    would put up a fuss and they wouldn't lose any subscribers.

    Sure, we'll still be getting the usual freebies from Epic on Thursday,
    and Amazon has it's 'sorta-free-if-you-pay-us' offerings on Prime...
    but it's not quite the same.

    I think between Prime, Epic and Xbox live - which also gives away
    monthly games to own in addition to ones to have while you subscribe I
    already feel like I'm drowning in games, and it seems half the giveaways
    from Prime also get their codes released here as someone already has it.
    I used to offer too, but no one took me up on it.

    With all that said, I got some good games from both you and rms that I
    would absolutely have never bought, so again I thank you both for that.
    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
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