Gametap only available in the States?
I don't know if there was already a thread about this, and I'm sorry if there was, but are us canucks going to have to wait until November to play the game? I was on the Gametap site today and it said it was only available in the States.
What is a canuck to do?
What is a canuck to do?
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I just saw this too, and was a little shocked.
I must ask, though. What will happen in November that changes the situation?
As far as I know Gametap has been chosen to distribute the episodes, period.
Will they open up for the rest of the world in November?
Or is the rest of the world simply out of luck when it comes to playing the Sam&Max episodes?
I'm European myself, and was looking forward to playing these episodes.
Edit: Ok, I found the answer myself... Telltale will start distributing the game on its own.
Hope telltale will be just alittle smarter next time..
GameTap *funded* this game. There wouldn't be a Sam & Max: Season 1 launching this year if not for them. With that in mind, it really irks me to see people saying Telltale's driving people to piracy by giving the company who made the game possible a brief exclusivity period.
After 13 years, 15 days is really not a long time to wait. Retail games often have much longer delays between North American and European releases (or vice versa).
Well anyhow to thread creator. You can just find a proxy server in the United States and go thru it. Then you can register on gametap.com and get the game here the 17 oct.
I'm getting the episodes two weeks after gametap subscribers, and i'm loving it!
Well ok, maybe not loving, but i'm pretty affectionate about it.
Let's just hope i can keep away from the forums during that period.
I just think next time you should stick to releasing the episodes on youre sites and giving it to all the fans at the same time instead of making a difference on us.
Okay, okay, that's a bit over the top, but in exchange for that money, GameTap slammed their fist on the table, demanding that they get to release the game a whole fortnight before the rest of the world can get it. And rightly so. After all, they gave Telltale a huge bag, filled to the brim with shiny dubloons. So we should be thankful that GameTap even allowed Telltale to publish the game on their own web site as well.
And two weeks isn't all that long, when you think that other companies sometimes have months of delay between game/console releases in several territories.
Haggis, I agree with you, we should be happy (I AM HAPPY
Actually that sounds like a pretty good game!
Seriously, though, I don't see the problem. I mean, uh... Testers get to play the game earlier too. Right? ... Yeah.
--Erwin
Prove me wrong, prove me wrong.
More on topic: Ya. GAMETAP. A necessary evil. Did you know George Bush has a stake in GAMETAP and it was his idea to make SAM & MAX availble for US residents only?
STOP FREAKING OUT BRU! Hey, nobody here is freaking out!
SHEEZ! IDIOTS! TAKE A CHILL PILL BUDDY! I'M ALSO WAITING, BUT I'M NOT GOING BANANAS LIKE YOU!
JUST CHILL PUNK!
Actually, I'm intending to get the bundle from TellTale (then I get the a hard copy too (yay!) - So I'd have to wait even if GameTap was available in the UK.
Having said that, I've gotta agree with you man - People seem to be getting this way out of context -
Take a moment, step back from this and re-evaluate the situation - Do ya see now? Thats right; it's a freaking video game! It's supposed to be fun, not an obsession.
It's a form of entertainment to distract you from all the other things that make life worth while, like, being rejected by women, working in an unfulfilling, meaningless, high pressure job to ensure you can afford the latest heavily marketed product which your under the mistaken belief you want because the advertising marketing campaign beats you into submission by repeatedly telling you over and over again how much you desire and want the product, developing deep seated emotional neurosis and complexes, believing any/all news coverage at face value due to being conditioned to listening to music, tone and keywords instead of what the reporter/newscaster is actually saying, conforming as much as possible with the a social mindset that defines morality by the current marketing & fashion direction, and tells you that you are an individual as long as you buy the same clothes, food and gadgets as everyone else you know, being deeply unfulfilled and unhappy, which due to laziness and an atrophied skill of self-defined purpose and fear of social rejection, you attempt to fix as quickly as possible through purchased distractions and media sensationalism rather than any true attempt to understand who you are, what you are genuinely looking for in life, and so on and so forth, with maybe a few other ideas I've seen people on late night T.V. rant about over the past ten years that I can palm off as my own....
I guess you could always take up a hobby while you wait - how about smoking? Keeping the art alive baby!
(Anyone you're are going a pirate a game because you have to wait two weeks for it to become available? - This kinda reminds me of that reviewer on IGN who rates games lower if they are released in Europe before their released in the U.S.)
I happen to already be a Gametap subscriber, so I'll be getting the best of both worlds. Feel free to shift all the anger to me, because I'm sure going to be gloating enough to earn it.
Come on, it's just two weeks. Next to nothing really. Hardly a reason to even think about pirating a game.
Would id be in excess of a couple of months I might agree that you have something of a point there, but with two weeks - no.
Also, I'm mostly annoyed that I can't get gametap outside of America because there are a lot of old games I would have to pay an obscene amount of cash for to buy otherwise which the service happily pimps away with little to no fanfare.
Is there really not enough porn on the net to keep you entertained for two weeks? B-)
Possible Answers:
1.) Hell no, ain't enough porn in the entire world to entertain me for two whole weeks!
2.) Good gracious no, I could never sodomize my vast intellectual mind with something so filthy as pornography!
3.) What ees thees porn? I no speaka the englandese very well.
4.) Nope, I've seen pretty much everything the internet has to offer.
5.) There's not enough snail related pornography for my liking.
6.) No comment.
Think of some more yourselves (bearing in mind that this site is meant to be child friendly)!
Why aren't there _any_ good publishers in this world? (speaking about Gametap) Their sole goal seems to be to make customers mad and get money.
I will see. Eventually I'll buy the game in November. Eventually not. The reviews say that the difficulty of the game is too low
anyways..
Of course their goal is to make money. They are a business! Gametap has been good to us adventure gamers by making a game like Sam and Max possible.
The wait is two weeks. There really is no reason to complain.
And sure, their goal is to make money. But do all publishers have to destroy the joy of gaming by being idiots? Has anybody here heard about Lucasarts? There are thousands of examples..
now... canceling the Sam&Max game is being idiot, but delaying the worldwide release in two weeks?
gee... it's just a a game, and usually it takes more than two weeks after the release to get a standard boxed game in europe.
Still, I suppose that you have "Premier Content" status on their service, which is nice for you and raises your profile somwhat. Not that you needed it that much, slashdot and 1up have pimped you like mad from your 1st press relaese onwards.
Anyrate, you guys obviously missed the lectures about the Consumer Generation. We were programmed by marketing companies since the early 80's to have massive desire for anything which happens to catch our imagination and subsequently told that we can have it all right now. This of course leads to massive frustration when companies build up your desire for a product, then don't let you have it. I remember a time when they advertised stuff, then you went out and bought it. It was a nice simple transaction and everybody won. We got our product, you got our money. These days, it's nothing like that simple. Product advertising is done months ahead of time, albums and singles have charted on airplay 2 weeks before their shop release, all manner of product gets oversold and underproduced leading to consumers waiting on mfr backorders for weeks or months. The amount of frustration for the people who have been programmed to want everything now is unreal.
Anyrate, you have released a digital download to about 1/3 of your intended market 2 weeks before the rest of the world can buy it. I would expect to see cracked versions on torrents within 48 hours. Given that you've just told everyone else that they're not as important as the US, which is a massive kick in the teeth for us all, you just stacked up the weights against you on the "hassle of finding a pirate copy" vs. "time to wait for a legit copy" scales. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to go to the hassle of finding a pirate copy of a game when you can get it off steam and be gaurenteed of playing it within a few minutes of it's global release?
So, the key points of this rant:
a) Use the available tools at your disposal to globalize.
b) Serve the consumer, it's your job to please us.
-Amphetamine
Hi Amphetamine...
I'm sorry you feel disappointed and I'm really sorry you have interpreted events this way. I wish GameTap was worldwide. Next year they will be and this will blissfully be an issue of the past. I wish everyone could play the game at the same time because that would be more fair and I know we have rabid fans in Europe for whom we have nothing but love. It saddens me that the Europeans are not feelin the love.
But the love will come! Hang in there!
a) We do our best.
b) Its our job to make and distribute games. Its in our best interests to please the consumers.
Do you have any idea how childish you sound?
Trying your patience? IT'S A GAME!
You should be thankfull for that two-week gap. Without it, the game may not even exist.
I actually think two weeks is pretty small considering the extent to which Gametap would love to claim the game as "exclusive content."
Dammit - That's a really good reply B-)
It's a game that easily can be downloaded from the Internet at any time as soon as it's ready (as opposed to other games that must be shipped etc.).
But I'm not allowed to download it since I live in the wrong place. That's annoying, especially since I've been waiting for that "day in the middle of October" for a long time.
Sure, it's just a game. But the game costs money, and my interest of this game has been decreasing for a while now. That's not because I'm childish, it's because of other things that catches my interest. I'm not a millionaire so I can't buy every new game that gets released. However, I WAS indeed planning to buy Sam&Max yesterday....but something got in the way.
Hi, sorry, I was a little harsh there. Guess listening to too much MSI had driven my angst levels into the danger zone.
In all seriousness though, why not Steam. It's the best online distribution service available and I can't see why anyone would want to distribute content via any other means.
I see this little scenario in my head every time I think about it:
Gabe Newell "So, you guys are here to talk about a game then?"
TTG Team "Yeah, we've got the license for Sam & Max and want to make a new graphic adventure in an episodic format."
Gabe Newell *presses intercom buzzer* "Linda? Have some lackys bring up a big sack of money and a pile of contracts. Oh, and have a fleet of Porches ordered and work on a press release so big that you'd have to be on mars to miss it"
TTG Team "Yayy!"
Maybe it wouldn't happen exactly like that, but it's a nice thought. I know you guys might not have felt at home sat next to HL2 and SiN, but You'd have the Popcap games to keep you company and who could wish for more than that?!
I am seriously interested as to why you'd take Gametap over Steam though, the equation doesn't add up in my head. Vavle love episodic content, and you've got a license under your belt that carries a lot of positive history.
On the subject of licenses, well done for getting this one back on the road as it were, there's too many old licenses that are being sat on by companies who will never do what the fans want with them. Like Microsoft/FASA holding the licenses for Shadowrun and Battletech and not listening to the thousands of mails that they had begging to make some new RPG's from them, or even Games Workshop producing a Warhammer Fantasy MMORPG instead of making WH40k at a time when the market is flooded with high fantasy games in that genre and people are crying out for more Scifi and Cyberpunk games.
Anyrate, congrats on doing somthing good with the license, I look forward to playing the game, eventually.
As for everyone that's telling people to calm down because it's just a game: When I see things that I think are wrong, I'll shout about them and try to raise as much hell as I can in the hope that someone will pay attention and things will change for the better. If you are happy to keep quiet when you see things that you think are wrong then feel free to do so, but also keep quiet when other people are trying to draw enough attention to get them changed.
Rant for the day over.
Speculation, speculation - but there has to have been some reason it's on GameTap and not Steam. I don't really care for it either way as I'm going to buy it straight from TTG anyways.
You make it sound like you know Valve offered Telltale an ideal agreement and a boatload of money (or, for that matter, that they even talked at all) and that they refused it not because of important underlying reasons but simply because they didn't know any better.
A Telltale representative is the only person who could tell us the nitty gritty details involved with selecting their partner, but that's unlikely, and, really, unnecessary, because the reasons given make enough sense on their own. Nothing I'm about to say is necessarily factual, but darn it, if you can speculate then I can too (
1) The way I see it, Valve is a competitor of Telltale. Telltale's trying to establish themselves as their own digital distribution system. It wouldn't make sense to give up control of their property to another company doing the exact same thing. From what I gather Telltale's trying to be as much a publisher as a developer. While for us consumers it would be convenient for there to be one single service for all digitally distributed games, a company has the right to sell their own games their own way without having to give up sales, creative control, or whatever compromises are inevitably made in such a contract.
2) Apparently funding was needed for the independently developed Sam & Max, so collaboration was necessary. According to Telltale they talked to a lot of partners before choosing Gametap, and I'd imagine Telltale would know more than you or I which deal would be best for them. Gametap is indeed a digital distribution service, but a totally different kind. They're a subscription service that mainly boasts itself as a kind of gaming library, with exclusive content (Sam & Max being the first) serving as added enticement for potential subscribers. The Gametap spokesman in that "Making of Sam & Max" interview described Gametap as an HBO with Sam & Max being their "Tales of the Crypt."
3) What appears to be the case is that in exchange for creative freedom and money for the game, as well as Telltale getting to retain control of their product, Gametap gets to showcase the game 15 days early. That seems very fair and makes a ton of sense in context. The fact the Gametap is not yet worldwide is unfortunate, but a two week delay is probably better than partnering with a company that mandates Sam & Max be a driving game (which may be an exaggeration but this was suggested in a Kevin Bruner interview).
4) We can't just assume that any theoretical contract between Valve and Telltale would have been the overall best situation for the game, for Telltale, and for the players.
So instead of equating the fact that Sam & Max is on Gametap two weeks before its full release with a slap in the face to Gabe Newell or the international gaming public, you should consider the possibility that Telltale had more on their minds than trying to personally piss you off when they were deciding who to join forces with for producing the games.
Of course, it's not like I can blame a lot of people who've complained about this. It's not every gamer's job to research the details of the publishing contracts for a game they want to buy - all they know is they're being screwed out of seeing a Sam & Max game for two weeks. In that light, knee-jerk reactions are expected. But I hope more people come to realize that the whole Gametap thing was probably for good reason.
And that's my rant for the day. (Hey, what else is there to do as long as Mojo's down?)
EDIT: Ack, Linque beat me! And, unlike me, avoided being overwrought.