Amanita’s “Pirate Amnesty” sale: Machinarium $5 through August 12
Amanita Design, the developers of the critically acclaimed adventure/puzzle game Machinarium, are holding a "Pirate Amnesty" sale through August 12. For the next few days, the game will be available for just $5, 75% off its previous $20 price. The thought behind this is to pull in some of the people who have already pirated the DRM-free indie game with a great deal. If you've already pirated the game and still don't want to drop $20 on it, you can legitimately purchase it for $5 and be certain that you supported a great indie developer in the process.
People, this is how you deal with piracy. Instead of introducing increasingly draconian measures that barely prevent people from pirating games and either inconveniences or enrages people who legitimately buy your games (I'm looking at you, Activision, EA, and Ubisoft), focus on appealing to gamers' better nature and try to pull pirates toward legitimately buying your game.
Piracy is an unfortunate reality of software. It's impossible to make a game completely pirate-proof, and to claim you have done so is inviting legions of extremely skilled code crackers to prove you wrong. You can lock down more and more features and require constant registration and authentication, but for every pirate you thwart in that manner you piss off at least ten people who actually paid for the game.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Fat Princess, GTA: Chinatown Wars, Lunar Silver Star Harmony 50% off on PSN
PSN is selling a bunch of great PS3 and PSP games for half off as part of its "Playstation Network Summer Sale." 15 games in total are are available for half off until August 9, with five real stand-out titles. The notable games include:
- Fat Princess (PS3) - $7.49
- PixelJunk Shooter (PS3) - $7.49
- Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (PSP) - $14.99
- Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) - $14.99
- Tetris (Both, Mini) - $4.99
Deals: Gamestop Power Saver Sale
Gamestop is running another "check out all of these games in the bins with bright red price tags" sales. This time they're calling it their "Power Saver Sale," and they're offering pretty big discounts on a ton of games that don't suck. Highlights include Assassin's Creed 2 for $20, Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition for $40, Bayonetta for $30, God of War 3 for $30, 3D Dot Game Heroes for $30, and Monster Hunter Tri for $40.
If double-digit prices are too rich for your blood, the sale is also chopping a bunch of older titles' prices in half, so you can pick up a three- or four-year-old game for pocket change. If you'd prefer to drop a Hamilton or less on a game, you can pick up Assassin's Creed (PS3) or Dark Void for $10 (or Assassin's Creed for $6.50 on the Xbox 360), Mercenaries 2 for $7.50 (Xbox 360) to $9 (PS3), Ninja Gaiden 2 for $8.50, Gears of War for $5, or Rainbow Six: Vegas for $3.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Strong Bad, cowboys, and commies
Steam is offering some pretty good deals this week on a handful of great games. The biggest one is season one of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, on sale for just $5 (normally $30). It's got everything, from Dangeresque to Stinkoman. If Sam and Max or Monkey Island aren't quite geeky enough for you, drop the Lincoln for this sweet pack of adventure games from Telltale Games.
Other notable discounted games include cowboy-themed third-person-shooter Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Old West, available at half off for $7.50, World War II strategy game Hearts of Iron II Complete for $12.49, and non-World War II strategy game Europa Universalis III Complete for $14.99. Not a bad haul for PC gamers.
Will GreenwaldDeals: EA and THQ’s PC summer sales
Steam's sale might be long past, but publishers are starting to get into the spirit of chopping prices on games in their own online stores for the summer. Both THQ and EA have announced summer sales that offer deep discounts on PC games.
First, EA will be offering regular weekend specials, with price cuts on a specific game or series every weekend. This weekend it's Crysis and Crysis Warhead, now available for 50% off at $15 and $10.
Second, THQ is offering dozens of its games for 75% off. They span the last few years of PC gaming, but highlights include Metro 2033, Saint's Row 2, Red Faction Guerrilla, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (including the Chaos Rising expansion pack). These are some great deals for PC gamers.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Tons of Steam sales up to July 4
Steam is absolutely going nuts for the next week and a half. The service is holding its "Perils of Summer Sale" until July 4, discounting tons of both individual games and publisher/developer bundles. You want nearly every non-sports game made by 2K Games including Borderlands, Bioshock 2, and the complete X-COM series? $90, a full 75% off. You want every good Star Wars game except the space sims and the LEGO games? $75, 55% off.
The bundles on sale include:
- Call of Duty Collection - $29.99 (75% off; doesn't include Modern Warfare 2)
- Rockstar Complete Pack - $63.74 (25% off)
- 2K Games Complete Pack - $89.99 (75% off)
- THQ Complete Pack - $49.99 (50% off)
- Star Wars Collection - $74.99 (55% off)
- Square-Enix/Eidos Collection - $74.99 (25% off)
- Valve Complete Pack - $66.99 (33% off)
- Introversion Complete Pack- $5.00 (83% off)
Besides the bundles, Steam is also selling individual games at different discounts based on the publisher. Capcom games are 33% off. Codemasters games are 75% off. Atari games are 66% off. If you've been meaning to beef up your PC games catalog, now's the best time to do it.
Will GreenwaldAwesome deals: Blur for $10-20, Deus Ex for $5
Two big, awesome deals this week. First, you can pick up the new, shiny arcade racer Blur for as low as $10, depending on how lucky you are at Best Buy. Slickdeals recently posted this combination coupon: a $20 off manufacturer coupon combined with a $10 off Best Buy Rewards Zone coupon means the $40 game falls down to a very affordable $10.
Of course, it relies on sheer luck at Best Buy. You have to find a cashier who will enter both coupons without issue, and that's a crapshoot. Slickdeals readers have gotten about a 50% success rate at getting both coupons to apply. Still, even with just the $20 coupon, it means Blur's down to $20 and that's still pretty good.
Second, both Deus Ex games are on sale on Steam for $5. Deus Ex is still one of the best games ever released on the PC in the last 15 years, and Deus Ex: Invisible War, while deeply flawed, was still entertaining and, with tweaks, a worthwhile playthrough. Both games are usually $10 each, but the 10th anniversary of Deus Ex means the games get a 75% discount. Get them. They're worth the $5.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Huge XBLA price cuts on 4 great games
Microsoft's showing at E3 was less than impressive, but they're making up for it with some great deals on XBLA this week. No less than 4 excellent titles are now 50% or more off. The cheapest deal is 'Splosion Man at 400 MS Points ($5), half off the usual price. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Trials HD, and Shadow Complex are 560 MS Points ($7) each, down from their usual $12 price tags.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is still a long way off, and the XBLA port of MvC2 is a great way to tide you over until then. It doesn't have the redrawn HD spites of SSFIITHDR, but it still looks pretty good thanks to a few smoothing options. Shadow Complex is an excellent side-scrolling adventure game that shamelessly (and entertainingly) copies Super Metroid note for note. It's huge, sprawling, and the closest thing you'll get to a proper Metroid game on the Xbox 360. Trials HD is a fun ExciteBike-meets-Tony Hawk style game that takes the idea of side-scrolling motocross and turns it into a unique and entertaining puzzler. Finally, Splosion Man is yet another side-scrolling action-puzzle game with a bit of Portal's and a ton of Earthworm Jim's humor. Each game is easily worth $5-7.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time: Reshelled is also on sale at 400 MS Points. However, it's really not worth it. The 3D graphics add nothing to the classic arcade beat-em-up, and the painfully small amount of content doesn't justify dropping a even Lincoln on it.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Free TF2 weekend, Fallout 3 GOTY for $25
It's a Bethsoftstravaganza on Steam! To hype up Fallout: New Vegas (and drive up preorders, also available on Steam), Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition is just $25. The Fallout 3 GOTY includes all five expansion packs, and usually goes for $50.
Steam is also offering GOTY editions of Bethsoft's last two Elder Scrolls games, Oblivion and Morrowind. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Game of the Year Deluxe Edition (not to be confused with the plain GOTY, which is both inexplicably more expensive and offers less content) includes Oblivion, the Shivering Isles expansion, the Knights of the Nine DLC campaign, and a bunch of extra DLC content like the Fighter's Stronghold and Mehrune's Razor, all for just $8.50. Even cheaper, for just $5.00 you can pick up The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition, which includes Morrowind and the two expansion packs, Tribunal and Bloodmoon. Morrowind and Oblivion are two of the best PC RPGs to come out in the last decade, and at just $13.50 you have no excuse not to play them.
Also, Team Fortress 2 is finally available on Macs through Steam, and to celebrate Valve is offering freeplay all weekend! If you dig the game, it's on sale for half-off through June 13. Just $10 gets you one of the most addictive and stylish multiplayer FPSes out there. Not bad at all.
Will GreenwaldDeals: Burn your cash on 6 bargain-bin XBLA games
Xbox Live has announced not one but six deals-of-the-week, and they're all pretty damn good. A sextet of mostly dated but all quality games, priced at 33-50% off their regular prices.
Battlefield 1943 came out less than a year ago on XBLA to the tune of $15 (1,200 MS points). It was a return to form of the classic WWII multiplayer shooter at a time when the industry was shying away from the genre, and for the budget price it was a pretty good deal. This week it's on sale for just $10, a full third off its usual price.
If you want some old-school FPS action, no less than three HD remakes of classic shooters are on sale. Duke Nukem 3D is now only $5 (400 MS points), half off its regular price, and both Serious Sam HD and Call of Duty Classic are on sale for $10 each (800 MS points), down from $15.
Finally, on the arcade/puzzle side, Worms 2: Armageddon and Peggle are on sale for $5 a pop. Cheap, fun, addictive as hell. Not bad deals!
Will Greenwald
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