Free Online Gaming
The San Jose Mercury News website reports that GameTap, a subscription online game service, will offer free games starting May 31.
The site currently offers more than 850 games to people who pay fees ($9.95 a month, or $6.95 a month if one buys a year in advance). The free games will be in addition to the games available to subscribers. Among the subscription games are Sam and Max (based on the Steve Purcell comic) and Myst Online: Uru.
How will they make money by giving away games? Advertising. According to Stu Snyder, senior vice president, "We view this is as the next evolution of GameTap. Clearly, the Internet is a growing force as an advertising medium. Our heritage at Turner is we always aggregate content, re-popularize it, and make it available in different ways to consumers.”
Interesting idea, that.