Re: More free games on Prime!

On Sun, 4 Aug 2024 07:42:52 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 03/08/2024 17:09, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What still annoys me about them is why not put all the games in the
Prime client instead of making you have to go to a separate website to
get the code. I get that they have to be installed under GoG or Epic but
surely it can't be that had to show their availability all in one place.

I assume it is because nobody uses the Amazon Prime Gaming client. You
can't harvest information about people if there's no information to
harvest. Even if they did, the client itself is fairly lackluster too;
there's no forums, no chat, no friends.
 
Sure Amazon/could/ add all these features, but that's expensive (a
lot of them would then put them on the hook for moderating stuff too,
which is even more expensive). Worse, the client itself isn't a
revenue generator; you can't BUY games directly on the client.
 
So it's better to just outsource it to third-parties (possibly getting
GOG and Epic and whomever to pay you for the privilege of driving
traffic towards them), get them to deal with all the expense
(including hosting costs), and then have them send the valuable user
data back to you.
 
Amazon gets to look generous without actually spending any money.

>
It's more if say a game is available on GoG why can't I see it in the
Amazon client and when I click on claim what I get is the code, as for
the website, and be told to GoG.

That's a GOG restriction, and not necessarily a bad thing. They COULD
streamline it, but then you'd have to give Amazon access to your GOG
account so they could automatically log in as you and add the game to
your account. It's what Amazon does with Epic games (and maybe Steam?
I forget. There are so few free Steam games on Amazon).

But seeing as GOG has always put itself out as the "we care about the
end-user, no DRM, respect your privacy, etc. etc. etc." choice (how
true that actually is remains open to doubt, but that's the appearance
they want to present), opening user accounts up to Amazon would work
against this.

And I'm not going to complain; the current method makes it easier to
give away games already owned (you can't share Prime games that go to
Epic because the two accounts are linked).

That alone is worth that extra bit of inconvenience.

IMHO, YMMV, and the rest.