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Post a reply << Go BackTopic: Impressions on Shockwave
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Bonjour, Gaelle, comment savva? I have been a member of shockwave for years. They have had their ups and downs but I stuck with it and they are definitely on the up. Games are updated every Tuesday about 4 pm GMT (I think you are one hour ahead in La Belle France)? I pay once a year and I can play any game for as long as I like. Once I've finished with it I uninstall it. Sometimes I have bought a game on Big Fish and it has been released on Shockwave a few days later and I have kicked myself. There are usually only about two new (maybe three) download games every week though. Your decision :)))
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I've been a member for a couple of years, since the Gameblast days. You can't beat the price. They go through some dry spells, but they get good games quite often and the archive of older games is excellent. They'll get some big games the same week as Big Fish, others weeks later, others never. But if you look at it over a six month or twelve month period, it's definitely worth the money.
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Thanks to both of you!
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@ Riverdee :We have indeed an hour of difference in France, one hour later actually. But that's Okay, I don"t suffer jet lag when I'm in Britain!
So I will give it a longer try and also keep my BF game subscription. -
I find the $60 annual subscription a good value. Their game library is around 400 games and it grows every week. Since they are a subscription to play service, they tend to get games later than the initial release, and occasionally they miss a stellar title (like Fairy Godmother Tycoon) but I am quite willing to pony up the money at the end of each year.
P.S. They are the FIRST place to get Carrie the Caregiver games.
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I have a different perspective on Shockwave. I started out with Real Arcade about two years ago and was happy to get my one free game (for $9.99) and maybe an additional game for $14.99 each month. Then, I discovered Big Fish about six or eight months ago and have become irreparably spoiled by the volume and timeliness of the selection of games. I signed up for the trial of Shockwave Unlimited, but I doubt that I'll keep it for more than 10 days because I have most of the games they offer and I think I'd rather buy 8.5 games for keeps at Big Fish for my $59.40. If you're new to this genre, Shockwave would be a great deal. IMO
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Well, I'm not new to gaming--I was a member at Real Arcade for a couple of years, I've been a member at Big Fish now as well as Shockwave, and have been with both for several years.The question with Shockwave is--will you spend $60 on games in a year, and if so, what would you get?Quite a few games come out on SW within a monh of Bigfish getting them. In fact, that's one of my rules--I wait 3 weeks after BF posts one, to see if Shockwave will get it, before spending a credit there.And for a family, SW is even better, as you'll likely like a bigger variety of games.If you just look at the last 3 months, SW has added Women's Murder Club, Dairy Dash, Braintrain, Clue Classic, Virtual Villagers Lost City, Carrie the Caregiver 3, Cooking Academy, Eye for Design, Build a Lot 2, Pet Shop Hop, Fairway Solitare, Airport Mania, Carribbean Hideaway, Coffee Rush, Fashion Solitaire, Doggie Dash, The Hidden Object Show, Magic Farm, Travel Agency, Age of Emerald, Big City Adventure Sydney, Babysitting mania, Chocolatier II, Nancy Drew White Wolf of Icicle Creek, Westward II, Escape the Museum, JoJo's Fashion Show, Penguin's Journey, Dream Chronicles 2, Jane's Hotel Family Hero, and more. They don't have everything, but neither does any game portal, including Big Fish. Just the ones I named would have been more than 25 game credits at Big Fish, and even if you didn't want all of them, there are more than a dozen solid hits there. If you look at Big Fish for the last 30 days, SW had 11 of the same games (plus some BF didn't). And some they had a few days earlier.So a lot of it comes down to what represents value to you. If you want to buy new games the first day they're available (or the day before for club members) at an excellent price, BF is great. If you're willing to wait a few weeks, though, you could get those exact same 11 games for less than the cost of one game credit on the Jumbo pack. With more than enough left over to buy a few of the others you just can't wait for, or that SW doesn't get.I like them both, and buy from them both. I like BF for its exclusive games, which are often fantastic. But for value, a Shockwave unlimited subscription for $60 a year is hard to beat. For me, it's just like saying "Which would you rather have, DVDs you can own forever (Bigfish) or a Cable TV subscription where you pay by the month (Shockwave)--well, I'd rather have both. I get them for different reasons, even if they're sometimes the same content. Tastes will vary, of course, and some people will like one more than the other. But I don't think it says anything about why kind of gamer you are or how long you've been gaming. It may just say more about your budget and how you like to control spending.FWIW.
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Robin,
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Thank you for your perspective, I just signed up for the SW trial. I am a BigFish member and I think their membership is a great deal as I can get additional games each month for the same $6.99. Several times I have purchased 2, 3 or 4 games...I never would have done this with my RA membership at $14.99 each.
What everyones messages brought me to and why this is a good deal for me: There are still many games that I would like to play more than the 60 min demo, but am not convinced it is a keeper. For this reason I have not purchased them. There are also others that I did purchase and I find that I have not played them in ages. With Shockwave I can play the ones I'm not sure about until I decide I want it to keep or I get bored with it.
So, much thanks to everyone for your comments.
Keri -
Keri,
As I mentioned, I belong to both. I really like Big Fish, buy a fair number of games from them, think their exclusives are usually fantastic. And it is fun to see a hot new game when it first comes out.What I really like SW for is all those games that are great to play once, but that just don't really have replay value for us. Or that wouldn't make it to the top of our "buy" list. For me, Doggie Dash was worth playing, but not more than once, and I didn't need to play it as soon as it was out. As much as I liked Escape the Museum, I wouldn't feel a need to own it permanently. Games like Pirateville, Natalie Brooks, and Neptune's Secret are all a lot of fun, all take more than a demo hour--but I wouldn't spend a game credit for them. With Shockwave, I get to play them all, for as long as I want, as many as I want, for $60 a year. I just have to accept I may not get them until they've been out for awhile, just like the movies on the free cable channels. So for me, it's a lot of variety, much more relaxing than trying to beat the clock on a free trial, but at $5 a month, a very affordable source of entertainment.Also I personally find they work very well together, and both are very good value, they're just a different kind of service. The one other thing about I would say about Shockwave, is you can't just evaluate it on the basis of what's there today. You have to think about how you would use it going forward, because the whole idea is that you would change your future behaviour because you had the Shockwave subscription. If you recognize a bunch of hit games from the past year that you already own at Shockwave, that's a good sign, because it means you could have played them there. The whole idea is to stop buying them at other places if they're likely to show up at SW.So when you go to SW, you're looking at it in terms of "If I had paid $60 a year ago and been able to play all these games this year, would that be a good value for me?" And that's something no one can answer but you.For me, I can budget $5 a month for Shockwave and $7 a month for BigFish and for $12 get an awful lot of game entertainment. So I'm happy. Someone else might rather spend $20-$30 at Bigfish and only have the newest games right when they came out. And a third person might not be able to buy an annual membership, but would be willing to pay the $10 a month Shockwave fee and never spend another dime on games. So everybody has to find what works for them. I'm just really glad we have all the options to choose from--and Gamezebo to come talk about the games, because the one thing I can say is that the community way better here.
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Well Robin you certainly convince me (and others I guess). I have also the BFG suscription and all in all I have enough games to last me for long hours of pure gaming bliss! And it's true that the price is unbeatable.
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Hey Robin, Are you a lawyer? If not, you should be :-) With arguments like that you make me want to go to Shockwave..lol
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I bet you could sell ice to eskimos. You make a lot of good points. -
Hey, Marvelous MargieB!
It's just that the Shockwave model is so different from what people are used to it can be hard to evaluate at first. It's not about exclusives and being earliest with the biggest names. It's about a strong collection of solid hits and a lot of fun extras at a fixed affordable price. Not for everyone, but what is?Robinp.s. It will be really nice if we get the ability to edit our posts some day...I'd cut about 300 words out of that last one! Sorry to run on. My youngest son left for college a week ago and it's been crazy. He called me 7 times yesterday, then called to say he had one more question and was going to call back, and I was up so late waiting I think my brain just started to ramble. At least I had some paragraph breaks this time! ;)
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My reply is'nt a long one but I personally prefer Big Fish Games. Due to the fact that I was a Shockwve member then as soon as I had an issue their customer service standard in this instance was to put it politely rubbish. Where as with BFG they have the games I enjoy the game club is great value for money, and I have found their cunstomer service fantastic.
But different people will have good and bad experiences with all the game provider. Thats why I think sites like gamezebo are invaluable as a place to find these things out first.
Not such a short reply after all, got a little carried away ;-)
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Shell1308,
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You're absolutely right--different places work for different people. I have a friend who loves to chat while she plays, so Club Pogo is perfect for her. Another friend is super competitive--if she couldn't post high scores and get medals, she'd lose interest. She adores Playfirst. Reflexive gives a free game for the best review so people take user reviews there very seriously and they have a lot of good community aspects. And I agree also that Big Fish customer support is very helpful and again I love their exclusives. I find the reviews and ratings at Shockwave confusing. I think there are so many families there because of the price that you get a lot of pre-teens who rate on a very different basis. (It's one of the reasons I'm at Gamezebo so often.) And they deliberately don't offer community features because it's supposed to safer for kids that way. I've only dealt with customer service at Shockwave once, when they were making some changes to the site and I got locked out for awhile, and I got back what was obviuosly a robot answer that made no sense at all. Fortunately the problem cleared itself up in a week, or I'd have left, too. But everything else has worked fine for me, so customer service just didn't come up as an issue.Another thing I appreciate about Gamezebo is its objectivity. It's one of the big reasons it's my favourite game review site. At a lot of the game portals you're not even allowed to mention other game sites, so you can't really get a full picture. -
Hey,
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at the moment I really could cry. I did not know "Shockwave Unlimited" until I read this thread and I immediately thought: "Hey, this is the perfect solution for your game addiction without spending a lot of money." I went to shockwave.com and wanted to subscribe to this service and there the SHOCK happened - it is only possible to order this service by credit card? I can't believe it. What's the matter with all the people who do not own such a plastic. At least paypal should be offered as second option, especially for people from Europe. What a pity :( -
How frustrating for you! Hopefully they'll change in the future.
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Oh I am so sorry, OrangeKnickers...Maybe we should organize a campain "Let our friend with Paypal play!"! :) Strange though, I stupidly assume that you could find it everywhere.
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Thanks ;) I already wrote an email to the customer support and asked, if there are going to be changes concerning the payment options in the near future. But I do not expect an answer, especially when I think about the depicted experiences in this thread with the support :( It's just a shame.
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Not to make you feel any worse, OrangeKnickers, but Pilar pointed out today on the Mortimer Beckett thread that Big Fish never carries games by Real Arcade, and vice versa. (Someone was asking when BF might get that game.) Shockwave carries a lot of the Real games, although later than they appear on Real. So again for the extra $5 a month I'm getting access to games that I couldn't spend a Big Fish game credit on even if I wanted. Shockwave has all 3 Little Shop hidden object games--Big Fish has none. Shockwave also has Fab Fashion, Sally's Salon, Clue, Scrabble, Posh Boutique, Sunset Studio, and Diamond Detective, none of which Big Fish have. Another reason why I belong to both. (And I do hope they add a Paypal option soon!)
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Hey robin (and the others, who are interested), I got an answer of the Shockwave customer support some minutes ago. For the foreseeable future they won't add any other payment option. But they did not give any reason for that in the mail. That is just unfair. In Europe there does not even exist a site where all these casual games are published and I don't know any other site with a service as good as this one for myself :(
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I've been a member of Shockwave Unlimited for about a year now, and in that time, I've finished about 60 games. Even at BigFish's cheapest option of $7/game, it would have cost $420 to buy all the games and I paid $60. Each week they release 3-4 new games, and while they don't get everything, they get most major releases eventually.
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Like I said in my comment, mine is another perspective. One reason I want to have complete ownership of my games is so I can play them when I don't have Internet access (on a laptop). Also, I may want to replay them over again in another year. I play the Mah Jong games over and over. The same is true of a lot of the other games I have.
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Leah,
That's a very good point. If you have limited Internet access for any reason, then Shockwave Unlimited probably wouldn't work for you, since you do have to be online in order to have your access verified or you can't play.
You can buy individual games for $5 off, but that's about twice what a Bigfish credit would cost, so there's no real point in that.
But that's why it's nice to see so many different choices in game portals--different things work for different people.
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I've been playing the daily jigsaws at Shockwave for years and love it and some of their other onlne, free games. When they offered the free trial period, I quickly signed up as it sounded great. I spent hours on the site looking for a game I could play! MAJOR PROBLEM! They have NO games for Macs, other than the free online ones I play anyway. There's no where on the site that actually lets you know this, however. The site recognizes I'm using a Mac, as at each game's page, I get a notice that the download is not avalable for macs. I'm sure that notice doesn't come up if you're on a windows pc. They have lots of games on the site that do have mac versions, they just choose not to carry them. When I ended my trial, I asked about this and why they don't let you know this before they take your money! Even the FAQs page has info that macs can use shockwave with no problems. I find that very misleading and downright devious! Their response was basically, too bad.
Big Fish, on the other hand, has a very convenient, separate page of games available for macs -- not nearly as many as PCs, but they add about one a week, more than enough, I've found.
So, if you use a Mac, don't count on Shockwave for games! They apparently aren't intersted in our business. I know there are lots of other sites like that too (no Mac games), but when the trial info at SW mentioned macs, I figured they must have them. Anyway, just a heads up for fellow Mac users.
*By the way, kudos to Gamezebo, as I just noticed that you have a download link for the latest Virtual Villagers for Macs! Keep up the Mac links -- they'll be used, I'm sure!
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Impressions on Shockwave
Report as InappropriatePosted on 06/05/08, 10:56am