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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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Impressions on Shockwave
Report as InappropriatePosted on 06/05/08, 10:56am