Joel Brodie

Let the pricing wars truly commence.  Today, Reflexive announced that all games on both Reflexive Arcade and Amazon.com (which bought Reflexive a few months back) will be $9.99 or less.  No clubs.  No sign ups.  Just one set price.Online storefronts for games compete for customers like you based on three factors:  price, customer service, and content (i.e., exclusives).  It'll be interesting ot see how this plays out, but one thing is for certain.  With the recession not ending anytime soon, expect prices for casual games to continue to go down, not up.  And Gamezebo will tell you about any price change as we see them in our Steals and Deals section!Check out Reflexive Arcade and Amazon Game Downloads for all games at $9.99.

I noticed a lot of you are wondering, where is Margie lately?Well, she's still here, working and helping us to create a very pleasurable casual games and online community experience.  But, like Superman and Batman (or Supergirl or Batgirl), Margie has an alter ego, another gig and she's incredibly busy this week.Guess what Margie's other gig is (or better yet, just make one up) and you can win a free copy of Chocolatier - Decadence by Design, courtesy of PlayFirst, and another free copy of a game of your choice! 

Not a day goes by when I do not get an email on how to join our prestigious Beta Test Program.  Well, I have great news for you.  Our Beta Test Program Sign Up Form is back up!By joining the Beta Test Program, you play the newest casual games first (even before they are out) and provide developers with your valuable and highly appreciated feedback.  To join, sign up up for our Beta Test program here.  If you already signed up in the past or already receive our beta emails, no need to sign up again.If you are a developer and interested to offer your games for beta test, contact us and we'll tell you more. 

It feels like every day for the past year, we are working on changes to help improve the Gamezebo web site.  Every blue moon, we actually release them on the public web site!Yesterday was such a day.  As many of you have noticed, we have released new Kudos, added a lot more sub-channels, and improved navigation on the Web site.  More details below the fold.

Hidden World of Art, a new hidden object game, has been just released on iWin.Download a free trial of Hidden World of Art, write a review, and talk about it in our forum.  Our review is coming soon.

Sugar Games, creators of popular Rainbow Web 1 and 2, have just released a new time management game, Wendy's Wellness (say that 10 times fast).  Manage your own chain of 10 wellness centers by serving customers, buying new equipment, hiring employees, and seeing to the needs of the various customers that come through the door.  Download a free trial of Wendy's Wellness, write a review, and talk about it in our forum.  Our review and strategy guide are on the way.

If you live near San Francisco, California, iWin would like to invite you to try out a new product they are working on.  They are looking for people to come in Weds, January 14, between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM. You will receive $100 and a stack of games to check out the product and give feedback.  I got a sneak peak of the game and it's cool.iWin is located in San Francisco near the AT&T ballpark and one of my favorite Thai restaurants with the coolest name, Koi Samui and the Monkey.  But I digress.  Interested?  Send me an email, put in subject "I want to test iWin games," and I'll pass the information over to iWin.

How do you top it when you need to create sequel to one of the most popular farm management games of 2008?  Why, add pizza, of course!That makes no sense, but it's so crazy, it just may work.  We'll tell you what we think when we post our review soon.  In the meantime, download Farm Frenzy - Pizza Party from Alawar Games, write a review, or talk about it in our forum. Stay tuned for Gamezebo's review.  Thank you Carfixer1957 for the tip.