• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Getting 'free' games with hardware, then and now...

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Maybe I'm not remembering right then. I'm pretty sure I've had a uplay code before and don't remember having issues with it. Otherwise I would have bitched about the same thing.

Activating FarCry 3 when I bought my 7950B a year ago was almost exactly like the OP described. Multiple steps, account creation, app install, key from card, key from email, enter key on web site, get activation code, log into app, download game, activate game. It was such a pita that I never got around to playing it, and didn't bother reinstalling uPlay during my Haswell rebuild a few months back.
 
No kidding. The worst I ever had to do was insert the key that came in the box into a website with my email address, and then I'd get keys sent to my email for use in Steam, Uplay, whatever it was. Worked great with no problems.

Can't imagine the lid the OP would flip if he ever encountered an actual problem if this is how he acts with a small inconvenience (with a FREE game no less)

"acts"? To what "acts" do you refer? I posted on a forum - and so have you!

Also, have to point out, its not really a "FREE" game. I paid for it as its part of the package that was advertised with the hardware. I have to say a package that included physical disks instead would 'add value' to such a package for me.

The other thing that gets me is, somewhere along the process I think I read that I have to download the damn things within a couple of weeks or the offer expires. Given that downloading one is a 6 hour process that's a bit of a pain. The 'free' steam game I also got, at least I just register it with all the others and can download it when I get round to it.

At least I don't have a download data cap any more. That used to be a problem when Steam sales came around.
 
That's what I saw on the Nvidia page for some of my free games. I gave up at that point. Give me Steam or give me nothing at all.

People like you are the scum ruining PC gaming.
Give me DRM free please.

Allow idiots who want to add DRM unnecessarily to their games to do so if they wish, but don't force it down everyone else's throats.
 
People like you are the scum ruining PC gaming.
Give me DRM free please.

Allow idiots who want to add DRM unnecessarily to their games to do so if they wish, but don't force it down everyone else's throats.

I thought by opposing Uplay & Origins I was doing the right thing? I pay for my Steam games, and I have several hundred of them. I thought pirates were ruining PC gaming. I've never had a problem with Steam DRM. I can't play Max Payne 3 because Steam ran out of DLC keys or something, so the game won't start, but that's not really DRM related, is it?
 
I thought by opposing Uplay & Origins I was doing the right thing? I pay for my Steam games, and I have several hundred of them. I thought pirates were ruining PC gaming. I've never had a problem with Steam DRM. I can't play Max Payne 3 because Steam ran out of DLC keys or something, so the game won't start, but that's not really DRM related, is it?

How do you think it's not DRM related? What do you think those keys are?

I've only received one free game with hardware, and the whole process was very simple. It was a Steamworks game. I'm weird in that I'll tolerate uPlay as long as the game is in my Steam library. I wouldn't miss it if it went away entirely.

Origin isn't so bad, but nothing exclusive to it (that I don't own on consoles) really grabs my attention.
 
Wow, good thing I don't play PC games (except for BF4, every night, all night, all weekend, missing funerals, birthdays, weddings, dates with wife, work, eating, sleeping, breathing between shots, Cheetos, pepsi, wooden fences).
 
Back
Top