Do you register your games? Maybe you should!
Tuesday, December 7th, 2004 - 10:48pm
Of the hundreds of PC titles I've purchased over the last decade or more, I've only ever registered one game (Command & Conquer) and one peripheral (my original Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro). As a result of these actions I have benefitted immensely. Allow me to elaborate.
Command & Conquer: Westwood sent me the v.1.18 patch for the game on a 3.5" floppy. Prett nifty!
Sidewinder 3D Pro: This joystick -- hands down the best I've ever owned -- was bundled with a copy of Mechwarrior 2 -- one of the best games I've ever played. My $75 would have been very well spent if nothing more had ever come of the deal.
In my naiveté (or was it?), I mailed in the registration card. Some two years later, after Mechwarrior 2 had been ported to Win95, Microsoft sent me a brand new copy of the updated game at no charge. Payoff!
Skip ahead to 2003. I got a letter in the mail from Microsoft announcing that it was now the target of a class-action lawsuit on behalf of some Sidewinder 3D Pro owners whose joysticks had broken when placed in the garbage disposal unit or some such nonsense... and would I like to join in? Here was Microsoft, just begging me to sue them! My eyes flashed with dollar signs as I contemplated the most unlikely of outcomes. As it turns out, my wildest dreams weren't too far outside reality's bounds!
Microsoft had no choice but to cave in to my pointed and brutal legal assault. As a result, several days ago I received in the mail a new copy of Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance, as well as its expansion, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight. I also received Mechcommander 2. All of the above came with manuals, too. May I be envied forever in the eyes of all who read this paragraph!
In my attic lie several large, black garbage bags, each one filled with game boxes that I'm just too sentimental to throw away. Within those boxes lie dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of registration cards just waiting to be dispatched. Think of all the amazing loot I could score sometime between the years 2010 and 2012!!
So how about it? Are there any other stories of ill-gotten registration gains out there?
The market has much to answer for as to why gaming is NOT an art. -- illum
I''ve never sent in one of those cards. I get enough useless crap in the mail already, and I don''t think a couple of old games for free would ever justify getting even more useless crap.
But then, that could just be me.
XBLive: Thin J
PSN: Thin_J
I don't imagine master craftsmen leaping away from completed projects and shouting "Done, motherf*ckers! - 1Dgaf
Your soul contains Teh Funnay within!
Oh, all I ever got from registering games was a lot of publicity. Must be because I''m in Mexico.
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
I registered my DS online a few weeks back, cuz I was perusing the Nintendo site and I saw I could. I had my DS, it seemed like an ok idea.
But really I guess I don''t care enough. Send me a free keychain or some other crap and I might though. It actually takes my valuable (har har) time to fill it out, get a stamp, physically mail it. No way!
XBL/PSN/STEAM/WAR/SPORE/RAPTR
As a note, I''ve never received any useless crap at all as a result of my two registrations. Of course, two isn''t a very big sample size, and I''m sure that if I were to register on a regular basis the crapflood would commence.
As for these being ""old games""... you may be right about that, Thin_J, but who would turn their nose up at some free and fun games that would have cost ~$130 just three years ago?
The market has much to answer for as to why gaming is NOT an art. -- illum
Gah! Mine ears doth bleed! Registration is for double-thinking slaves! Fear Big Brother!!
"I like to hear people talking when they're not talking to me," I said. "It's soothing to know that I don't have to listen." -- Bill Harris describing a truism.
Gosh dammit! I got my Win95 version from the original Sidewinder mailout, but for some stupid reason, MS hasn''t kept sufficient track of me after two moves and mailed me my (obviously much deserved after suffering all that angst with my Sidewinder) copy of Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance and Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight.
I DESERVE my copies of these games! I demand my copies of these games!
Come to think of it, maybe all that angst was a result of trying to protect those troop transports with less than helpful wingmen. Either way, I deserve my free games!
I always register my games online if possible. As for anyhting else, I''m not likely to reguster anything by mail.
sheared, it''s possible that you may still have some legal recourse available! After all, you are a registered 3D Pro owner, aren''t you? You do feel cheated by the terrible design flaws, or whatever the joystick supposedly suffers from, don''t you? I would suggest hiring a very expensive lawyer who can make all your options known!
The market has much to answer for as to why gaming is NOT an art. -- illum
Never register anything. I worked for a game company at my first job where the new guy was tasked to sort the registration cards and then we would sell them off to other companies who would then send you fools emails, mail and phone calls. The amount of crap you unknowingly end up dealing with is not worth the so seemingly thoughtful patch they send you which you could always download for free anyway.
Don''t do it, unless you have no choice. Make sure to check off don''t sell my info or send me emails for updates.
Bah. I think I sent in something for Starfleet Command as interplay sent me a demo disc for Klingon Academy but thats all I''ve gotten from them besides spam.
I just remembered something! Namely, a third product registration from long, long ago.
Like a good simhead, I played Janes'' Combat Simulations'' Longbow for many a month. However, the game was pretty hard to decipher without the included keyboard reference card. One cold night, I set the card on a windowsill near my computer, and by the next day condensation from the window had fused the leaves together. When I tried to unfold it, the printing on the reference card was torn right off. Anyway, I called the product support number listed in the manual and registered my copy of the game over the phone, at which point they sent me a replacement reference card free of charge.
I guess that makes me three for three.
The market has much to answer for as to why gaming is NOT an art. -- illum
I registered my Logitech keyboard. Then I was notified of a contest for a free wireless keyboard and mouse set. I entered and won it. Now, I have two Logitech keyboards for the price of one. The second keyboard is kind of useless but I got something free.
Tim's Fusion Weblog
Did you just call everyone fools? Because if that is the case, I don''t think I like it.
Spiderman wouldn't sneak, Spiderman would go. -Elysium
XBL: TheZedian
i get stuff in the mail alot, mostly demo discs that game stores sit on or throw out, and magazine (other than gaming) subscriptions, some include ""how to make your game store profitable"" and ""retail space maximization,'' to ''photography professional on an amateur budget,'' - along with ''try our editing/photo/etc software and tell us how it works for you.''
definitly a good idea. they also could send you, but not likely, incomplete versions of games- i tried MLB 2000 or some year, and la few other unmentionable terribles.
MaxShrek .. The reason you keep falling, is there is no bottom.
Horror Vacui
I registered SimCity 4 to get access to their downloadable stuff. I suppose that counts as getting freebies? But they never sent me anything by mail, not even ads, those cheap bastards!