The promotion appears to be officially over. However, Big Kahuna Reef can still be had and I think it will be able for free indefinitely.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001K7HV3Q/ref=dsvrt_hi_free

Well, sukibabe, I used your link and it worked, finally! I think it may be an Amazon issue. I'm happy!! Thanks, all!

I'm still getting all 3 as free....

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Games/b?ie=UTF8&node=979455011&pf_rd_p=328655101&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=507846&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0W9J36QC4SGQQRZWFY2F

I am in Wisconsin, so here it is 3:40 p.m. CST...I would think they would end it at midnight wherever they are located....

I see what you mean when you go to the game page, False advertising on the front page...shame on them!!!

Suki

I do log in automatically. Unfortunately Jewel Quest 2 is the only one free for me, too. But, that's better than none!

Correction Suki, it shows that Jewel Quest 2 is currently the only one that is still free for me. Wonder what's up?

tammi65

I don't know were you are at, but I am set to login to Amazon automatically...I just checked the site and "The Scruffs" is still listed as free, so are the others posted!

Do you have an account with them, if not you need to set one up!

This is the last day, so I would do that before time runs out, I don't know when their time ends...

Suki

w00t! Free games!! Thanks!

BTW I was never into games until GAOTD showed me the fun!

The Scruffs is no longer free. Boohoo!
Thanks for posting this, though.
T

Suki, I have got games that in the end I regret getting off Real such as Stand O' Food and Fish Tycoon. I got Stand O' Food with a credit and paid $14.99 for Fish Tycoon, but that wasn't Real's fault that I chose these games. It was my own. I have a bad habit of sometimes wanting everything I see and the more I see the more game selfish I get, but I have no problems picking out games on time. My problem is wanting more than one, what do I do get this game or get that game or wait till next month to get it? That's how I am.

Though thanks for your help on choosing the best game subscription site. I haven't had any problems with Real and they are really big. I know what you are talking about that you call them and you get someone from another country, but that's because they are so big but there headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. Once I looked the other month and saw they were hiring and they had really good benefits and everything, but I don't know much and you need certain qualifications in computer languages and I wasn't looking for a job I was jurt wondering where they were located, but that said where they were located.

I didn't fill out my information for that game Suki. I still see no sense in hiving to put your billing information for something that is free. I could do with out. I think that certain game is a hidden object game which I am not into though some people like them and may think it is worth it, but I didn't. Thank you for your help, hace a great night.

Michelle

My answer to your P.S. would be probably no!

They work on kind of the same principle that Shockwave does, you don't own the game...you just have to put up with their annoying ad's to play it...

I can't play the GameHouse games, my computer doesn't like them, but I can play RA's...I have games from them from the old days, and I just downloaded the free "Polly Pride Pet Detective" from them about a week ago that was posted on here somewhere, but that one ran a .exe, didn't go through their downloader so it worked okay!

Found it: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4712#post-50304

It was from Michelle's post on Space Buddies with a link to http://realarcadeextras.com/spacebuddies/
You watched the commercial, then it took you to GameHouse, were you enter your credit info and you got the game for free.....The link still works, I just checked it...but I use Firefox and it will block it, so you have to let it accept before you can get the game...I would have rather had the movie, lol, I'm a sucker for dog movies!

I did it, but I used a card that was set to expire the end of this month, then they delete it, because you can't do it yourself...
They still have most of my old info over there, but didn't have a card listed anymore...

They have 4 of the Nancy Drew Titles at Shockwave and I own "Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon" from Big Fish, if you ever buy any of the Nancy Drew Titles from Fish, do not buy their Strategy Guides! You can find walkthroughs online that are more detailed!

I am at the very end of the game, but haven't finished it because I keep falling off the railroad tracks! So it's on hold at the moment...

I have to much on my plate at this moment, I have minor beta's to do and one big project that I'm working on, yes there will be another "Magic Farm"......

Take Care, Suki

Thanks for the repy, Suki. I'm D/Ling the free Nancy Drew game from Gamehouse now.

I finally figured out about a week ago what you said about playing trial games from several places. I was surprised that they came up with my name and didn't start me over. So that has helped, since I can't always tell if I want to buy a game til I've played a little longer than an hour.

Thanks for the links. I'm going to check them all out. I do like Realore games quite a bit.

P.S. Do you know whether I can reinstall the free Nancy Drew from Gamehouse from a backup if I lose it from my drive? When my other computer crashed, I was lucky enough to be able to reinstall some of the games I got from GGAOTD.

I am glad Michelle that you are happy with Real and I'm glad that you can find a game you want right away, but I found myself using my game credit(because I had to at the time in 30 days), for games that I think now, why the heck did you buy that for!
I was happy back in that time too, till I discovered Big Fish...it was through the old Eval forums on RA that other members were ditching RA to go to Fish(at that time the price difference was only a dollar, not 3 dollars like it is today), the selling point was the credits never expire and you could buy as many games as you wanted for the price! I hate having to wait for a credit when a must have game for me comes up! You can also re-download all your games from Big Fish too!

I just emailed Fish back on a different subject and noted to them that they are starting to get a little stale too, ie..."Spirit of the Wandering Legend", which has been out a long time!

@Ms LN

I have Wild Tangent on my Dell also, and I have bought 2 games from them, but they are not one I would choose.
Here is one you might want to check out, it is Reflexive Arcades old site, with no commitments and all games are 9.99 or less(cheapest being 6.99), they never had a game club, so all their games were 19.99...
http://hosted.gamecentersolution.com/Arcade2004Banner/index.php?CID=21526&CBAN=images%2fTop-Banner.jpg
This is their site, but they are now owned by Amazon, the games are now 9.99 or less, just like the other link, but I see they are still releasing new games! Good News!
http://www.reflexive.com/

RealArcade and GameHouse are one in the same, with GameHouse being the discount side, but they both come with commitments!
Big Fish is a good fit for me, after I fulfilled my original 12 game commitment, I can leave anytime I want...and as you see I haven't! Like I said above I did it in 1 month, I am not that crazy anymore and have become far more choosy in my old age, lol!
I also have a Shockwave membership, which came bundled with about 6 other services from my ISP that I pay 7.99 a month for, the other service in that pack that I use a lot is American Greetings...that way I am never without a card at the last minute, I buy card stock and envelopes in bulk...so that and Shockwave make it a worthwhile add on!
Shockwave is like a Game Library, you download the game and play all you want, no commercials, but you have to be online to play, the game is not yours to keep, but you can buy them at a discounted price...I wait till they run a sale! I bought 5 for 24.75 around Christmas...I can't log out of my account to find out the price for membership, but I think it was around $60.00 a year. I believe they do have a free trial...

There is also PlayPond: http://www.playpond.com/
No game club, but some games are only $10.00...

Realore: http://realore.com/
They are running a Winter Sale right now on their games for $4.99, but I think we all have most of their games via this site, lol!

I could go on and on, was just checking my Firefox bookmarks on my laptop, I have far more on my Desktop! I have others on IE as well!

When checking out if you want to truly buy a game or not, here is one thing I do! I load them from different game portals...depending on the game(doesn't work all the time), I find that I can pick up were I left off on the demos! This can increase the amount of playing time sometimes up to 4 hours...I have even beaten some games this way! This really tells me that I truly enjoyed the game, lmao, and I would buy it because it has replay value!

Well good luck in your quest to find what fits best for YOU, we can only give our opinions, it is you that must make the choice!

Take Care, Suki
EDIT: ROFLMAO, am I ready to fill Whabbit's shoes yet, NOT!

Wizzard first of all I pay for games. I get games from realarcade. They gave me most of the free games I have and are easy to deal with so for you to assume that I haven't payed for anything and don't support games is not right. I do, but I also like realarcade and have not had a problem with them. I also like sale games and getting free games. Who doesn't? Does that mean I get free games all the time? No, it does not. I am a customer looking for the best deal as I hope is everyone else. For you to assume I have never payed for a game is really beyond belief, because I think I said I have already.

I know amazon sale games are not free simply because the fact they are sale games. Because I pay $9.99 instead of $19.99 means I know a deal when I see one. At least I pay for my games.

"BF doesn't outsource to India, the keep it in the USA where they are based in Seattle, Washington!
"
Actually so is Realnetworks.

"I still belong to RA's Eval program this past Thursday, which is when the evals come out I got "mystery Legends-Sleepy Hollow" which came out on BF's site Dec 20th of 2008, it was also out on the publishers site, PlayPond at the same time, there price was and I believe still is 10.00.....now this might have been due to the fact that Fish had it as exclusive, but I know from doing their evals for so many years that they are behind everyone else by at least a month or more! Their evaluation program is not a true beta testing program, it is more like would you buy this game from RA, lmao"

I'm not going to disagree with you there I know realarcade is slower than a lot of others getting games out.

"This is why RealArcade will never be my cup of Tea again! However I do screw with them just like you, or shall we say take advantage of them! I have gone back and signed up, I did it this last October when they were running deep discounts and there was a game I wanted...I got the game I wanted for free, then bought 4 others for a total of 10.00, then I quit! I don't feel like this is right, but hey if they are that stupid to let it happen so be it!

"

I don't mess with Realarcade. I simply just didn't have the money to keep it. I think it is nice of them to let people do this and I'm sure they know people take advantage of this/or simply don't have the money so they cancel and get their free games with the trials. They are the only company I know that lets people do this. You can get 4 free games a year by doing that. Some companies don't even give you a free trial. Realnetworks do not only give you a trial but you can sign up with them every 90 days for another free trial. Some people may look at this as Realnetworks being stupid. I look at it as just them being nice. So I don't mind paying them $9.99 a month when I have it where I may get the game cheaper somewhere else. Lol, maybe I am a Realarcade sheep.

Ms LN I have HP games preinstalled on my computer and I don't use it. I buy my games through http://www.realarcade.com/gamepass/amp

The first month is free and every other month is $9.99 for a credit. You can get any game on there except Bejewled Twist with the credit right now. If you want to buy that game it is $19.99. Popcap won't let Real or any others sell that for any less right now. It's the reason why some don't have it yet. I think it is 6 months after the game is released and then you can use your credit to get it. I bought it for $19.99, it's a really good game. How Gamepass works from Realnetworks is you get your account charged once a month for $9.99 except for the first month till you cancel and if you buy any other game from realnetworks it is $14.99 (not including Bejewled Twist). That game is full price now everywhere.

I like Gamepass because you can cancel at anytime where some you have to wait till you bought so many games off them/or till you had it so many months if you haven't bought anything extra.

And Suki I did write Bigfish once and I misunderstood the e-mail it looks like they do deal in credits, but they also can give coupon codes too. They gave me one for writing them. I only got one coupon code from realnetworks, a month after I bought Bejewled Twist. Real usually doesn't do that though, if you have a problem with a game or something they give you a credit. Lol, Suki I don't have to worry about my credits expiring. I have the game picked out I want before I actually get the credit, lol.

This month I got Belle's Beautique Beauty.

I also like the fact that you can download all your purchased games from your realarcade account.

Hi, everyone. I haven't posted in the forums since last summer, I think. I was considering starting a new topic about game clubs when I found this discussion. I had been using GAOTD for several months (starting about a year ago) before I discovered GGAOTD. From GGAOTD I got a couple of free games that my grandkids and especially I have enjoyed, including Around the World in 80 Days.

About 2 months ago, when I was really bored, I finally installed the HP Games console that came with my new PC, after my old PC quit. I swore I would never install such junk. It turned out to be one of the few things I like about Vista. lol. Anyway about a month ago I discovered hidden object games and got hooked on them. There are about 3 games I want to buy (since my income is limited in retirement); otherwise, I'd buy more. I've played the trial versions long enough to THINK they're what I want anyway, although I'm not sure how long my interest will be held. I can't afford to buy games I'll be bored with soon, but I'm pretty slow and not very sharp in my old age, so I don't think I'll get bored if I'm careful what I buy.

Now my question: I'm thinking about joining one of the game clubs for 6 months (1 year is too long a commitment for me), and I'd like to hear other people's experiences. Big Fish and Wild Tangent (through HP) are both the same price--$7.99/month for 6 months. I've also looked into prices for Gamehouse, Alawar, MostFun, etc.

One thing I like about HP is that I was able to play the trial version of "Nancy Drew Dossier - Lights, Camera, Curses" for almost 2 hours last night (before I got tired and had to quit). Most of their trials are for 2 sessions of unlimited play; a few (like Nancy Drew) are for only 1 trial, so I couldn't play it again today. But when I started the Drew game, I forgot that I could play for more than an hour and I was rushing to try to get to more levels to see if I really liked the game. I hated it in the first few minutes--it was so hard it was frustrating. But, as I played, I found out I loved it. In another forum discussion here (I forget the topic) someone mentioned that Gamehouse or Big Fish wasn't allowing trials of this game. So I really like HP/Wild Tangent for that.

I suspect I'm going to like other games a lot, too, as I play them so I might wind up buying 5-6 games in the next few months. (So far I THINK I'm going to get Drew, Dream Chronicles, & 4 Elements.)

Sukibabe (and others), do you think I should buy these games for $10 each (on either Wild Tangent or BigFish), or go with their 6-month plan, where I can get 6 games in the next 6 months for $7.99 each. I'm leaning toward the latter option. I'm not in a hurry to get the games; will buy each one as I get bored with what I have. TIA for any advice.

Yeah he has been rather quiet, I'm not sure. He usually fires me a pm if something's up but I haven't heard word from him. Hopefully hes taking a much deserved break.

@ Wizz

Is Whabbit okay?

Haven't seen him hop in this weekend....

Suki

I wish I could post screenshots...

Big Fish's system works with credits! They take 6.99 a month out of my credit card, just like RA takes 9.99 a month out of yours! I can save the credits and use them anytime, even if I don't belong to their club anymore, they NEVER expire! With RA you have 2 months to use the credit or your 9.99 credit goes bye bye!
When I first left RA and joined BF in 2006, I bought 12 games in one month(83.86), thus fulfilling any obligation to stay with them! They even worked with me when I switched credit cards to get my billing date on the same cycle...they put my account in a hold status till I chose the date for it to be taken out again!
You don't have to belong to their game club to get service...if you have ever gotten one of the games that are posted here, you had to sign up for a membership which does not require a credit card...you can email them...do live chat whatever you like...they will listen! You can play their online games and voice your opinion on their forums!

Taken from BF's site: $9.99 per game!
1 game - no minimum, cancel any time

So that price is equal to RA's, with the exception that you can buy as many games as you want for 9.99, or buy the credits, which is what they are and use them anytime, they don't expire like RA's even though you quit!

GameHouse is indeed owned by Real, they have been in bed together since the old days, but just made it public...Hipsoft also is in bed with RA!

Taken from GameHouse: GameHouse is just like Real, no new games, just old stuff that's already out somewhere else!

$5.99 per game - Save 70%!
12 FunTickets over the next 12 months

$6.99 per game - Save 65%!
6 FunTickets over the next 6 months

$8.99 per game - Save 55%!
2 FunTickets over the next 2 months......this is the one I believe you mixed up with BF!

So you lack of wanting to commit is your choice, but Fish's 9.99 club is the same as RA's, with one difference...you don't have to wait a month for your next credit and you don't have to pay 14.99 for the second game, just 9.99!

I have gotten so many Free games from them, any problem they give you coupon codes to use...not satisfied with the game they give you a coupon code and you still keep the game! I had this happen only twice....I email them and they are back to me within 72 hours(with the exception of the Christmas/New Year Holidays when they are getting caught up)...it usually includes yet another 1 or 2 free game coupons!
BF doesn't outsource to India, the keep it in the USA where they are based in Seattle, Washington!
If RA was smart they wouldn't have upped the price from 7.99 to 9.99 in 2007 and would have included the option to buy as many games as you wanted at that price...they also wouldn't have an expiration date on your credits!
To stay competitive they will have to lower their prices, that's what they did with GameHouse!

Taken from GameZebo:

"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!"

This is why RealArcade will never be my cup of Tea again! However I do screw with them just like you, or shall we say take advantage of them! I have gone back and signed up, I did it this last October when they were running deep discounts and there was a game I wanted...I got the game I wanted for free, then bought 4 others for a total of 10.00, then I quit! I don't feel like this is right, but hey if they are that stupid to let it happen so be it!

Is this the info you couldn't find? This was taken from the left side of their homepage!

http://www.bigfishgames.com/store/gameclub.html

I still belong to RA's Eval program this past Thursday, which is when the evals come out I got "mystery Legends-Sleepy Hollow" which came out on BF's site Dec 20th of 2008, it was also out on the publishers site, PlayPond at the same time, there price was and I believe still is 10.00.....now this might have been due to the fact that Fish had it as exclusive, but I know from doing their evals for so many years that they are behind everyone else by at least a month or more! Their evaluation program is not a true beta testing program, it is more like would you buy this game from RA, lmao!

Suki

P.S. Thanks Wizz....I know I can uninstall the downloader, but what a pain in the butt way to do things, lol! Hopefully they will see the error of their ways!

No you only need to put your billing info in because amazon requires you have billing info stored in their system in order to do a "sale." How can you say they will never be free, have you gone to the future? All of amazon's games give you free trials, you don't have to outright buy them in order to play them. The comment about why should you pay appalls me. These companies are working hard on their games and NEED to make a profit. You love to play these games so much, but what if no one payed for them? You wouldn't have a Jewel Quest 2 because they wouldn't have the money to make it. Frugality, at least in the U.S., is a big economic problem right now. No one wants to spend as much and that keeps forcing all these companies into laying off workers. Why wouldn't you want to support your favorite game? I'm not saying I don't appreciate the free games, but when possible I purchase my games. I've spent thousands on games just in the past year. Isn't that the whole concept here for GOTD?

Wizzard you don't have to stay with realarcade, you can cancel at anytime. If you just want to take advantage of their gamepass trial you can do that. If you want to get two games on real and then cancel you can do that. You will only have to pay for one credit if you got two games on real because they have a trial. You can sign up for another realarcade trial each 90 days after you cancel.

Real is different because there is no committment to keep. You pay $9.99 every month except the first month for a credit which you can use to purchase a game of your choice on realarcade.

Wizzard you don't understand when you sign up for lets say Bigfish that is what you get coupons to get free games. Realnetworks give you credits. Bigfish gives you coupons to get free games. If you buy a game and say you're displeased/won't work right with your computer from Amazon/Reflexive it seems to me there is no system set up where you could let's say get another coupon for a free game or get another credit like Realnetworks can give you. You would have to request your money back.

I'm not that into music and mp3s but I did buy Dinerdash Hometown Hero from Real for $4.99 a couple months ago. Real has sales too like that and you can even get them cheaper if you are a gamepass member. http://realarcade.com/sale-games

If I can get a free coupon from Bigfish for a free game or a free credit to get a free game from realnetworks why should I be concerned about sales? No matter how much amazon's sales are it will never be free and I see even for those free games they offer you need to put your billing info in.

http://www.reflexive.com/Bejeweled2Deluxe.html?related=9

I got that game for free from realarcade with a gamepass credit last year from a gamepass trial. I had a few trials and you can do that on realarcade.

The thing with the downloader though, you can always uninstall and re-install later should you decide to download something else. The installer is just that...it holds no other purpose than to convert files from amz (amazon file) to exe or mp3 and then activates the game. After you have installed the game, start the game up and then quit. After you have done so for all the games you have downloaded, you are safe to uninstall the downloader. I've done this to my system and games still work. This is my suggestion to you suki.

Amazon keeps a record on your account of all the games you have purchased from them so you can download them again in the future if need be. I'm averse to paying a monthly subscription to play games. I'd rather pay the money for the one game I want than pay a monthly subscription. I'm with suki, why pay $120 for maybe a few games I might be interested in when I could I just pay for those outright.

Also, Amazon is GREAT at giving away free mp3's and discounted mp3's. They may not do coupons or subscriptions, but they give you the freedom to buy what you want and when you want. They always run deals. I've bought countless full length cd's in mp3 form for $5. Why wouldn't they discount their games? They've already given 4 of them away! What need do you have for coupons when they run sales!?

I looked into a lot of game services. I also looked at Bigfish and it looks like to me yes you can pay $6.99, but you have to stay with them at least 12 months or something like that and for someone who's budget is tight to begin with I rather pay $9.99 and have that right to cancel at anytime.
Bigfish

Now if you choose there $9.99 option it looks like you have to stay with them 2 months or buy 2 games and some people believe it or not doesn't know what next month holds for them. To get it any cheaper than $9.99 you have to take the 6 month option on bigfish and sorry but if you don't know what next month is going to bring you sure won't know where you'll be six months from now.

I know how realarcade works if you want to buy an extra game a month and you're a gamepass member you have to pay $14.99 not including Bejewled Twist that is $19.99. I have already bought games like that from real, I know and I don't have a problem with that.

A lot of people say Bigfish is superior and I don't see where sorry. I went to look for help and information about their service similar to gamepass and guess what I couldn't find one. To me it looks like you have to be in their service similar to gamepass to get that kind of chat support. Why is that?

Real also gives gamepass trials, does bigfish? Every 90 days after you cancel gamepass you can sign up for another gamepass trial, does bigfish do that?

Michelle

I have no problems with the games on real, a lot of them I want.

Edit: Btw look here http://www.gamehouse.com/club?rsrc=gh_m_bad-ftbow_300x250 Gamehouse has something similar to Bigfish which I think Gamehouse is also owned by Realnetworks and you can get games for $5.99 isn't that cheaper than Bigfish?

Michelle

I don't even want to touch what you said with a ten foot pole!!!!

Sorry, but you are way off base with RealArcade...you are paying 9.99 a month!!!!!

If you want to waste your money stay with REAL, there are far better options out there, I belong to Big Fish, I did belong to REAL, but that was back in 2006.....the only thing they have done is raise the price...outsource jobs and screwed up the service! You also have to pay 14.99 a game extra, if you want one in that month! You now have 2 months instead of the original one month to redeem your credit.....that's a little to controlling for me!

I'm not sure how much longer I will stay with Fish either, I have so many games, that at this point belonging to a club is becoming stale, but then I can buy as many games as I want for 6.99, anytime I want! Their service is so superior to RA's it's not funny!

Sorry to disagree, but my signature at the RA Forums is: "is it REAL or is it MEMOREX"...that was about 4 years ago....after their switchover in 2007, I don't visit their forums much if at all....

I would rather pay 19.99 a game 4 times a year than pay 120.00 a year to get crap I don't want!

Suki

P.S. Dragon....I am running XP...I knew about the boot thing, because WinPatrol came up when I installed the downloader...lmao, nothing is perfect!

I use realarcade (Realnetworks). I have gamepass, it's $9.99 every month. 1 credit towards any game you want not including Bejeweled Twist (if you want that game now you will have to pay full price). I bought that game when it first came out from real. They had the best offer for it. It was $19.99 plus they would send you a coupon for another game of your choice. I actually went to the real chat and told them I never got a coupon a couple days after I bought the game and asked them if the person if they knew when they were giving out the coupons because I haven't received one and they didn't. So I asked for a gamepass credit and they gave me one. A month later after I bought the game I received a coupon for a free game. So I got 3 games for the price of one really.

I think realnetworks is the best to deal with if you have a problem and you have gamepass that is because if you have a problem and you ask for a game exhange real can do that and they have already done that for me, but I don't see how they would do that here. Game subscriptions like gamepass have their disadvantages, but they also have their advantages. Some don't think about it till it's too late and they already cancel and do something like this.

Realnetworks have been very good to me when it comes to having a problem and they have a chatroom that anybody can go to (I use that chat a lot), to get help and you don't have to be a gamepass member to use that chat.

I'm just saying that if you are thinking of joining this service canceling your gamepass or bigfish game subscription think about it. What realarcade and bigfish and others can do for you I don't see how amazon/reflexive can do that for you if you have a problem because think about it there are no credits/no subscriptions/no coupons, right? So if you have a problem you're stuck with that game? The only think you can probably do is request your money back, right?

When I downloaded the downloader and installed it, Amazon wanted to create a shortcut group called Amazon Games & Software at the main menu level. I re-directed it to Applications\General\Amazon Games & Software. That is where I find the shortcut when I want to download something (free or otherwise).

Now there is a minor problem. Those jerks set this downloader to load at boot time! I have Vista so it's a bit easier for me to stop that.

If you have XP or earlier, you need to use MSConfig to disable the downloader from the startup programs. If you have Vista, use Windows Defender > Tool > Software Explorer to do it. If you use MSConfig with Vista, it will work but you'll end up with a warning message every time you boot!

I can still start it manually if needed but it doesn't hog resources in general. What do they think I do, download from them all the time?????

When I saw this post, I already had an Amazon account complete with my card info...I had made other purchases before.

Dragonlair
I can't even find Amazon in my start menu, lmao....there is way to much in it!
I found the file by going into C: drive on this computer and I clicked on everything in the folder! It is running though, as when I went to put Big Kahuna Reef on this(my laptop)computer, it showed me as online...the icon just won't stay in the tray!

Taken from their site:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200205040

"Closing the Amazon Games & Software Downloader
If you want to exit the Amazon Games & Software Downloader, right click on the Amazon Games & Software Downloader in your computer's task tray (usually at the bottom of your screen) and select "Exit."

When the Amazon Games & Software Downloader is closed, you will not be able to perform any downloads nor activate any recent purchases. Your Amazon Games & Software Downloader status will appear "offline" under Your Games & Software Library. Previous purchases will continue to work without the Downloader.

You can reactivate the Downloader after you turn it off. To do so, go to the Start menu. Click the "Start" button, then click "All Programs." From the list that appears, choose "Amazon," then select "Amazon Games & Software Downloads," and finally, click "Amazon Games & Software Downloader." You can also simply restart your computer."

My issue is that I don't want the damn thing running all the time! I want an on/off switch......enable/disable....shortcut on my screen, lol!

I already gave them some feedback!!!!!!!!!!

Suki

P.S. I was just on the site and Jewel Quest 2 is showing: Free

"Jewel Quest 2 [Game Download]
Other products by IWin
Platform: Windows Vista / XP

6 Reviews
5 star: 16% (1)
4 star: 33% (2)
3 star: (0)
2 star: 16% (1)
1 star: 33% (2)

See all 6 customer reviews...
See all 2 discussions...
2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Price: $0.00
Download now.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Ready for Download Now.
Sold by Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Download size:
25 MB
Download time: 1 - 5 minutes on broadband, 1 hour on dial-up"

Maybe because I'm logged in automatically, or you have to be logged in...
Suki

Dragon I have an amazon sign in, but I mustn't have no billing information in there so it won't let me download the games :(. No big deal though. I have Build-A-lot. Bigfish game it away a short time ago and it I don't think I will be interested in the others.

Try tell them you live in the USA get Gmail they check & find it in USA as For Postcode it's five # may pay to lookup fist not all way's work try a proxy,had a game on a CD only get it to reg to get it to work.

Sukibabe,

You can re-start the downloader from the menu if you exit it. I did it with no trouble at all.

However, Jewel Quest II is no longer free! It now shows $6.99

Also, a friend has been trying to download the freebies and she only has an ID from the Pepsi promotion last year. Even though the games are free, she is being asked for credit card info.

If anybody has gotten past that idiotic portion, please let me know so I can pass it on.

I didn't run into that problem...but I don't like that the downloader runs in the taskbar and if you exit it you have to restart your computer, even though in their FAQ's they say it can be done from the start menu folder....didn't work for me! I restarted my computer and the downloader was back in the taskbar, then I took a nap(actually had to get some sleep),when I got back up and went on my computer again the downloader was missing and I didn't shut it down!

I think it's going to take a while for this to work properly.....the games are older, I even saw "Mr Smoozles Goes Nutso" when I checked out all the games, lmao!!!

Suki

Note - When you download them, they say they are the "trial version". You need to click "already purchased" while the Amazon Downloader is still active to switch them to the "full version". It's a simple click and it only has to be done once.

Thanks for the 4th game listed. That gives me 3 free games today. I skipped Build-A-Lot.