First installment of The Adventure Games released!

[Chris3123]

"City of the Daleks" is now available to download for free on the Doctor Who website.

Link

At the moment, it's only for PC users in the UK. The Mac version will be released on June 15th.

Now the good news and bad news for those of us living outside the UK.

The good news: We will be getting access to the games. 'City' will be released for us sometime in early July.

The bad news: We have to pay for it.

If you live outside the UK, the first Adventure Game will be available to purchase in early July.

Link

 

[Skywalker]

Wow, that's frakking lame.

 

[DimesDan]

Wow, that's frakking lame.

Not in the slightest.

I just downloaded the game but as it's fast approaching midnight here I'll leave playing till somepoint tomorrow.

 

[23skidoo]

No free DW games for outside the UK

This will surprise no one -- the first of the Doctor Who Adventure Games computer games has been released a few days earlier than scheduled.

If you're in the UK.

If you're a heathen living outside the UK, you get a message saying the game will be "available for purchase" sometime in July.

Gee, wasn't I predicting the BBC would screw us over - again?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames/download/nonuk

Alex

 

[Cutter John]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

Well to be fair, it is their show.

Still sucks for us though. But at least we'll have a chance to read plenty of reviews before deciding if we want to part with our money.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

They're not "screwing you over". You don't pay the tv license fee.

 

[Davros]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

They're not "screwing you over". You don't pay the tv license fee.

I shouldn't have to. I buy the DvDs.

[shakes fist in unjustified anger]

 

[Skywalker]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

They're not "screwing you over". You don't pay the tv license fee.

Okay, I hadn't thought of that. In the thread started by Chris3123, I'd complained about this, but I forgot about the license fee over there.

 

[Sci]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

This will surprise no one -- the first of the Doctor Who Adventure Games computer games has been released a few days earlier than scheduled.

If you're in the UK.

If you're a heathen living outside the UK, you get a message saying the game will be "available for purchase" sometime in July.

Gee, wasn't I predicting the BBC would screw us over - again?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames/download/nonuk

Alex

No one's screwing anyone over. The BBC is funded by the television license that anybody owning a TV in the United Kingdom pays to them. As such, the BBC's first job is and will always be to provide quality services to the people paying the television license.

You and I, living outside of Great Britain, don't pay a television license. So we're not entitled to any free services, be it television or games, from them. If we want a Doctor Who video game, we can pay, simple as that.

Edit:

Oops. Clearly I should read the rest of a thread before commenting.

 

[captcalhoun]

we probably get them for free cuz we pay the licence fee.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I'd forgotten about the license fee until I was reminded of it in the other thread about this.

 

[Kibbin]

Well I've just played the first one and have got to say, for a free game it's not that bad. It plays like a sneak em'up puzzler. You can probably breeze through it in about an hour (I got about an hour and half with doing bacon and eggs, but I'm sure people can do better) so don't expect a big game. It's not that hard but it never seemed too easy but then I'm not very good at the sneak em up genre.
So whats everyone elses thoughts on it?

 

[Joy]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

I'm grateful the BBC realizes that DW has become popular enough outside the UK to even warrant taking the time to offer the games for a price. In the end, we US'ers won't be paying any more or less than the UK fans, when you balance it against the license fee.

 

[Cutter John]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

As long as its not rediculously overpriced, I don't mind. I figure its just us doing our part to keep the show on the air.

 

[Starkers]

Cool will have to download this later!

 

[luvscifi]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

I almost wish there was some way that BBCA could take a payment, from those of us willing to do so, so we "heathens" could have access to the perks the UK viewers have. Give us access to the videos on the BBC site etc....

 

[wamdue]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

I almost wish there was some way that BBCA could take a payment, from those of us willing to do so, so we "heathens" could have access to the perks the UK viewers have. Give us access to the videos on the BBC site etc....

a Pay BBC WW iPlayer, might do some business.

However I would worry about rights issues, taking alot of the content off it.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

First installment comes in at 330 megs and they have done quite well, simple limited roaming games with a mix of maze/match the symbol type puzzle mini games, about a hours games play, voice acting is great as is the story, the graphics are fine and it does feel like a Dr Who episodes especially when the shows intro start up which with is done really well.......Overall a very very good attempt, i think it's going to go down really well, the kids are going to love this.

 

[Technobuilder]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

You know... that's a great idea.

BBC Licenses for non-UK residents. (or UK Residents overseas)

I'd do it.

 

[23skidoo]

Re: No free DW games for outside the UK

Just to expand upon what pisses me off about this, I repeat what I said earlier is I was not surprised to see this happen. We never got to see Attack of the Graske or the Comic Maker or any of the other stuff. It's one of the reason I consider the BBC's Doctor Who page to be functionally nonexistent and I usually ignore it.

But the advance publicity -- including reports by BBC America and other sources -- gave the strong impression that the games would be available for free everywhere. There was also no indication that this was a "licence fee" situation - I thought I even saw a reference to sponsorship, though that was probably an error just like the reports the games would be available internationally.

The second thing is if we're going to be asked to pay $20, $30 for a game that people report completing in a single sitting, where's the point in that? Even $5, $10 is too much.

Also, I'm now seeing reports the game is pretty buggy. While the potential is there that the commercial release may fix that, I'm not confident they'll bother for us heathens.

It also annoys me because the BBC forgets once again that the year is 2010 and if people want something they'll get it. Granted, I hear that the installer "phones home" so going the "creative route" right now probably doesn't work (and before the mods cringe, that "creative route" includes what I had planned to do which was have a friend in the UK download them for me - my ISP long ago blocked anything that starts with a T). But we all know someone will work out a hack before long.

It's frustration over lack of clarification that is at the heart of my comment about the BBC screwing us over. The BBC should have indicated back in April that this would be a UK-only release. They should already be telling us how much the international version is going to cost. As it is, I really have no idea if the game will even play on my Mac when (and if) the Mac version is made available internationally as I can't seem to find any system requirement information -- there's probably some on the download page, but the Internet's built-in censorship function sends us to that non-UK page. Do they even have Intel Core Duo Macs over there, because if this isn't a Universal Binary I might be out of luck, regardless (my current Mac doesn't have functioning Bootcamp and I can't upgrade to Snow Leopard without losing access to certain work-required software, so I'm in a glass ceiling situation).

Alex