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I managed to get some beta codes for the new GameFly Digital Download service. It just went into beta on 9/8/11. If you want in you can go to that page and request your own invite. Or you can ask around on Twitter like I did. I got my codes from theatremonkey. Thanks dude!
Anyway, here’s a quick preview of the service and I’m giving away a few of the extra codes that I received from theatremonkey.
To use the service you need to have an existing GameFly account or you can sign up for a free account. This is the initial splash screen that’s displayed when you log into the service. You’ve got your usual navigation grey area to the left. There’s a slideshow displayed at the top of the page. You’ve got a newsfeed at the bottom, which comes from Shacknews. To the right of that feed appears to be a social networking feed that’s “coming soon”.
Selecting the “News” link in the navigation panel basically loads a larger view of the Shacknews newsfeed.
Next section of the nav panel is the GAMES submenu. You can select PC, All Systems or All Games. If you select All systems you will be able to see the games available for PC or consoles. In this case I added PC to “My Systems”. Once you do that you get a shortcut to that particular system in your GAMES submenu. So if I were to add “Wii” to My systems I would see PC and Wii links in my GAMES submenu.
I selected the PC icon and you will be able to browse the PC games available for purchase (and maybe rent in the future). Right now most of the games are N/A (Not Available). The library of games is very limited at the moment but they’re supposed to be adding a lot more games.
In the GAMEFLY submenu I selected the “Unlimited PC Play” link and you get a view of a virtual bookshelf of games. All GameFly subscribers get access to these unlimited play PC games. You can download them to your local machine and play to your hearts content. The selection is limited but there’s some good ones in here. Saints Row 2, Splinter Cell, Hector, etc. I’m sure it’ll get bigger.
You can add your own bookshelves and customize the look and feel of them also. You can rearrange the games to. This reminds me of Windows 95 or something. When you had that virtual bookshelf of software. Anyone know what I’m talking about?
This is the “Downloading…” link from the MY COLLECTIONS submenu. Looks almost exactly like the Steam download screen. That link name is kind of deceiving the first time you see it though. It’s almost like you’re expecting another menu item to load there. Also it wasn’t very intuitive to me at first but you can search for things by selecting the little magnifying glass icon. If you go to the games menu, you won’t have any option to search. You have to select that magnifying glass icon.
When you select the “Support” button you’re taken to the page: http://digitalsupport.gamefly.com/. First thing I noticed is that D2D customers are not the same as GameFly customers. The support page is the same but login systems are different. So I’m not sure if you’ll be able to access your D2D purchases on the GameFly service. Maybe, they’ll add an import option later?
Currently, two games are on sale as PC digital downloads. Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime for $7.99 (20% off) and RIFT Standard Edition for $19.99 (50% off). First game I’ve heard is bad and you can get the CE version of RIFT at GMG for the same price if you use their 20% off voucher code.
This is what you see when you click on the page for the invidual games.
Overall, the software works well and it doesn’t feel too bloated. The first time you use it, everything loads up a little slow but it’s pretty quick after that. It’s tied into their GameFly service very well, so it’s great if you PC game but also console game. I don’t have a GameFly account but I think that “Q” icon on the GAMEFLY submenu is where you would click if you wanted to update your GameQ. That’s where you select the games you want to be shipped to you when they become available for rent.
Here are three GameFly Beta Codes if you want to test the service yourself. They are one-time use. It would probably be better if you were a GameFly member or plan on signing up for GameFly. Only because their deals seem pretty standard so far. You’d be better of purchasing from D2D, Steam, etc instead. But with a GameFly account, you’d have the Unlimited PC Play access.
The GameFly beta codes are:
EDIT: Codes all gone!
do they still work?!
Dead already. Sorry would have replied sooner but couldn’t access this.