On 12/29/2023 8:21 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

It's been a whoile since the last one of these posts, so I'm sure
Amazon Prime has a host of great games waiting for us.

* Deathloop (via Epic)
* Akka Arrh
* SeaOrama
* Aground (via Epic)
* Kombinera
* A Tiny Sticker Tale
* Asteroids Recharged (via Epic)

Normally here is where I'd give comments on each game, but these
offerings are so paltry - aside from "Deathloop", but that game was
already mentioned in a separate post - that it's just not worth my
time.

<Grumpy mode engaged>
You know, It's one thing to moan about the quality and selection of
free games when they're actually free (I do that too, but I'll be the
first to admit the churlishness of that) but these are games we
nominally pay for. Between the pointlessness of the free games,
adverts being added to the Amazon movies, the lackluster speed of "one
day delivery" and general shittiness of the company itself, we are
seriously reconsidering our subscription to Amazon Prime. The company
might have redeemed itself at Christmas, but no... it couldn't even
manage that.

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off | Robert Reich

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdigPcyrQNk

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 29/12/2023 16:21, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

<Grumpy mode engaged>
You know, It's one thing to moan about the quality and selection of
free games when they're actually free (I do that too, but I'll be the
first to admit the churlishness of that) but these are games we
nominally pay for. Between the pointlessness of the free games,
adverts being added to the Amazon movies, the lackluster speed of "one
day delivery" and general shittiness of the company itself, we are
seriously reconsidering our subscription to Amazon Prime. The company
might have redeemed itself at Christmas, but no... it couldn't even
manage that.

<grumpy mode joined>

The last few months seem to have been rather poor as normally I could
find a couple of games that I think I'd paid £5 maybe £10 for them but
not recently. Generally scraping the bottom of the barrel springs to mind.

I do agree that the value of the overall package is getting worse as
next day delivery, well sometimes yes and it doesn't help when the free delivery is baked into the price. The other part I've found is that
before you could have Netflix and Amazon which would pretty much cover
us for all our streaming needs. Now with the content more shared out
because of new players in the market that's not really true. Then
there's also Amazon's increasing habit of you can have the first few
episodes free but you the have to pay for each one.

The big problem though is that they are just to convenient and it's not
been helped by the number of chains of shops in the UK that have gone
bust. What I have done though though is moved pretty much all my book
purchases to World of Books (stunningly good value for 2nd hand ones in
almost as new condition) and also Argos, for general goods, which is
based around going into the shop, ordering from a now digital catalogue
(how I miss the laminated book of dreams) and someone will go and get it
for you from the big warehouse at the back.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 30/12/2023 16:03, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:18:28 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 29/12/2023 16:21, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

<Grumpy mode engaged>
You know, It's one thing to moan about the quality and selection of
free games when they're actually free (I do that too, but I'll be the
first to admit the churlishness of that) but these are games we
nominally pay for. Between the pointlessness of the free games,
adverts being added to the Amazon movies, the lackluster speed of "one
day delivery" and general shittiness of the company itself, we are
seriously reconsidering our subscription to Amazon Prime. The company
might have redeemed itself at Christmas, but no... it couldn't even
manage that.

<grumpy mode joined>

The last few months seem to have been rather poor as normally I could
find a couple of games that I think I'd paid £5 maybe £10 for them but
not recently. Generally scraping the bottom of the barrel springs to mind. >>
I do agree that the value of the overall package is getting worse as
next day delivery, well sometimes yes and it doesn't help when the free
delivery is baked into the price. The other part I've found is that
before you could have Netflix and Amazon which would pretty much cover
us for all our streaming needs. Now with the content more shared out
because of new players in the market that's not really true. Then
there's also Amazon's increasing habit of you can have the first few
episodes free but you the have to pay for each one.

The big problem though is that they are just to convenient and it's not
been helped by the number of chains of shops in the UK that have gone
bust. What I have done though though is moved pretty much all my book
purchases to World of Books (stunningly good value for 2nd hand ones in
almost as new condition) and also Argos, for general goods, which is
based around going into the shop, ordering from a now digital catalogue
(how I miss the laminated book of dreams) and someone will go and get it
for you from the big warehouse at the back.

[grumpy mode remains engaged]

I'd be happier with Amazon Prime if I saw the necessity of it. The
nominal reason we keep it is for 'one day delivery', but - as noted -
the company finds ways around this promise so that we don't always get
the product the next day. Meanwhile, I've found that - because I live
in a comfortably urbanized area - the free 'five-to-ten day delivery - usually gets me the product in two to three days anyway (I'm fairly
certain it could get here the next day in most cases, except Amazon
purposely delays shipping it until at least one day has passed).

But honestly, I think I can wait two or three days for 99% of my
deliveries. So why are we paying for this expedited (but not really) shipping?

The reason I liked it was not that you'd get it next day but instead you
knew when you would get it. Times have moved on now and pretty much
everything is tracked so that attraction had gone.

Meanwhile, the storefront has become a disgusting mess of third-party resellers selling counterfeit or shoddy goods, with no way to filter
them out. Their video streaming service has almost no movies I'm
interested in (and they intend to stick adverts in them in January).
Most pertinent to this newsgroup, though, is that the 'free' games
aren't worth the price of admission.

The amount of crap they sell does seem to have increased and as you say
it can make it hard to find what you want so now I tend to stick purely
to brands I know.

A year ago, I'd argued that while the games may not have been reason
enough to invest in Prime if you didn't have it already, they were a
nice bonus that helped give the service value. Now the low-effort
releases are actually driving me away from the service.

The enshittification continues.

I tend to agree.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)