Friday Next

Until last night, I thought I had at least one post nailed down for the end of this week. It's the beginning of the month so I thought I'd get at least a thousand words out of Amazon's latest drop of free games to Prime. 

It's a fun post to write and best of all, I can usually outsource a chunk of the work to whoever writes the official descriptions. Sure, it's a bit of a faff, cutting and pasting and adding all the links, but I enjoy it. It's a bit like scrapbooking, only you don't have to pick bits paper out of the carpet for days afterwards.

Remembering Amazon's scattershot approach when it comes to revealing the new games, for once I remembered to check the web page in good time. I tried on the last day of January and the first day of February, without success. Nothing unusual about that. Sometimes the announcement doesn't come until the third or fourth of the month.

For some reason, though, this time it occured to me to google and see if anyone else had information to share. Boy, did they...

A quick search for "Free Amazon Prime games February 2023" brought a torrent of results. It seems everyone from Forbes to India Today just can't wait to let their readers know what to expect. All of them had the full list of February's nine free games along with something more important than a simple reveal of the titles. As Forbes explains:

"Rather than make them all available at once, as has been the case in the past, the freebies will be spread out over the month." 

They also had a schedule. And thumbnail descriptions. If I was to cut and paste the whole thing it would pretty much fill the post for me. It's tempting but I'm not that cheap. You can click through the link if you're curious.

Instead, I'll content myself with borrowing just the names and dates from Gamespot, who have them neatly bullet-pointed:

• February 2
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind GOTY Edition
  • Onsen Master
• February 9
  • Aerial_Knight's Never Yield
    
  • Divine Knockout
• February 16
  • One Hand Clapping
  • BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad
• February 23
  • Space Crew: Legendary edition
  • Tunche
  • Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this new development. Oh, I know how I feel about the games - totally uninterested. I'm no fan of the Elder Scrolls franchise. I can just about cope with ESO but the rest of them I can more than happily live without. And that's the best of the bunch.

I read the Steam descriptions of the rest of them and there wasn't one I'd consider playing in the depths of a gaming drought. Customer management in a hot springs resort? Solving puzzles by singing and humming into your microphone? Trading in organs? This is supposed to be entertainment?!

So much for the new content. How about the change in distribution? Don't rush me - I'm still thinking...

 

On the one hand, I really liked getting a whole bunch of games dropped on me at the beginning of every month. It felt like an event. It also gave me a good, solid post that I always enjoy putting together, even if the lack of response always suggested it was a bit of a self-indulgent pleasure.

On the other, now I'll get a nice surprise each week (Always assuming I don't peek.) and I can almost certainly spin something up out of every one of them, should I not have anything better to write about. It would certainly make an excellent sub-section in a Friday Grab-Bag, if nothing more.

Of course, the games would have to be a lot more to my taste for it to feel worth the trouble. Another month like this one and I might just stop bothering to look altogether, let alone write a post. 

That's about al I have to say, except to note one other interesting aspect of the February package:

"To celebrate Black History Month, Amazon Prime Gaming has included four titles (Onsen Master, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield, BATS: Bloodsucker Anti-Terror Squad, and Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator) developed by Black developers in the February lineup."

That's a solid move. I look forward to more socially-aware giveaways in future.

 

As far as the in-game reward program goes, nothing has changed. It's still a melange of boosts and cosmetics for dozens of disparate titles. I skimmed the offer but didn't find anything worth mentioning, far less claiming.

All in all, then, a barren month for me. Never mind. Steam's next Steam NextFest starts on Monday. It's usually way more fun and I bet I can get a whole load of posts out of that one!