The New GameTap Guide: Website Guide

but why can’t i post in the new forums?
or change my avatar and sig?

We’re working on it Jac.

No offense but the new update is crap. The website is slow and boggy. The downloading doesnt work. I can’t play any games! I don’t like the new website only idea. If you had relaunched with a improved client this would not have happened…

You guys should have tested it a bit more…

@ Jackstershamm , we’re aware of it, this is not normal. We’re having some sort of networking issue, the techs are hammering it out as we speak.

I wouldn’t have eaten lunch if I knew there was going to be an all-day FAIL buffet.

lol seriously…

are we still going to have challenge capability on the arcade games?

If this issue isn’t hammered out in a timely fasion, then those of us with premium accounts should be compensated in some way.

@ Insom. Maybe. The indication is that it may be a month or more, if it ever comes back. I know, very sad.

ugh SFA3 multiplayer was why I started using gametap :\

we can’t play classics in full screen any more? i agree, they should have released an update to the client interface.

omg… have a tons of games downloaded from gametap and i cant play them what a shame… i know i am a free user but new gametap doesnt fit….

I do not like this new website idea! I got it all working okay and our games are there and they can be played…but you just killed how awesome Gametap was for our kids! My husband hardly played on it, and I played a little, but my kids(5) were on all the time! With the gametap before, they could get to their games EASILY and now they have to swim through a website with horrible ads?! I don’t want to have to get the game loaded for them every time! and I am not putting shortcuts on my desktop for ALL the games they have! My 4 year old was getting on the Gametap player, finding a game that looked interesting,(I wasn’t worried, only E games would show up) she would click on the bright play button and PLAY! Now? YEAH right! Hmm…What is this banner ad?
Do I get the player back as a premium member? Where is the EASY Gametap?

Craftisteph

They ad’s on gametap will probably never be bad and there is only that one little space of ad in the site. I can easily get on choose an already downloaded game and play it without paying an attention to the ad. Also you could just make a File on your desktop. “Kid’s Games” or something and put all the shortcuts in there. I also don’t know why they would ditch the player. Espcially since it is a very mature program. Then they switch on us and we are left with a brand new system almost like they just started up the company. So i do see what your talking about but it wont be much harder to set up for your kids.

I just dont know what I am doing wrong I can’t down load any games i keep getting errors … We payed for a year because my grandkids 3 and 4 could get on game tap and down load and play all by their selfs Ugh can i get my money back ? We want a WII… Just kidding we love game tap but I sure am frustrated Tired Grandma

wow way to move backwards gametap… a browser plugin? this is so lame, I dont even want to play game for free anymore through you guys… does that tell you how much this sucks? why wouldnt you guys have just left the old gametap player alone and added this for people who wanted it? lame….

You guys should put the player back on line. Everyone is right, even when this plug-in does finally work, our little ones will need help to steer through all the crap you’re throwing at us. My little girl loved that she could do it herself. Now I have to make sure she doesn’t click on one of the games you are selling. And what’s with that?…..I do not want to buy games from you that’s why I have been a member almost from the beginning. You guys had better fix it right or you will lose a lot of customers and money.
About to cancel in Ohio

hi
i writing this to tell you guys i’m very unhappy about what you guys have done to gametap me and my kids play it all the time and for one now it hasn’t been working are you going to give us more game time hell you should give everyone a month free or something and like another coment on here it use to be a kid friendly game where my kids could get on and play what they wanted to play and now i have to help them there was nothing wrong with it so why you guys mess with it dad had an old saying if it works and people like it don’t mess with it all you do is break it and that all you guys have done i us to love this game but thanking about stoping my acc if i and my kids cannt play it
thank you karl and kids

and i’m also a paying customer

ok, I know a lot of people are pissed about the changes you have made and I am one of them -_- if this new interface is not fixed by the end of the month you have lost one consumer and I can assure you I will never be back!

The update sucks ass “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

congradulations on ruining a good thing

I agree with the parents complaining that, indeed, the browser-based “upgrade” really blows for my kids and in my ability to feel assured that they have easy access to only the types of games I am willing to permit them to see/play.

Since I’m a paying customer, I hope my comments are well noted. I may to decide to cancel my subscription if gametap is forever in this new format.

Again, your upgrade is a mistake.

you guys seriously ruined this website..i was just about to go gold before this update but you can forge about that now!!!

this new setup sucks nobody seems to wanna mention the fact that durring gameplay if you use the arrows the screen jumps around with them what kind of a gaming joke have you guys made here you have lost my business until you switch back to a setup the same or equal to the old one

really? … What is this?? Is there even any full screen anymore??? I don’t get it. I don’t see the logic in calling this an “upgrade”. Maybe it was fiscally appealing, but its definitely NOT client friendly. Similar to the sentiments of most of these comments, I’ll probably be canceling my account soon.

This new interface is absolutely awful. I liked the old interface much more. Now I have to use my resource hogging FireFox or IE webbrowser to play games??? that makes no sense whatsoever. What was wrong with the old program????? The graphical interface was so much better than this interface. I can honestly say if I was a free user this would not entice me to purchase gametap at all. This is really really bad.

And I’m not even talking about the glitches…I’m talking about the interface itself. Just a really poorly designed and poorly conceived idea here folks.

there was no warning or nothing ,one day user friendly next day not.who wants to sit and brouse page after page till hopefully u find a game that will work. Havnet u ever heard ,”If it aint broke dont fix it ” I americas gamer ,am verrrrry disappointed. and im question ing my membership.

I’d imagine that someone at Gametap is going to be losing their job over this. Opps - just reread that - someone “should” be losing their job over this. You’ve ruined a good thing and with so many alternatives out there right now - good luck getting people back. I’m anticipating an email with your plan “B”.

Just another very disappointed paying customer.

Oh ya - click ads - that’s just so cheesy. Boo.

The website sucks, the old application had a really good and easy to use interface. Now it looks just like any other website. Thanks for screwing up good thing. What happened with playing games full screen.

I agree with all of the other posts. This new web interface is a big mistake.

The only reason why I keep my subscription to Gametap is so my kids can have easy access to many games. With this new interface (and the fact that they can’t download anything because they use subaccounts) this makes it impossible.

Unfortunately, I just got billed for the new cycle on March 21st. I am seriously thinking about challenging this on my credit card because this is not what I subscribed to.

We will see how this new strategy (let’s see if we can disappoint most (if not all) of our customer base) works out.

I believe that they are looking ahead. If we lose all of our customers - we will blame it on the economy and then apply for a government bail-out.

Another very disappointed cusomer.

Will we be able to play emulated games full screen or not?

I can’t find any answer to this. I am not a complainer, but it’s an absolute joke to play in a window. I’ve had Gametap for 3 years just for classic adventure games (King’s Quest, Quest for Glory) and right now they run in a little window.

That’s not only awful, it’s stupid. I’ll keep on if it’s being worked on, if not, I’m cancelling. Please let us know.

Don’t like the website. Liked the Gametap player. Change is a good thing, but this was a bad idea. I can’t play my classic arcade games full screen. Playing them in a small section of a browser window is not very fun (my vision is poor). Why would you move away from an easy to use application to a wonky website? Surely a better idea would be to upgrade the application. Paying customer disappointed.

1st off - I have tried and continue to try and give GT the benefit of the doubt. With that being said this change is one giant step backwards not forwards. If we can’t have full screen on the “Browser Games” we lose the experience of the game. I was under the impression that the game experience is what GT wanted to provide and had provide so well the past few years. Additionally, I understand the advertising thing, but come on….the old player was clean. We had the TV pop up or windows around but it was clean and easy to use. Now I feel like on msn.com (just an example). I’m 36 and have worked professionally as a computer/network tech for the past 15 yrs. Honestly I’m having difficulty finding what I need, and you expect a non-tech or a child to navigate your site as it is now, you have got to be kidding me. As well as some of your advertising I’ve run into does not seem to be appropriate to the fact that small kids can and will use this site especially since the sub-accounts don’t seem to work as of now.
Lastly, and this goes to the tech side of me. Computers 101 (and you can look this up) says that you should not be running your computer in admin mode. All users should be limited account (2000/XP) / Standard user (Vista/win7) however, your plug in really doesn’t seem to like windows unless your pc is in admin mode. In your old player because it was a program, those who wanted to properly secure their pc’s could set up the program to have admin rights but leave the remaining functions in limited account. Your new plug in does not allow for that, so you are in fact under this new plug-in opening up your members to the possibility of other issues. I will wait a little longer and see if GT can figure out which end is up but my waiting time is getting shorter and shorter and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

So this is the new marketing strategy for Steam?

I’d say it’s a winner.

Too bad you’re not Valve.

I’ve seen the increasing decline of GameTap’s quality. First they had a decent library client with some neat tricks. Then they improved upon it while streamlining a few things, but it essentially remained the kickass player. Next, GameTap decides to cut a bit of the staff, resulting in a noticeable lack of information pages in the player itself. Then GameTap starts ADDING IN TITLES THAT AREN’T FULLY PATCHED, or completely unpatched as in the case of Sacrifice. Those games were patched for a reason, and you’re wanting to skimp out on making sure the distributed code is safe?! Now you want to use a game browser that doesn’t allow people to play these arcade games as they were and remember from the arcades (fullscreen), and use several excuses for this transition that are in no way acceptable. The website, compared to the player, is a jumbled mess that apparently IS so ill-conceived that it requires instructions on how to use it (and again woe be to any kid on their sub-account who wants to browse and play games). The browser security screw-up is just one of several obvious mistakes with this brain fart, and quite a few of those other mistakes are listed above in other comments.

Did everyone else at GameTap with a clue get fired so only the janitor with a remedial understanding of web design is left?

Unless you kids get your crap straight soon, this will be another canceled subscription.
You’ve gone from professional straight into a kiddy Flash arcade site: complete with lag and crappy site widgets causing excessive page loading time as we wait for all the ads, the GameTap store, and a dozen of other useless things we as users don’t give a rat’s ass about at the time (because we’re not paying to surf your sponsors, we’re paying to play games, which is why people liked the client).

Bravo.

I guess it never occurred to anybody there that in the event that YOUR servers go down I lose access to MY games that I PAID for. Like, for example, right the fuck NOW?

This update was a total failure top to bottom.

I completely agree with the above posters. This service used to be great, now you’ve ruined it. I’ve been a subscriber since the beginning and loved it. I also have kids and you’ve ruined it for them. Nothing is playable, nothing works, the browser experience sucks and there’s no reason for me to be a subscriber in the future.
Thanks for ruining something pretty cool.

I agree with all the other comments after reading them. A website that moves when you press the arrow keys when playing browser games and even after setting the control functions for my usb controller, it doesn’t work for some games just plain sucks. For those like me that like to play classic arcade games, this upgrade sucks. Some of the games don’t download properly and instuctions coming soon, I have also noticed that I am unhappy with. I also have 2 children relatives under my sub accounts that cannot play games unless I log them on with my account. I now am personally only interested in playing games that only appear in full screen like the Legacy of Kain series or the Tomb Raider series. I do hope that the gametap player before this upgrade is brought back. One more thing. I am a premium account client and hope that my and all other clients concerns are taken seriously whether they are free account holders or not.

I hate this new layout and setup. I preferred the old system, I can’t get any games to work on this new layout.

And if I can’t get it working soon, I’ll cancel my service.

I have been a premium customer since 2007. Stand-alone app was great. Kids from age 4-10 had no problem using it. In contrast, the browser interface sucks. Harder to browse games, far slower in many aspects (e.g. viewing downloaded games), and so on. Still don’t see how switching to a browser plugin helped anyone. Think of iTunes: it’s really a browser but isn’t actually IN a browser. Why? To make it work better. Please take a hint.

I am not sure at this point but I am beginning to believe that the new web based is a new advertising advantage. This way not only do the regulars that do visit the site see ads but now everyone has to see ads. There just so happens to be a link that is for someone that wants to Advertise with them. It is also another way to get you to the sight to purchase games to own. I bet within a year if successful you will see more and more. I see a lawsuit coming. I see a lawsuit similar to America Online (AOL) lawsuit back in the day when they could not provide a stable service. I am sure GameTap has had it’s fair share of cancellations in the last month now. I have come close but I paid for a year so I am giving them a little time to pull their heads out and offer people a service they want. America Online used to shove advertisement at people left and right. Believe me I was employed with them for over 7 years. You could not even call in to tech support without getting a sales pitch for their AOL Long Distance They would threatin employees with thier job if they did not make the offers. I am not sure why I see this coming but it seems like that is the way GameTap is headed. The other problem that may be of concern is memory. I know not everyone out their can play all the newer games with the systems they have. Unless you have a good quality system or a custom gameputer most of the games that are over 3 megs or more are going to be dirt bag slow for them. My mother likes to play on her system. I let them log into my account but they can’t play most of the newer games on their system. Not that my mother likes run around shooting and killing people haha. But I am just making a point. Well anyway maybe I will rebutle on this later. Take care and good luck gametap. I will hold out for a while yet. But like some of the others have also said. It is slow downloading anymore I still have yet to see anything much past 300k. Heck I’ll go Bit Torrent something faster than that.

@John w/6 kids - the change was due to GameTap merging with Metaboli - not because Gametap thought it would be a better service - obviously its NOT, most of us agree on that. Perhaps in 6 months when some of our features return it will be fun again.

@ Robert - The ToS for Gametap specifically notes that they do not garauntee uninterrupted service or quality of any kind… basically its like renting a car “as is”. You get what they offer and they do not garauntee a refund for lack of service. I also think you meant 3 “gigs” not “megs” when referring to newer large games. Playing those same games outside of GT will not really make them work any better, so your issue should be with your own PC, not the GT service offering new and up to date games.

Once again corperate greed rears it’s ugly head and ruins a good idea. Can’t play crap anymore though I am running a $3000 computer I hope all of these greedy people chasing the corperate dream die in an aids fire!

Goldenspiral,

You are saying that for six months I and thousands of others have to put up with an unreliable service that we pay for that is now in beta test only without leaving the original product intact until the bugs are worked out. On top of that, pay for the service while it is in beta.
AOL had a non guarantee of connection issues such as connection speed in their Terms of Service (TOS) as is with any ISP. There is no guarantee. The lawsuit came about from unreliable service and millions of customers not being able to connect when AOL went unlimited and could not support the users. The settlement forced AOL into offering out millions of dollars in refunds and free service. Let alone it went on for a couple years while they updated and added the modem support. People calling in constantly for a free month or to be reimbursed as well as thousands upon thousands of written requests coming in daily. They had to hire a special department just to handle that mail only.
Just Because they do not offer uninterrupted service does not mean they would not win a suit. At this point in time Gametap is not offering a stable product they are not offering a reliable service and if enough people were to complain based on it’s users numbers you can bet your last dollar they can be sued. Their best bet at this time would be to offer a settlement to any unsatisfied customers before this does happen. I have not seen much effort in keeping customers up on what is going on with the service. I see all sorts of advertisements for Gametap affiliates and other non-related products so far. I see that they have had no problem with the games for sale side of the site. I do see the problems though and not just with speed. Many games that worked fine before the transition are not as reliable. I have seen possible security issues. I have seen more crashes. Even with the latest update just in the past day or so. With my technical knowledge I can figure out issues. I tried a few different options troubleshooting yesterday on my own trying to find a quick fix for the Firefox download loop of the gametap.xpi plugin before trashing the prefs file as I did the first day the new browser interface was introduced and Firefox had the same problem. Worked fine after that. Not a big deal to a few of us to trash the prefs and let them recreate. I tried other tech issues with no avail yet and trashing the prefs has worked best so far. Not to say someone else has figured it out. I have not heard of anyone yet with a better solution that works. It is that or use Explorer which I have had no problem with to be honest. Little bit of a pain to restore all your settings. People don’t want, and don’t expect nor do they think they should have to. There are more of those users than the tech savvy ones. I still give GameTap the benefit of the doubt because I know they will pull out eventually and I can work around the issues myself for now. I am just trying to clarify what and can happen legally if they do not take care of problems in due time.
In closing this novel may I also state that maybe the old GameTap service was better and maybe to improve on it would have been better and yet it’s not to late to try. The old service could still have been used while the bugs are worked out. Offer a way to purchase games with the old setup. Offer incentives to Beta Testers. A link that would pop open the web if it came time to check out and buy a game. Advertisement on the old service would have been a piece of cake to add. It’s done with other products. ie: AIM, WeatherBug, Windows Live Messenger, Real Player, QuickTime etc. I just know it worked more efficiently and on top of that it can be done and I believe with much more satisfaction in the long run. I am still somewhat a satisfied customer and my biggest complaint is just the download speed.

Ok this plug in idea was a dumb idea from the begging everyone liked the player so why couldnt you have just keep it.I cant even download games now so ill be cancileing my subscrption

I had Gametap back when it was still the player and not this website crap and it was great. I canceled my subscription before this update just because I was bored with it but then when I got back on the site yesterday I noticed that a lot of really good games had been added, so not thinking about it twice, I signed up again and was ready to play. It was probably dumb of me to buy so quickly but I had already been a member before and knew that it was good so I just went ahead and paid for a month. I will be canceling my subscription in just a moment but I just want Gametap or the company that owns Gametap now, Metaboli, that I will never pay for this service again until you bring the player back and improve the download times. I was only able to download two games in two days and one of them didn’t even work and it has nothing to do with my internet connection. This version of Gametap is broken and needs to fixed before you lose all of your customers, which I can already tell is happening because there are only about 1200 people online right now.

i feel the same as everybody else on here i started my acct a day or two ago not knowing the the interface was switched around not i have a hard time trying to figure out what im doing and not sure about the sub accts can’t find a page with a descripton of what it is exactly and i can’t even let my three year old play because i am worried he will end up charging me for something i like the old interface you guys had please bring it back soon it was much easier and not as complicated

Hey GameTap, I just wanna say you SUCK SUCK SUCK! What a mistake this migration has been. I just cancelled my account and I’m happy. If you go back to the desktop application as it used to be, I will subscribe again. If not, see you later.

As a result of “ZERO” customer service, many messages left after calling the “Service Number” (a load of crap) with no call backs or emails I was forced to search for other means …it was not until I said the word CANCEL did I get any response about this nightmare of a BS website. Gametrap was all too happy to take my full years premium subscription fee only 2 months into it and cancel my account with NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AND NO REFUND FOR THE REMAINING YEAR!!! I am looking for other victims of this “Gametrap Nightmare” who would like to participate in a class action against these companies shameful tactics.

Well I am really pissed off this new website client is really serious pain in ass when i log in it just keeps downloading that crap plugin again and again. The old GameTap player was great so why the f are you dudes upgraded to this suckass web based client ?

LOOKING FOR OTHER ANGRY MEMBERS WHO CANCELED BECAUSE OF THIS CRAP OF A COMPANY. TOOK MY MONEY AND CANCELED ME AFTER 2 MONTHS ….KEPT THE MONEY FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE YEAR ……A BUNCH OF THIEVES WHO BAIT AND SWITCH!! LEARN A LESSON FROM AOL ….YOU WILL BE SUED FOR THIS GAMETRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!