February 26, 2007 11:56 AM PST

BitTorrent's game downloads: A big hoax

Posted by Rafe Needleman

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Update: BitTorrent's Games section is misleading. First of all, game downloads don't necessarily use BitTorrent. What you may get via the BitTorrent P2P network is a small (298K) installer program, which in turn runs a proprietary downloader application that gets the game code from a central server.

Second, although games are listed in the B.E.N. catalog as free, they are nothing of the sort. You get a free preview period to try the game. If you want to play it past that period, you have to pay up. Gangland, for example, is free only for 60 minutes. After that, access to the game costs $14.99. And you pay through a separate payment engine, not your BitTorrent account.

What's the point of using BitTorrent for games? I can't see one. Bad form, BitTorrent.

I apologize for not noticing this in our earlier review.

Free? Really? No.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Topics:: Content and publishing,; Games and entertainment,; Media

Tags:: Bittorrent,; DRM,; P2P,; sharing,; games

Bookmark:: Digg; Del.icio.us; Reddit

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