Turner Plans Game Download Service

[Sharpshooter]

'All-you-can-play' network planned

Turner to give customers access to hundreds of established video games for a monthly fee.
April 27, 2005: 6:39 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Turner Broadcasting unveiled an on-demand video game service Wednesday that allows customers to access hundreds of games and original content via high-speed Internet connections.

The service, known as GameTap, will launch this fall with up to 300 game titles from 17 video game publishers. New titles will be rolled out weekly, and the service has licensed more than 1,000 titles so far.

The subscribers will have an "all-you-can-play" gaming service on up to two personal computers as long at they pay a monthly fee. The games are downloaded to the customers' PC, not played across a network, giving them faster response times.

The release from the company did not give a price for the service, but the New York Post reported Wednesday that the fee is expected to be between $10 and $20 a month. It said that if the subscriber stops paying the fee, he or she will no longer be able to play the games.

Original content to be provided customers includes coming attractions and behind-the-scenes peeks that introduce the games and provide background information.

The service provides an outlet for previously released game titles for the publishers.

"With GameTap, Turner fills a need in the industry for a viable post-retail sales channel for games," said a statement from Dennis Quinn, executive vice president of business development, TBS, Inc. "We're taking publishers' time-honored content and re-packaging it for new and existing audiences."

Sounds interesting, but also rather risky. Good money says hackers, programmers, and others are going to comb this thing for a weakness and blow it wide open.

[General Zod]

so basically they're wanting to become the napster of videogames. meh. i'll stick with the console option.