woah! I definitely haven't seen that one wandering around. I'm one of those that has no money so I try to find free games, but I really try to avoid games that include ads with them. The only one I have that has ads is Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. The ads in it are not very intrusive and don't seem to cause any kind of problem with the game or anything else, so I'm not that worried about that. I have to agree that some of the licensing agreements I've seen have turned me off from installing a game. Even though I've heard gametop is pretty good about their adverts, when I downloaded and read some of the agreement, I just went ahead and backed out, and got rid of the game. Since I have no money, I also have to be extra careful not to download anything that might cause me to have computer problems, since I have no money to repair it, replace hardware, or replace the entire system.
Anyway, I also agree that the arcade gaming community is changing, and everything is really a copy of everything else with a slight upgrade in graphics. Many of the cheaper games I see online are just clones of games I've seen ten years ago, but have a little better graphics. They can spit out these games every week or two because there's so little change in the coding, and then they market them as their next newest great game. I really enjoy gaming consoles and full PC games to arcade games(although I love some time wasters here and there), but, not being able to afford any of those, I play what I can. The consoles out right now are changing the gaming industry as well, since the 360 offers its own arcade games to play, some of them being the same or at least the same type of games we're talking about seeing on these "free" game sites.
It seems to me that GAOTD has been going downhill for a while. It's unfortunate, but it looks to be happening to me. I don't know how much the economy has to do with it, or if it's because of so many more freeware options with the regular GAOTD site, but it seems to offer a lot more of the same type of programs, that are no better, and often times, not as good as some freeware alternatives. The game site however, has sacrificed its weekday giveaways to still provide some good games over the weekend. The ones I've seen lately haven't been my kind of games, but they seem to be pretty decent games, even if they have been given away several times before. Plus, as we've seen with the free weekday games project with Whiterabbit and Wizzard, there really are tons of decent free games scattered across the web. I don't know how much these free games are affecting the commercial games market, but I'm sure that both the freeware and abandonware games, as well as the "free" MMOGs are having an impact on that industry. Yes, I say "free" with quotes there because I'm not quite sure how to label those games since they are technically free to play as much as you want, but unless you pay for a subscription to the game, or pay for specialty items from a game shop, you find yourself left in the dust of players who play less than half as much as you, but have the great advantage of having some money in their pocket.
Alright, I think I've ranted enough for now. Thanks notblocklox for the quote of that license agreement, it was both laughable and terrifying, I was just about to install a game from mostfun when I was reading this, and I think I'm going to wait for either more info on it or unless it becomes completely free(with no-strings).
