Amazon Prime Members Perks at Twitch

[FrgMstr]

If you missed it a few years ago, Amazon bought Twitch, and amazingly enough Amazon has not screwed it up yet. If you register at Twitch you can link you Amazon Prime account with your Twitch account and use it for several current perks, but this new one being announced has a very nice ring to it: Free Games! And not just once, it seems Twitch will run through a rotation of games every month.



We’re digging into our archives to bring you the best of our previously released games, starting with a pair of critically acclaimed titles: Superhot and Oxenfree.

We’re also happy to announce that all eight titles from the Indie Amplifier program will be made available for free over the next few months. First up are the winner, Shadow Tactics, and strategy-RPG Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation. The rest of the titles will be released in the following months, in no particular order.

I have not played Superhot on the PC, but it is one of my favorite titles in VR using the Vive. And of course if you want to see any of those games in action, guess what, there will be folks at Twitch showcasing the gameplay.

PS. If you want to check out any of these games in action, ElegyofGames and seriouslyclara will regularly show off the Free Games with Prime through July on their streams Sundays at 6PM PT and Mondays at 8:30PM PT starting on 3/25 and 3/26 respectively.

 

[BiH115]

Free is cool with me.

 

[Shadow_Foxx]

I am also surprised they havent found a way to suffocate Twitch. they must be making enough money off the ads as well as the links to buy on amazon. Hope it continues! Although to be honest, the list of free games hasnt peaked my interest.

 

[Accursed]

They've been doing this for a while haven't they? I picked up Kentucky Zero Route and a few other games this way.

You'll need the Twitch Launcher. So many launchers these days, at last count I had 10+ on my gaming PC.

 

[RanceJustice]

That's a decent selection of games for March - Superhot is short but a neat FPS, Oxenfree is a well made adventure game currently on my backlog. Shadow Tactics is fun and set in sengoku-era Japan, with each character having their own special abilities that with proper tactical thinking can be used in complimentary ways. Not too familiar with Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation though, but Mr. Shifty is a top-down hectic Hotline Miami style title that's also worth playing.

Its neat to see these added to to Twitch Prime but, I REALLY hope they will get over the necessity to use the Twitch Launcher/client in order to download titles and other content conferred by Twitch Prime or even bought on the Twitch gamestore. I don't need yet another storefront "client" - they should just generate Steam/GOG/Ubi/Humble etc... codes to redeem properly elsewhere. Worse, I've noticed with games on Twtich Launcher that they are often A) incompatible online play with versions of the game from other stores and B) are poorly supported in terms of updates and/or platform support (ie Linux). compared to the same game on on other stores like Steam . This is a cumbersome, unacceptable setup and is furthermore even more confounding by Amazon's ownership of Twitch - Amazon already sells games directly so it isn't like they need a separate game store with a downloader and all that crap. Even from a shitty advertising and market standpoint they could simply do everything through Amazon with Twitch links to discounts and all kinds of stuff taking place on Amazon (where most of the digital titles give keys that activate properly on Steam or other preferable platforms) , rather than in Twitch's gamestore etc

If Amazon/Twitch really wants to do something nice for their Prime customers, how about making it so that the Prime Discount granted on games applies to the digital code version of the title as well as the boxed PC on console version? Prime sometimes offers some very reasonable, on par with GreenManGaming et al discounts on pre-launch or new titles, but it isn't valid for the digital key! They could change that right quick...

Edit: I should mention I don't necessarily hate the Twitch client in and of itself. I use it for my World of Warcraft UI Mods (note: Twitch Client is a renamed and upgraded version of the Curse client when Twitch bought Curse earlier on) and wouldn't mind watching streams, chatting, and generally doing Twitch related stuff via the Twitch Launcher... IF it is up to the same parity or better than the browser. If they do that and add a Linux version of the Launcher with worthwhile features people wll use it - they don't need a crap-tastic, proprietary store or download platform.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

I am also surprised they havent found a way to suffocate Twitch. they must be making enough money off the ads as well as the links to buy on amazon. Hope it continues! Although to be honest, the list of free games hasnt peaked my interest.

since it had been integrated into twitch there's been a few good indie games added to it.. can't be bothered to open the twitch app to see the ones i've added to my account over the last couple years. some of the free in game stuff they also have has been nice though.

 

[EODetroit]

For anything free, you're not the consumer, you're the consumed. So fuck that, I'm not linking my Amazon account with my Twitch account, unless I use a garbage Amazon account that will never contain any legit information about me, nor ever be used to purchase anything.

 

[danc3]

Cool that they are giving out free games, but I wish it didn't require an additional launcher (as mentioned above). I prefer Steam keys/DRM-free downloads.

 

[lostin3d]

Thanks for the heads up. I totally forgot about twitch.

Wife and I had a lot of fun drunken nights watching justin.tv back in the day cracking up as people ripped trek:tng. I remember when it changed to twitch and had no idea they offered games. I'll rarely say no to free games. Thanks again.

 

[spugm1r3]

Is this why they canned Underground? Trying to reorganize resources to make more clearly delineated services?

 

[Zepher]

I got some Overwatch Loot Boxes when I was the primary Prime member, but now my brother is primary and secondary members don't get the Twitch Prime bonuses.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Cool that they are giving out free games, but I wish it didn't require an additional launcher (as mentioned above). I prefer Steam keys/DRM-free downloads.

They did at first but then people started selling the keys so they dropped that option. Especially the codes for heartstone..

 

[RanceJustice]

Cool that they are giving out free games, but I wish it didn't require an additional launcher (as mentioned above). I prefer Steam keys/DRM-free downloads.

The more that we contact Twitch and Amazon and request this (along with other integrated benefits like Prime discounts on digital game codes instead of just boxed copies as I noted above), the better a chance they'll make it happen. This goes double if you are actually a Prime member and probably triple if you are a Twitch Prime member (showing you've actually linked it to a Twitch account).

For anything free, you're not the consumer, you're the consumed. So fuck that, I'm not linking my Amazon account with my Twitch account, unless I use a garbage Amazon account that will never contain any legit information about me, nor ever be used to purchase anything.

Long time posters know that I'm one of the most vehement privacy advocates around, but we should characterize this not as a "free" item in response to giving over personal info, but rather something added to an already pay service: Prime, for use on an Amazon-owned subsidiary: Twitch. Its not hard to see, especially in the face of "Prime like programs" arising since Prime itself (ie Shoprunner) giving 2 day shipping, increased access to grocery deliver, various cloud-computing resources coming onto the scene to compete with EC2 etc... that Amazon has to work hard to keep Prime subscribers from going elsewhere. That's what everything from all of the Prime access video/audio/ebook content, and stuff like Twitch Prime is likely filed under. Now, there's certainly a discussion to be had about Amazon, their own business practices and information gathering and custody thereof etc... but I don't think that Twitch Prime is any more insidious than the willing use of any for-pay Amazon service or is a facade for surreptitious info gathering . This is where it would different potentially from something like Alexa, where info not directly linked to your Amazon account/purchases/content (that they'd have anyway) is potentially stored without very many restrictions on how it may be used.