Get yer free EGMs here, get em while they're hot
by Christopher Grant 
{ May 24th 2006 at 10:00PM }
The good people at Ziff-Davis have pointed us towards a limited-time offer for a free one-year subscription to their flagship gaming mag, Electronic Gaming Monthly, a $20 value. The deal is being sponsored by World Cyber Games USA, so don't worry about old, Uncle ZD going bellyup after you all grab free subs. The only catch: you gotta do it by Friday or "while supplies last."How to get it: go here, fill out your info, and hit the "Order FREE Subscription" button. Afterwards, you'll be taken to a an optional registration page for the WCG which you do not have to fill out this to get the free subscription.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ian @ May 24th 2006 10:09PM
Damnit! I just renewed by subscribtion 2 weeks agon :(
Jouten Za @ May 24th 2006 10:09PM
I See you guys finally did something useful. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, our little secret...
Intangible 360 @ May 24th 2006 10:13PM
American only offer. :(
Raymond @ May 24th 2006 10:14PM
Got it. I wonder if I'm gonna have to pay sometime....
Lavos222 @ May 24th 2006 10:15PM
"Outside US, allow 8-12 weeks."
So Canadians are in! (rock!)
chiax @ May 24th 2006 10:16PM
where does it says so American only offer? didnt you read the fine print?
Annual US newsstand price is normally $71.88. However, your subscription is FREE for this limited-time special offer! Allow 2-4 weeks for first print issue to arrive. Outside US, allow 8-12 weeks. By providing your e-mail address, you are giving us permission to contact you via e-mail about your subscription.
Thank your for your order of 12 FULL issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly courtesy of World Cyber Games USA!
graf1k @ May 24th 2006 10:16PM
I already have a free sub. I signed up for this one too though. Hopefully they'll piggy back it off my current subscription and just add a year to that one instead of sending me 2 every month.
Stukodokka @ May 24th 2006 10:16PM
Signed up. I would never pay money for EGM, but getting the mag for free? Why not.
Gamer Jay @ May 24th 2006 10:17PM
Awesome! Thanks for the tip!
jaemz @ May 24th 2006 10:19PM
Intangible, where does it say US only?
"Annual US newsstand price is normally $71.88. However, your subscription is FREE for this limited-time special offer! Allow 2-4 weeks for first print issue to arrive. Outside US, allow 8-12 weeks."
Sign up... what do you have to lose?
iDSX @ May 24th 2006 10:21PM
Yay i signed up, now the waiting begins!
jaemz @ May 24th 2006 10:22PM
sorry chiax, didn't mean to echo your comment...
Thanks for the link, Christopher.
Einhanderkiller @ May 24th 2006 10:23PM
I've gotten EGM free for 2-3 years now. :D
My subscription is set to expire on April 07'. Hopefully, this'll bump it up to April 08'.
Amos @ May 24th 2006 10:24PM
Awsome, nice catch. I used to get EGM, but both the quality and my willingness to shell out for it dwindled. Free sounds like just the right price, though ~_^.
Zajax @ May 24th 2006 10:25PM
Yes, and I was 2 issues short of having to renew my subscription!
Mike @ May 24th 2006 10:25PM
did u guys get confirmation of signing up? I filled in the information and when I clicked submit, it took me to the World cyber games page.
so did they get my information or not?
Jason C, @ May 24th 2006 10:25PM
If I get billed, then I will be pissed
hop @ Sep 3rd 2006 7:48PM
Thanks Chris! But I'd worry more about WCG going bellyup then ZD. Can't pass this up though.
Amos @ May 24th 2006 10:27PM
^ Same as 13. I don't see any sort of confirmation...is there one?
sonofnone @ May 24th 2006 10:32PM
Sweet! Thanks for the info.
funkonaut @ May 24th 2006 10:33PM
All this talk about global warming, high fuel costs, etc, and you're promoting the destruction of trees to print EGM, not to mention the fuel required to process the paper, the chemicals to print the ink on the pages, the energy needed to run the machines to bind the magazine, and the fuel burned by planes and trucks to deliver them to homes all across America.
What's wrong with getting your game fix through online news sources like Joystiq, IGN, 1up, etc?
Anyone that signs up for this crap has no right to complain when more crazy Middle Eastern terrorists kill more innocent people in an attack funded by Mid East oil.
360 @ May 24th 2006 10:34PM
Do you have to sign up to World Cyber Games USA in order to recieve free EGM subscription? cause thats what it is kindof implying.
"Get a FREE subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly!
Then register with World Cyber Games USA!"
Mike @ May 24th 2006 10:41PM
#18
Lets not forget the farmers who need to grow crops in order to feed employees who produce the oil. And what about the goverment who is suppose to help support these farmers with the tax payers money, which leads to YOU. Everyone who signs up for this is making a personal attack on me and I will not stand for that. /sarcasim
Seriously #18, dont be dumb.
Mike @ May 24th 2006 10:44PM
i filled in the info form....do i wait till i get an email confirmation or something?
corey @ May 24th 2006 10:44PM
@18
you do know that even if they didnt sign up for it someone else would have plus the fact that these magazines have already been printed and the trees already cut down to make em so not signing up for it isnt gonna change anything(god I hate tree huggers soo bad)
Hostile @ May 24th 2006 10:47PM
Do I have to give the email address? I didn't put it in when I clicked the submit button.
Mark D. @ May 24th 2006 10:48PM
That's hot, thanks for the info 'stiq.
jamil @ May 24th 2006 10:52PM
@18
Trees are an industry. Think of them like potatoes. How do we get potatoes? Farmers grow them. They dig 'em up and they replant for the next crop. The same happens with trees.
For every tree that is ground up for paper, at least one tree replaces it. How do I know? My family raises trees for this purpose.
sonofnone @ May 24th 2006 10:53PM
Funkonaut - LOL! Oh man, I needed that! :D
Scott @ May 24th 2006 11:06PM
sweet!
Jakanden @ May 24th 2006 11:06PM
Yeap - Jamil is right on the money. The actually have tree farms where trees are grown soley for the purposes of paper and such
Mike S @ May 24th 2006 11:08PM
I can't get it to submit, the cybergames website must be down or something.
futurebiblehero @ May 24th 2006 11:10PM
Not being the typical naysayer, but I do find it somewhat amusing that EGM's been so bad in the past few years that I don't even care about getting it for free.
robert @ May 24th 2006 11:17PM
"I already have a free sub. I signed up for this one too though. Hopefully they'll piggy back it off my current subscription and just add a year to that one instead of sending me 2 every month."
If you get two a month, just give them a call and let them know - my wife has had to do this with a few different free subscriptions to magazines we already had a subscription to and they are always cool about it.
"Same as 13. I don't see any sort of confirmation...is there one?"
No confirmation here either, I'm assuming there is not one - took me straight to WCG registration. I'll post back if I get any sort of confirmation e-mail.
"Yeap - Jamil is right on the money. The actually have tree farms where trees are grown soley for the purposes of paper and such"
Ah yes, this is true - but if I remember correctly it takes a good 10-20 years for the tree to grow big enough for harvest. Bamboo is the future - 3-5 year full growth for harvest and almost as hard as steel! Makes a damn fine hardwood floor too.
Guess_Who @ May 24th 2006 11:23PM
Nope, no appearant confirmation. I better be getting my issue in a month. :p
moopcow @ May 24th 2006 11:32PM
Haha, good one funkonaut. I'm somewhat of a treehugger at heart myself, but threats? You learn your tactics from Jack Thompson?
Sorry I had to say it lol.
Jakanden @ May 24th 2006 11:44PM
"32. Not being the typical naysayer, but I do find it somewhat amusing that EGM's been so bad in the past few years that I don't even care about getting it for free."
Yeah - my last 3 years have been free (Along with Gamepro) and I would never pay for it.
I do pay for a subsription to Play though which is a great magazine.
Jesse 3rd @ May 24th 2006 11:58PM
It seems as if you need to register for this other thing as well to get a sub. I didn't enter ANY info and usually for things like this the site would realize this and not let a user go forward. The buttons that follow the link that state "Cancel or Modify Reg" also lead me to believe that you need to sign up for that as well.
Maybe the secret lies in this HTML:
****input name="Submit" type="submit" onClick="return validate(this);main.submit();return true" value="Order FREE Subscription!" align="middle" border="0" tabindex="7"****>
Seems like a generic button value. I'm not a pro-webmaster, but it doesn't seem this sends any info anywhere, and of course way less specific than the add comment button on joystiq:
Is there anyone that can make sense of that?
I hope that helps everyone figure this out.....
Jesse 3rd @ May 24th 2006 11:59PM
Edit:
++++input type="submit" class="form-button" value="Add Your Comments" alt="Add Your Comments" id="addCommentButton" title="Add Your Comments" input type="hidden" name="Form" value="Comments" input type="hidden" name="ButtonSave" value="Save"+++++
Sorry 'bout that.
Kouheikun @ May 25th 2006 12:24AM
HTML-wise, it seems alright. The info gets sent to the following dynamic page, which I'm guessing will be processed and stored somewhere:
http://www.zdmcirc.com/formcollect/default.asp?PromoName=egm051706
But there's still something messed up in the code. People should get redirected here:
http://www.zdmcirc.com/forms/EGM_051706_form_ty.html
JD @ May 25th 2006 12:32AM
#32....LOL. I gave up on EGM too after being a subscriber for about 10 years. Yet another Ziff-Davis publication gone to sh*t (like PCMag and CNET before it).
I went for the free sub just so I can drool over some hi-gloss eye candy with the upcoming consoles. My chance of resubscribing? 0%.
#36, the form does get submitted (to http://www.zdmcirc.com/formcollect/default.asp?PromoName=egm051706). It looks like the "thank you" return page has been commented out and replaced with the WCG page. But it does look like someone forgot to include some Javascript code for validation so who knows if this thing really works.
Todd Rabanus @ May 25th 2006 12:45AM
with this being blogged on a site like joystiq egm is gonna shell out alot subscription. I agree that egm has been slacking the past couple of years. The page number has decreased drastically and the exclusive game articles are near to none (Game Informer has the BEST exclusives!!!). But damn if i can get a free sub why not? I can read all of the stuff I already know for free (it gives me something to do while I am laying in bed).
P.S. Da Vinci Code ROX
Markster @ May 25th 2006 12:51AM
Maybe this deal got blogged about, and they got too many orders, so they quickly nerfed up the code so as to stem the torrent.
or...
Bait and Switch?
Jared Lubrico @ May 25th 2006 1:09AM
Hmmm .. did anyone else not get a confirmation ?!??! I want to resubscribe but im afraid if I do, i'll get cancelled out for trying to get duplicates ...
Dylan @ May 25th 2006 1:29AM
I did one of these before! It was just like this, just a simple, slightly mysterious "fill out and get free subscription!" page linked from some friend, filled it out, got little confirmation, and waited, then got my free EGMs in the mail. Oddly enough, I think they kept coming for over a year, but I think I got skipped a couple months, and almost all of them were missing the usual plastic slip covers, which meant I missed out on some free posters and stickers, and most of them were slightly damaged in some way, like a little blotch here and there, and an occasional sticky page.
All in all, slightly mysterious, very cool.
Derick @ May 25th 2006 1:34AM
http://us.worldcybergames.com/sp/web/us_championship/uc_2006uc_howto.asp?nation_code=N3N01
That's where I get sent. did I do something wrong?
It says in the URL something about a nation code. What did those successful put for their country? I put USA because United States wouldn't fit.
iDSX @ May 25th 2006 1:52AM
Im surprised no one has noticed that it says WCG 2005 Newsletter
fraz @ May 25th 2006 5:55AM
There's a reason this was posted here, and it ain't cuz EGM is a super-duper neato magazine. Try to be a little less transparent, Joystiq.
Gavin @ May 25th 2006 5:59AM
The last time I signed up for a "FREE" offer to EGM, I got one free issue and and then a bill which I refused to pay. I stopped getting issues and now I get some collection notice from their services or whatever....like I'm ever paying that crap.
I signed up again but this time under a fake name with the same address, though.
I get GamePro for free though, and have for the past few years although it is barely worth even reading on the toilet. That rag is still aimed at twelve year-olds and the mentally handicapped. God, I hate GamePro....
Unlike Me @ May 25th 2006 6:36AM
Ok, I signed up for the free thing, i'm in UK, filled it in, filled the ''States'' thing with my city.. Will I get it?
I'm slightly worried that it'll charge me, but it doesn't have credit card details or anything.