Joyswag: Free 1-year subscription to Games for Windows magazine

by Christopher Grant { Feb 27th 2007 at 12:05PM }

[Update: "Thank you for your interest in Games for Windows. Unfortunately, this promotion has ended." And with that, our Games for Windows: The Official Magazine promotion has run its course; exhausted from a non-stop barrage of subscription requests, it finally toppled over and died. See what you've done? Enjoy!]

Sure, they've got a new corporately-sanctioned identity, but beneath the glitz and glamour of the Games for Windows branding, it's the same old Computer Gaming World magazine, one of the longest-running gaming mags around. To maintain their street cred, the editorial team introduced some risky features, like a new scoring system that ranks a 5 out of 10 as "average," and sounded off on their trepidation about upgrading to Vista, Microsoft's latest and greatest and, ostensibly, the very reason behind their magazine's name change.

So what is this all about? We've teamed up with Ziff-Davis, the publishers behind Games for Windows: TOM, to give away 25,000 free 1-year subscriptions (to US readers only ... sorry!). How free? You won't need to provide your credit card information; your subscription won't be automatically renewed at the end of the year; and you will need to "opt-in" to renew your subscription before receiving any bill for the magazine. Free.

Thanks, Joystiq readers!

Tags: 1UP, freebie, gamesforwindows, GFW, magazine

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

xezekielx @ Feb 27th 2007 12:10PM

No love for your canadian readers?

Muku @ Feb 27th 2007 12:10PM

I'm all ears. Free is the magical word.

C. Grant @ Feb 27th 2007 12:12PM

Sorry xezekielx! That's the way it had to work, unfortunately. That's why we're on the internet! :)

sheppy @ Feb 27th 2007 12:13PM

And consider me signed up. I'm always interested in something besides Maya, Mudbox, and Photoshop to run on my PC (well, aside from Orion Platinum)

matthew @ Feb 27th 2007 12:13PM

Thanks Guys!

Muku @ Feb 27th 2007 12:16PM

I assume once they get the 25,000 entries it'll be removed, and until then we're all guaranteed it?

Anyways, thank you Joystiq! It'll give me something else to read monthly outside of my Nintendo Power. Even that doesn't give me enough of a read for a month anymore. ><

Canadians always get the shaft when it comes to stuff like this, don't they?

theGreenGrunt @ Feb 27th 2007 12:17PM

Im Canadian. Nothing for us. Thanks... :\

C. Grant @ Feb 27th 2007 12:18PM

Muku: yes, the link will be deactivated once we reach 25K. I'll update the post as well.

GabooN @ Feb 27th 2007 12:18PM

I have been wanting to check out this magazine, thanks for giving me a chance for FREE!!!

Quaddw @ Feb 27th 2007 12:19PM

I guess I got in. Never got a confirmation email or anything like that, but it said it received my information.

Thanks

vc @ Feb 27th 2007 12:29PM

This is a pretty awesome giveaway! Nice work.

NTX @ Feb 27th 2007 12:21PM

Cool!!! Thank you!

cbslide @ Feb 27th 2007 12:21PM

As with every contest or promotion related to games and gaming we poor Canadians are not included. It seems every contest has the line "US residents only" We, up here in Canada read Joystiq also....

JeffH @ Feb 27th 2007 12:22PM

Do they still include demo discs in their magazine? Either way, it's still a good magazine, and free...well, who can argue with that? Thanks Joystiq!

zippyzee @ Feb 27th 2007 12:23PM

US only? Just who do you think you are? Microsoft?

-

Steve @ Feb 27th 2007 12:24PM

I went into an EB and tried out the Games for Windows kiosk. I selected "demos" and then chose Tomb Raider. After a minute or so of watching the demo load I was greeted with an image of Lara's face, the option to return to the main menu, but no demo. I did everything I could to get to a demo, but nothing happened so I went back to the main menu. This time I chose a Legos Star Wars game and basically the same thing happened again. I tried Tomb Raider again and got the same result.

Blah blah blah, wah, wah, wah, you can apologize for Microsoft all you want but it isn't going to change the fact that I had an all-too typical experience with a Microsoft product. I guess I'm lucky that the controller didn't short circuit and shock me.

Eric Ward @ Feb 27th 2007 2:26PM

Ummm....sweet?!

C. Grant @ Feb 27th 2007 12:26PM

I'm afraid contests are often limited by country for all sorts of obtuse and infuriating legal reasons (any lawyers want to edify us?). We try to keep our own contests open to everyone (shipping be damned!).

Autocrawler @ Feb 27th 2007 12:30PM

"(to US readers only ... sorry!)"
:(

NukeAssault @ Feb 27th 2007 12:30PM

No, thank you. =)

RetepNamenots @ Feb 27th 2007 12:35PM

US only. Thanks.

LongshotX @ Feb 27th 2007 12:31PM

They should have stuck with that original plan to integrate the Xbox 360 into a PC. That would kick ass. Imagine if every new PC had an Xbox 360 built into the hardware. Imagine how much they would profit. It would be incredible. I think that could be the future.

Crilix @ Feb 27th 2007 12:34PM

I'm going to chime in about the lack of lovin' for us Canadians. We like our video games and related swag too :(
-Cril

Steven @ Feb 27th 2007 12:35PM

Thanks! I love free stuff especially when it's pretty cool free stuff! lol

Neccy @ Feb 27th 2007 12:38PM

no love for the UK readers , no surprise there.

Infact dont we have to pay for all the americans?

John S. @ Feb 27th 2007 12:38PM

I love magazines that make most of their profit off of advertising... It means we get them free (Or for one buck a month in the case of Wired)

Geovany @ Feb 27th 2007 12:42PM

!Oh man thank you guys that`s cool.........

Grant @ Feb 27th 2007 12:42PM

sure, free.
and i'm sure they won't be soliciting our "free" information to 3rd party companies.
but i'll take a little advertising for a free year of a mag.

Vidikron @ Feb 27th 2007 12:42PM

Thanks, Joystiq and Games for Windows. Free is good.

Abhinav @ Feb 27th 2007 12:45PM

Thank you joystiq! My old (and free) sub just expired so this came at a perfect time. Hooray for Joystiq and free magazines.

Sam G. @ Feb 27th 2007 1:06PM

I'll wait until they make a Games For Macs magazine.

Oh wait, that's never ever going to happen.

Sigh.

area5x1 @ Mar 30th 2007 11:33PM

This better be first come first serve

sonofnone @ Feb 27th 2007 1:13PM

Now that's what I call free lovin'. Many thanks!

Geo @ Feb 27th 2007 12:58PM

!Vivaaa Joystiq and Games for Windows Magazine bravooo.....

Gabe @ Feb 27th 2007 1:09PM

Wow, this is great. Thanks Joystiq!

Crono @ Feb 27th 2007 1:38PM

Thanks 'stiq!

kevinski @ Feb 27th 2007 1:12PM

Nice. I've been meaning to buy an issue of this to check it out, but this will work quite nicely. Thanks a lot, Joystiq! :)

wako @ Feb 27th 2007 1:16PM

Is this a digital subscription where I have to download the pdf version or is it the REAL physical magazine? I hate Ziff-Davis's digital subscription crap....

kevinski @ Feb 27th 2007 1:18PM

Somebody posted this on digg, so I hope that the legit Joystiq users get the free subscriptions that they actually deserve before the diggers can get to them. Posting stuff like this on digg is just ignorant.

ackmondual @ Feb 27th 2007 1:24PM

@ #11
""As with every contest or promotion related to games and gaming we poor Canadians are not included. It seems every contest has the line "US residents only" We, up here in Canada read Joystiq also....""

No entirely true. In years past, there were a small handful of contests that were open only towards Canada and not US. But eh, those were still far and few

bounchfx @ Feb 27th 2007 3:12PM

Sweet, thank you

Zi11ion @ Feb 27th 2007 1:44PM

Thanks for the free Mag :) I'm still with the free EGM subscription I got a while back, I believe I heard about it on here.

Nice that this is free, but in my oppinion, magazines should be free anyways. This is considdering that around 50%+/- of magazine content are advertisements. :P

Jake M. @ Feb 27th 2007 1:48PM

Wow. Um, thank you. I'm all about the free.

Kevin @ Feb 27th 2007 2:01PM

Thanks, Joystiq.

Read you guys often. Didn't expect free stuff (in addition to the free hunting and gathering of gaming news you provide).

e.motan @ Feb 27th 2007 9:22PM

Thanks, fellas. Keep up the good work.

squeak @ Feb 27th 2007 2:19PM

Does it mean people actually living in the US or just a US address to ship the magazines to?

There are POBoxes for people not living in the US...

LunarDuality @ Feb 27th 2007 2:25PM

I must say, this is pretty great.
Thanks Joystiq for making sure that "Free" really meant free.

I'm sure it's all just a ploy to help boost their ad revenue (higher readership = higher cost to place ads) but it's all in good fun. And we are the target demographic for the mag *and* the advertisers so it works out I think.