Get Company of Heroes (PC) and other games for $5 each
Games that once sold for $40-50 are now available for just $5 apiece.
(Credit: Direct2Drive)A few weeks back I told you about Direct2Drive's 5-year-anniversary sale, which was offering games like BioShock (a personal favorite) for $5 apiece.
I hope you've been checking the site every week since then, because the cheap hits just keep on coming. This week it's wargames, starting with the beloved, award-winning Company of Heroes Gold--yours for just five smackers.
Other $5 gems include Supreme Commander Gold, World in Conflict Gold Edition, and Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (which, incidentally, scored a rare 9.0 on GameSpot). Good, good stuff.
In case the name of the service doesn't give it away, Direct2Drive provides game downloads--meaning no shipping charges.
And if you happened to miss my first post, good news: BioShock is still available.
There's one week left in this anniversary promotion, so be sure to check back next Monday to see if Direct2Drive has saved the best for last. In the meantime, here's your chance to stock up on some great games for about the cost of a grande frappuccino.
Update: My mistake: This is, in fact, the last week of the promotion. So you've got until Oct. 11 to grab these bargains.
Rick Broida, a technology writer for nearly 20 years, is the author of more than a dozen books. In addition to writing CNET's The Cheapskate blog, he oversees BNET's Business Hacks. Rick is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. Disclosure. Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers. Follow Rick on Twitter at cheapskateblog. 
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I tried this deal the 1st time, set up an account, activated the account, went thru the payment process and it would never complete. It kept telling me to contact customer service for help, but they were no help at all. Their customer service looks like it hosts service for several different sites. Great deal if it works for you. If anyone had the same problem and found a fix please pass it on.
The best part about these deals unlike so many previous ones - they don't sell out by noon!!!
The website is unbearably slow, after you purchase they don't give you a direct download link, instead they force you to install their Download Manager software, a total piece of ****, which will take approximately one week to download a single game.
I just wasted $25, following your recommendation.
You're right that other users are experiencing similar problems. So, obviously, there's something about D2D that causes trouble for some users. But for many of us, the site works exactly as advertised. I hope you troubles get straightened out soon.
Sorry to hear you've had trouble, but I'm guessing the slow download speed has something to do with a blocked port on your PC or router. Not your fault, of course, and definitely frustrating, but there should be a fix.
Also, I couldn't get the transaction to complete using PayPal; had to switch to a credit card. And why was I charged sales tax for a download?! Pretty irritating...
I. After giving up on D2D's "Download Manager", I tried:
1. GetRight download manager (very highly rated commercial product) -- the links it receives from D2D do not work: They result in downloading a 7K html file (which simply contains the same text & links as the "click here to start the download" little window that we started from).
2. DownThemAll (DTA) - excellent Firefox extension -- it COULD handle the links it got from D2D, but the speeds were abysmal, with frequent timeouts.
3. Firefox's internal download function: Accepted some but not all of the five download links I tried. The ones which "worked" also performed at abysmal speed and timed out (with no recovery capability, so one must start it again).
II. It is not a matter of a blocked port. Why am I able to download from virtually every other website on the internet at high speeds, but not D2D?
As I wrote in comment #25, below, I am FAR from the only one who has had such problems - Just one example: Reseller Ratings gives the site a 1.7 or 10.0 lifetime rating. I feel you should make an effort to research the ratings & reviews of a site, before you recommend it to CNET users.
III. There *should* be a fix, but since D2D does not respond (in 48 hours, anyway) to trouble tickets, one would never learn what they are. As another commenter here wrote, the D2D FAQ on download "tips" is so enormous, he'd go crazy trying to attempt each suggestion.
IV. I, too, tried to use Paypal for the purchase, but it would not work so I was forced to use a credit card (reluctantly, but I did so based upon your recommendation of the site. You should have mentioned such "pretty irritating" things in your column.
JK
The first time I tried it (I have 1.5 Mg. per sec. DSL), the download would only move at 40kb per sec.
The download lasted for 3 days.
I found out thanks to this download that the phone company had wired my outside wiring when they installed DSL so that all my complaining finally got me a fix from ATT, and an apology from ATT.
Now I'm formally filing a request and refund for all the money I've paid for DSL, without the speed.
thats the good part.
Now for the bad. After downloading this 3 day file, I go to install it, and I get a INVALID OR CORRUPT FILE.
After trying DIRECT2DRIVES suggestions, and there were so many you would go mad trying to do them all, they finally agreed with my DEMAND FOR A REFUND, and I got my FIVE BUCKS BACK.
You know, most of you would just say, its five bucks, its not worth the effort. I agree.
But with me, its the PRINCIPLE of the thing.
The'thing' being that DIRECT2DRIVE should have a very smooth download procedure that reallly reallllllly works. OK?
nuf said.
al
In two days I have managed to download 38MB (of 7,700MB), at around 1-5Kbps (bits not Bytes) for ONE of the 5 games I ordered on his recommendation. (Whereas I download from other sites at up to 1Mbps). I have tried D2D's "download manager" and also tried two of my download managers. Same result.
I have waited 48 hours now for responses to trouble tickets I initiated at D2D. NO RESPONSE AT ALL.
After 24 hours of getting no response from Support, I filed another ticket, requesting a REFUND. Now, it is 24 *more* hours later, and still no response about getting a refund.
I am far from the only victim of this incompetent and/or scamming company: Reseller Ratings gives Direct2Drive a 1.7 out of 10.0 lifetime rating. Other rating / review sites also give it deplorable marks. Look around the internet and you'll find MANY victims reporting horror stories similar to mine. I see here that some people have managed, somehow, to actually obtain the products they paid for. I am glad for them. But even some of those who succeeded in finally getting their product have described great frustrations with D2D. The fact that a few commenters here successfully got their product does not negate the fact that many, many others have not, and have lost their money.
I relied on CNET to have vetted websites/vendors before recommending them -- that is their responsibility to their users. Rick's responsibility, in this instance. But he made no mention of the fact that there are many dissatisfied customers out there, no warning to purchase at your own (significantly high) risk. CNET is supposed to be a more reliable source than the National Enquirer.
I wrote a complaint here nearly 48 hours ago, but, like Direct2Drive, Rick Broida has failed to respond to this complaint (and to the others above) about his recommendation.
This is not a personal attack -- it is a statement of facts. Facts that CNET users have a right to be made aware of.
To follow up yesterday's comment, I purchased, downloaded, and played Brothers in Arms without a single problem to speak of. Thus, based on my own experience, I have no qualms about D2D.
That said, I did not specifically "recommend" the service. I simply posted information about the sale they were running. To my way of thinking, it's the buyer's responsibility (caveat emptor) to investigate any product, service, or company before buying. The same is true of every netbook, GPS, monitor, and the like that I post.
I'm sorry you've gotten a raw deal, and I appreciate you and other readers sharing your experiences. If D2D ever runs a similar promotion, I'll be sure to mention that some buyers have reported trouble using the service.
I don't know on which planet you spend most of your time, nor which version of English you speak, but when you claim that you "did not specifically 'recommend' the service", you reveal a very distorted view of what the word "recommend" means in the English we speak on this planet..
Cambridge Dictionaries Online, for example, defines recommend as:
to suggest that someone or something would be good or suitable for a particular job or purpose,
or to suggest that a particular action should be done
In your article, you told us:
"I hope you've been checking the site every week since then, ..."
and
"so be sure to check back next Monday to see if Direct2Drive has saved the best for last."
and
"here's your chance to stock up on some great games for about the cost of a grande frappuccino."
which certainly sounds to me like you are recommending "... that a particular action should be done"
A deal is not a "great deal" if the company offering it does not reliably deliver the goods to consumers who have paid them money, no matter how cheap the price they are offering.
A deal is not a "great deal" if the company does not respond to requests for support when they don't receive what they've paid for.
You seem not to realize that your readers rely upon you to have done some of that investigation for them, to see whether a deal is REALLY a "great deal," (i.e., something which gives the buyer relatively good value in return for their money), versus just an advertised cheap price.
Cheap prices are easy to find -- but finding good prices on GOOD products offered by GOOD companies which actually provide good customer service to ensure that their customers are satisfied and that they get what they pay for, that's not so easy.
And that is why we consumers rely on supposedly reliable sources of information such as CNET to do that research for us, to vet these ostensibly "good deals" in advance, to be sure that they are REALLY good deals and not just cheap advertised prices on crappy products from crappy companies which leave many of their customers dissatisfied.
I assumed that you actually researched the deals you write about to see whether customers are likely to be satisfied, before you promote them. But now you have admitted that you do not.
It did not take much research at all, after I got burned by Direct2Drive and wondered if it was just me, just a fluke, for me to discover that there were LOTS of dissatisfied customers out there. (Along with a number of satisfied customers, but there are enough complaints out there to throw up a red flag about this company).
Since you don't accept any responsibility for the "great deals" you promote in your articles, you should put a disclaimer on your columns stating that you have done no investigation into the reliability of the company, the soundness of the product, nor the probability that customers might be dissatisfied if they purchase this deal, that it might be a crappy product or a crappy company, you have no idea, but it's a "really great low price" if they are willing to take the risk.
P.S. I eventually did gtet a refund of my $25 from Direct2Drive. It took about a week, and a LOT of effort on my part to finally get any response at all from the company. Despite not losing my $25, I did lose a great deal of time and effort on this "great deal" of yours.
- by JimDavidson13 October 13, 2009 3:46 PM PDT
- I bought two games from D2D. Both have had issues (different ones) and I have not been able to play either. Tech Support has been useless (not to mention extremely slow in responding - one of my two tickets still has no reply). I have downloaded games from other sites before without issue, and I am not a computer newbie. Horrible experience and I would never recommend.
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- by jkoerner October 14, 2009 3:50 AM PDT
- Thanks for reporting your bad experience with this company.
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(30 Comments)Maybe if enough of us do this, Rick will finally figure out that we rely on recommendations that he makes here and expect them to be good ones, and will begin doing some research on customer satisfaction and complaints/troubles with a company's "deals", before he recommends them to us in his articles. Maybe.