Mavadelo, seeing as we download from this site and not MPC do we need their domain to resolve to a real IP number? If we don't then why not stick the domain they use for the popup into our hosts file and point it to 127.0.0.1 so the popup does not load their adverts page on games they've already been paid for by game.giveawayoftheday.com advertising revenue?

Mavadelo, Yeah I noticed the comment after I posted mine. Couldn't find it back on the forums but I do not really mind. Closing a browser takes me less than a second. The pop up at the beginning however does not have any purpose though, it only makes loading of the game taking longer while it does not actually load anything. I can understand the need for companies like MPC to advertise in some way so they can open my browser after the game if they like :)

...................Moderator Comment........................

:)

Susan, I quite agree but the entire *.givawayoftheday.com business model is advert funded and the more visitors they can pull to their sites the greater their revenue stream to survive with and potentially buy in better software or games. But from the reduction in frequency of genuine game giveaways of the day and the rise in competitions instead of giveaways suggests the changes have resulted in an overall reduction in traffic and reduction in thrir buying power.

whiterabit, the trick you mention does not work in IE 9 or 8 the facebook login popup does not apear as the websites code is not compliant with those browsers.

...................Moderator Comment........................

Thanks for the info, will mention that in the next review.

It just occured to me why I haven't used the reply button when answering community members comments. Apart from habit, I work from the admin panel which does not have the reply button available. I would have to open another browser then search through the comments to find the comment I was replying to. Recently I've been spending up to four or five hours moderating when I could be spending that time with my family, or doing personal stuff. If I followed your wishes it would add much more time to my moderation. I had considered what you had said and was going to trial it, but it really does add to much to what I already have to do for each giveaway. I've previously asked the giveaway team to get another moderator to help, and have suggested afew volunteers none of which the giveaway team were happy to take on, saying they felt it was too much of a security risk???????

Replying to your comment above. When I checked the stats over the last three months (via the admin panel), the community has been reduced by at least 50% since the changes occured back in February. Some of the giveaways have garned download numbers so low that they even eclipse those from the start of this project back in Dec 2006 when the community only numbered in the hundreds. Very worrying.

Awww, thanks! That was a very nice compliment!

I understand your frustration. Getting people involved in anything can be very difficult. In defense of the community, I think there are a few issues that prevent/discourage people from commenting in general. I think a lot has to do with the one-day shot feel of the comment section. It just doesn't feel like a place to visit every day the way people interact with Facebook or Twitter every day. The action happens on one day for each game. While there are a few straggling comments the day after, most of the commenting happens on the give-away day. I know there have been many times that I only had time to download the game (or other software) and I didn't get a chance to play it for a week or so and then it takes more time to finish. After all that time, it seemed like a waste of time to navigate to the site to comment on something so "old". The comments always seem hidden after a giveaway day. You have to navigate to the page, then click "more comments" to get to the main page to see the entire comment section. The site itself seems to tell you not to bother after the giveaway day. It would be really nice if it felt like I could comment on a game well after the giveaway and feel like it wasn't a waste of time. Sometimes I have thoughts about a game after I've finished it that a developer may find user (bugs, dissatisfaction with an ending, etc).

Another issue is that oftentimes a few good reviews will cover most of what people want to say. Oftentimes someone says exactly what I think. For some (maybe many) they may decide not to enter a comment themselves because they have other things that are more pressing and someone has already said it.

With all that said I think the biggest issue is lack of participation with the developer. I feel that almost every single comment about a game that I make is wasted text with the exception of the pleasure I get in expressing myself in writing and any benefit another user may receive from reading it. I have never seen any evidence that the majority of the developers have bothered to read any comment on here. I often think (and I've said this before) that many of these giveaways aren't for improved development but instead are for brand recognition & product placement for newer games. That isn't necessarily bad, but it isn't conducive to active community participation. It really is a waste of time to comment on something that is old and out-dated and to which the developer has long moved on to better projects. I try to anyway as doing my part to keep the site going, but it really feels wasted.

I have noticed that when there is active participation with a developer (heck, it could be someone PRETENDING to be a developer), there is much more participation with the community and the sense that what people are saying is being heard by someone. I notice far fewer "this sucks" comments on those days and more people trying a game to give feedback. People are REALLY pleased when there is someone on the other side listening to their comments which tells me that this is something people really want and is sorely lacking on this site.

I really think to get to the point that you envision BOTH things have to happen. There has to be more developer participation on the giveaway day, that will attract more user comments, which will attract more developers, etc. Or at the very least, developers that are interested in this kind of Beta testing type forum need to understand that many times there won't be too many helpful comments when there is no developer participation but that it doesn't mean the resource isn't available for them here and won't quickly rally to give valuable feedback.

It seems we're in a catch-22 and the only thing I can think of to do is to keep trying to give feedback even if I feel no one but we few are listening to each other.

Thanks WhiteRabbit!! That probably is correct... haven't gone into my registry account to find out. I'm not particularly worried about it. I saw that yesterday's game was a win a license game, but not one that I was interested in. I've gotten games through licenses a couple of times. I actually think I've managed to get a license both times I've tried! I figure that maybe they handed out more than they originally said they would in both cases since I was notified a few days after the days they were posted.

Thanks for all you do here. I for one really appreciate the time you take to be the top-notch moderator you are!

..............................Moderator comment..................................

Thank you for your kind words. It's comments like yours that has kept me here for the past several years. I must apologise for my negativity of late. If you read my reply to Fran, which is the comment preceeding yours, I try to explain why i've been so negative recently.

I've tried every time including the ones over on the main site and have never won anything. not that I'm bothered about the games becasue I'd already got a key for the first one via one of the indie bundles and had purchased the others when they were first released on steam. If i'd won I was going to give them away to the community. Have agreat week. Lets hope for more good games next week.

Lynx Ravenwing, quite right Lynx MPC have no business launching adverts on games they have already been paid for by GGAOTD according to the "For Developers" page in the links at the end of the page.
MPC is trying to double their revenue streams at our resources expense. Stick their adverts servers domain into your systems hosts file and block future access.

Walter Snodgrass, I also just used Revo uninstaller to get rid of this game; I couldn't believe the shortcut to games, plus when attempting to play it, naturally more game offers pop up. I deleted the shortcuts; and also took them out of the folder where they were located and now naturally, the game itself doesn't load; thus, I just deleted everything. Don't care for MPC; never have never will.

Walter Snodgrass, When you take control of my computer, for the purpose of making money, then you violate the trust I put in you as a developer. I gladly pay for games, and I come to GGOTD to look for new and interesting games to try out, then I BUY the games.

I'm now sorry I downloaded the game. You oculd offer a game with fewer levels, or a cut back interface, but my understanding is that you use GGOTD to vet games and get feedback.

I think the game itself, and the browser window openings, violate the trust we put in you, and your EULA is a damned joke and a way to infiltrate this concept to mine it for dollars.

Shame on you.

Hi, I can understand You WR speaking and defending GGOTD Site in recent 'turbulent times', but now You also appear to 'rush' to explain and defend other Free Games Venues such as MPC for 'all that comes' with their downloads, and (further) how such Sites make their free offerings and existence possible, I quote what's above: 'One of our regular community members has posted a fix over in the game discussion forums that stops the browser opening, but this would be considered a breach of the EULA that you agree to when you install such games. If everyone started to use such fixes, MPC and the other free game sites...would soon go out of business'..
I find it rather contrary and sad that You, main (and only) Moderator here should feel His place to remind everyone here about this, whilst not that long ago pointing out that GGOTD stood proud and deserved to be praised as more SUPERIOR Site to them - always offering truly clean, truly safe, truly straight forward, truly free and without any such 'trappings' Venue for downloading Games!??.. And, what's more - each Game could be simply deleted (didn't need uninstalling), as it only occupied a Folder..

My question (and perhaps attempted answer) here would be: so how did the past GGOTD 'Donators' like Alawar, Big Fish Games, Playrix and many others 'afford' giving their Games for free here from their native Game sites ('no strings attached'!)?? Well, as we all understood - by gaining feedbacks, recommendations, promotion, wider recognition, future sales, and naturally 'seal of approval' by GGOTD users and Community Members, not to mention often unique Reviews of their Games. If the general notion is to maintain that UNIQUENESS of this Site - inviting people to stay faithful to GGOTD has to be done without finger wagging?.. Did we in the past also 'breach Games EULAs' and had to feel guilty over using GGOTD, as people might now feel for using MPC-via-GOTD in somewhat convenient, but still partially 'fixed' way? As it happens - Today's Game looks a lot of fun (not for me, but for my husband) and I consider recommending it in that very (if old-fashion now) GGOTD way, by saying - Go for it, good Game!! The rest of it - remains my, and mine only business. Wishing All pleasant afternoon. Thanks.

...................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you for your feedback Fran, please forgive the late moderation. I mention the fix simply to inform, as we are actually bleeding out signifcantly at the moment and hope that by passing on this information those that threaten to leave (on average downloads have come down by over 50% since February) may continue to visit and download sites if they know how to avoid those negative aspects of games from sites such as MPC, though personally I do not condone such actions because if everyone started to use those fixes those free sites would not be able to pay the developers who so kndly allow their commercial games to be given away.

Downloads have dropped significantly over the last few months, at times numbering in the hundreds rather than the thousands. This site depends on numbers, which is why the giveaway team added the Facebook request in the hope that many would allow the giveaway team to advertise the site to Facebook friends which potentially could increase the number of community members significantly. Sadly that idea seemed to backfire somewhat with a deluge of very negative comments, many of which were saying good bye to the giveaway site. and from the numbers of downloads this indeed did appear to be happening. The past three months since the giveaway site was upgraded has seen a lot of changes, most of which I personally really do not like, but as I have been trying to support this site ever since I joined the community I have felt duty bound to defend everything they have done, but also give information to those that would other wise leave the community, case in point the fix that could avoid the browser opening.

Personally I can see the reason for this approach to free games, but I no longer support it myself because I don't like having my browser opened every time I play the game nor the potential for installing toolbars etc. As I can afford to buy all of my games I prefer to do that than get the games free. (I've spent well over £50 000 on games since my accident 10 years ago . Still I feel duty bound to support this site at least for now. I've been asking for help for a long time. Sadly virtually all of the giveaway community have responded to my request by doing nothing. Yes there are several community memebrs who regualrily post feedback about the games, but when you look over the last few year sand compare those posts the the nunber of community members downloading from this site, with not even a thank you, I uindestand why we are in the position we are in at this time. I do not consider one comment from every 200 000 downloads as quoted by yourself 'often unique Reviews of their Games' I do not mean to offend you Fran, you have been a brilliant community member over the years and I have always enjoyed reading your comments and what you call finger wagging was not personally pointing to you or the majority of community members, but I still felt it needed to be mmentioned as I try to be as unbiased as possible when posting here. I'm not perfect, I make a lot of mistakes, but I do care about this community and am trying to find ways to get us pout of the rut we seem to be in at the moment; unfortunately i cannot do it on my own, I need support from the community, but that in the main seems to be lacking. It's now 3.30 am in the morning. I rarely get to bed every weekend becasue I devote so much time to this site. i really should be showering thtat time on my beautiful wife, but I've always been a faithful friend to those I care about, which is one of the rteasons i continue to defend most of what the giveaway team have had to do to save this part of the giveaway project.

Prior to the changes we were still getting the odd game from the likes of Playrix, Immanitas Games and Alawar that hit over 20 000 downloads, those developers would expect a certain percentage of those downloading the game to buy an official copy so that they could install it to other computers or know that they have a permanant copy that can be reinstalled at any time. Unfortunately since the changes three months ago, the largest downloads we have had was for MPC's 'House of 100 Doors' which received just under eight thousand downloads. apart from that game and the failed Amigdala game, the average download numbers are hovering around the 2000 mark and in a couple of cases have been less than 800 downloads, which are some of the lowest numbers I've seen since the early days of the project when it was establishing itself back in 2006/2007.

I am also worried that we may have lost Playrix and Immanitas; neither of these developers has given any games away since the site was upgraded three months ago. Previously we were getting a few games from each of those developers every month for years. Thankfully Alawar still appears to be with us (the last game we got from then was mid April), which is another reason for my rants. about the communities lack of support. Again, please don't take this personally, what I say is generalizations and my own observations from the stats I have available from the giveaways admin panel ; I'm not finger pointing to specific community members ; sadly there does seem to be a major lack of support from the community. The fewer members we have, the less likely game developers will donate their games. The only way to reverse this trend (I believe) is for the community to rally and start posting useful comments about the games we get be they negative or positive, with suggestions for improvements. I've been saying this for years, but hardly anyone seems to be listening.

Please excuse my disjointed reply to your comment Fran, I would like to spend a few more hours , adding, trying to explain more eloquently, editing and proof reading my reply, but a morphine soaked head, chronic pain, still half a page of comments to moderate, and a need to go to bed (it's now after 4am) as well as I've not even looked at Sundays limited game, which goes live in less than 5 hours has left me exhausted and short tempered.

Walter Snodgrass, "They can't sell much by annoying the users." They sell no games. All games are free but with the restrictions you don´t like. I have no problems with them and have many games from this site. Only by installing and than by every start of the game you must be careful and click away the changes of the browser-settings (or you turn off your internet-connection before running the game). You get used to it...

...................Moderator Comment........................

Thank you for your feedback Horst. :)

Horst, I find the intrusive advertising so unpleasant that I'd rather just pay a few bucks for games and not be bothered with having to disconnect before playing a game. Games like Slingshot Puzzle - in that they would run on machines without special hardware - used to be sold on disk; they were displayed in shops like CDs. I wish I could still buy those disks. I'll just have to do without the games.

...................Moderator Comment........................

As I would and do Walter. It's one of the reasons i stopped downloading from all of the free games sites several years ago and the reason I now have so many purchased games. You can still pick up such discs from what we call charity shops in the UK. I buy a lot of movie DVD's and blu Rays from charity shops and often see those arcade game complilations. :)

Mardel, Thanks for your response. There's just too much advertising on the Internet. I wish advertising that serves no useful purpose could be gotten rid of.

fran, quite right all the excuses for MPC enforced advertising on GGAOTD offereings are based upon their businees activities distributing games for free from THEIR site and do not apply to games distributed by GGAOTD site as this site claims the games are given away for free that we would otherwise have to pay for, implying that GGAOTD are paying MPC for the distributed game licensing and not getting the games for free from MPC, as described in the "For Developers" link in the page footer.

Anything else would be fraud. So MPC have no excuse for leeching further advertising revenue off purchassed games regardless of whether GGAOTD prurchassed them for us from their ad-revenue or we purchassed them direct.

Hi Stephen, my sincere thanks for replying to this Comment of mine and so generously sparing Your valuable time on matters I mentioned.. We had been rather busy over this weekend pruning our two gigantic cherry laurel trees (Prunus laurocerasus) in the garden, and what's more treating them with more than ever before 'suspicious minds', lol, after learning how toxic they can be!:) Oh dear, is that why even ivy will not climb on them, and explanation why nothing else 'wants' to grow on the ground beneath? Never mind the shadow and lack of grass below.. well now, apparently the drips of water (when watering with hose in really hot, dry season), or rain can produce 'toxic droplets' that kill everything underneath and around them!!.. Looks like bad news for our beloved 'magnolia trees' then, as we commonly referred to them all these years and decorating with their twigs numerous bouquets of flowers and plants in vases at home because they were adding that ever green, glossy beautiful look?? I've been reading some really scary stories people fainting (or worse!) when in contact with it's plumage, smelling 'almonds' (err, cyanide..) a.s.o, and yet - it's so widely used as perfect common hedges.. Naah, I'm not buying all this:) and think we have to take it with proverbial pinch of salt (extracts of Prunus Laurocerasus after all are also useful in medicine, like so many other plants!)

Sorry, now to matters in main subject. I really see it all from a different angle and with more logic and clarity (ironically enough - so do many other 'Gamers' who regularly play logical puzzles and even.. Detective Games!:) You talked (a lot!!) about growing negativity of community members here, about past and present statistics (downloading Games, comments, feedbacks - or lack of them!?) and wrestling with often contradictory notions where is ALL THAT coming from!
It's simple and truly beyond community, or Yours control. I honestly don't believe 'this side' of GGOTD is responsible for this sorry state. Yes, we could argue what came first - chicken or egg, and why certain things (changes) were necessary, but nothing will alter TIMING of matters going that bad.., that is - that crucial 'pin-point' WHEN it started to deteriorate on such scale!?..
This morning I was reading with interest some comments You made yesterday and found these lines, where You seem to observe that same 'starter point', as I see it, but with the rest of it our logic go separate ways, forgive me. I quote what You said: 'since the site changed to the new look, most of the comments have been rather negative and i think it's scared away those developers we have been getting games from for the past several years'.., and this one: 'Unfortunately the increasingly hostile community is in my opinion driving away developers who may have given us games previously'..??

The best (and not forced on, or bullied out off!) INCENTIVE for members here leaving 'happy, useful and plentiful' comments is..being in an interesting place, a Site of FUN (not proverbial pain and misery..??) Such place is NO MORE. When happy, appreciative and playful - people behave accordingly? I for one don't believe many of us were coming in such numbers here because we were 'desperate' for free Games (like You, some of us contributed to 'the Industry' small fortunes in purchasing Games, or in form of paid memberships, in our case these funds later on were turned into Charities instead, or more needy) So that was never the only factor and incentive to visit GGOTD in the past and willingly play part. It was pleasure combined with commitment, but mostly Fun!! Get that happy Place again - and the tide will turn!..

Lastly, don't beat yourself too much WR over something that is neither Yours, or community's doing! Sincere good luck, and please stop stressing!:) Ps. If I may add something else: what also might further discourage folks in present situation from posting comments is this ridiculous method of 'comment-ghosting' in favor of what was much more polite and fair before. Please bring back 'your comment is awaiting moderation' so people know where they stand and don't feel in limbo being shielded from general view for hours on end. Not clever, but v. obvious!..

..............................Moderator comment..................................

Hi Fran,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I tend not to check comments that are posted late on Sunday until mid week or even later (unless I stay up all night on Sunday evening /Monday morning) As I didn't get to bed Sunday morning I couldn't stay up all night without getting an imprint of my keyboard on my forehead (which has happened many times), but knowing I'd left some impassioned comments yesterday I thought I'd check to see if anyone had posted comments that were worth replying to. Glad I did. I thought I'd do it before I settle down to one of the several Blu Rays I ordered from Amazon Saturday evening (in response to my second monitor of the week dying on me, leaving me with only one) . So to feel better (retail therapy always works for me) I ordered some movies I'd been after watching for some time, mainly Cine Asia and other world movies - i.e. The Admiral; about the attack on Pearl Harbour from the Japanese point of view. The Front Line; a movie about the final decisive battles of the Korean war. Assembly; a true story about the conflict between the Chinese and Japanese during the second world war. There be Dragons; a story about the Spanish civil war, and finally a Travolta film called I am Wrath; a movie similar to the film Taken starring Leam Neeson. I'll probably be up all night again watching most of those. Thee of them are sub titled, which I don't mind; I prefer sub-titles to dubbed as you get a true feel for the actors starring in the movies.

We've also been doing some gardening. I tend not to any more because of the accident, and my wife never has the time, so we employ a gardener for 3 hours a week to keep our front, side and back gardens looking nice. When we purchased the bungalow the gardens were one of the most beautiful I'd had the pleasure to see. The previous occupants, a consultant anaethetist and his wife were keen gardeners and had stocked the gardens with a wide range of trees, fruit trees, bushes andother plants. They had obviously put a lot of thought into the gardens as we'd see the garden chage in looks depending on the time of year, starting with the whites and yellows of snow drops and daffodils, then the purples and blues of grape hyasinths, blue bells , forget me knots etc, then more yellow, and pinks and onwards to Autum, which is when the builders started work. Unfortunately they destroyed virtually the whole of the front garden and a section of the back garden nearest to the bungalow. Most of the back garden plus a smaller secret garden that is hidden from view are okay, but virtually all of the rose bushes were ripped out by the builder, clumps of lavender, and loads of flowering bushes and other beautiful plants were buried under piles of rubble, skips and building materials. We had promises that they would put it back how it was, but that never materialized as we had to sack them near to the end of the build due to incompetence and them ripping us off for a significant amout of money (we didn't realize the extent until we got legal advice and brought in a surveyor to check the place over. In the end we lost over £45 000 to the builder. The original cost of the build had been quoted at £70 000, but we ended up paying him over £110 000 plus since then we' ve forked out another £20 000 putting some of the issues right, plus a further £10 000 for the legal and surveyor fees. Our barrister has said we stand a very good chance of winning our suite against the builder, but we may only recover about 70% of the losses. I don't see us getting anything for years because the builder is a wiley old soak. I see us having to fight for whatever we are awarded and in the end bring in the Sheriffs, but we shall see. I think I'm being a lot more negative than usual partly because I have a lot weigning on my mind at the moment. Apart from the legal case, there are unpaid tax bills, more buiding issues and a bad tenant at one of my properties that has already cost us several thousand pounds in repairs over the last few months. Also my son has important exams coming up that start later this week and continue throught to late June. His results will determine whether he can get a place at our local univeristy (U.M.I.S.T. - University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, which is where Babbage created the first computer in the late 50's and where the renowned physicist Brian Cox now lectures). You need straight A's to get a place, so we are all stressed out at the moment.

You are right about the situation here. I wish we still had the community we had four or five years ago. There was always friendly banter and the forums used to have 30 or 40 visitors every day, most of whome would leave comments or instigate new threads. Now we barely get two or three comments a week. As for the new method of posting comments, the only advantage I've seen is that community members can see their post immediately on posting, which frees me up somewhat with respect to having to moderate regularily. The main issue I see happening with this method is community members posting expletives and other unsavoury comments, that may be visible for hours before I moderate them. I've already been admonished by one community member over ghosting, but not from your poit of view. The guy in question is not haapy with the way I add my moderator comment directy into the comment. When I moderate I don't have access to the reply button, so I've continued to reply to community members as I always have by adding a note to the bottom of their comment. No one has ever complained about this until the other week. His main gripe is that he wants me to use the reply button so that he can see via his email when I've replied. Seems to me its as long as it is short, i.e. it's just as easy to open up the giveaway page and check whether I've answered his comment rather than open up his email client and check there.

I was thinking of starting up the free games of the week thread again in the hope that it will bring back some of the community. I stopped posting information about free games partly because of the plethora of cheap games that could be picked up for a dollar or less, plus of course cheap indie bundles, where you usually save over 90% of the usual prices for those games. Some of those bundles for example the Humble THQ bundles had over $400 worth of games which sold for $5 and there was a Humble Origin bundle that was similar in price and savings as the THQ bundle, both bundles containing some brillianmt AAA games.. It seemed pointless posting about free games when you could get excellent games for less than a cup of coffee. Also we were in the porocess of moving at the time and every spare moment was taken up packing, decorating our old house in readiness to rent it out as well as the actual move, then the building fiasco etc. I was still posting at least one game a week until our planned move to this house three years ago. I enjoyed doing it at the time, so maybe I should go for it again. :).

Hey, I'd better stop waffling. Got to go watch those movies. I hope to get through at least 3 before I go to bed.

.... and after stopping to play it connects witjh "MyPlayCity" (simular to what we know from others... eg. gametop)

...................Moderator Comment........................

The main difference is that you don't get the checkboxes for toolbars, home page hijacks and browser hijacks that are usual with MPC games. Those have been removed. I don't particularily like the advert when you first boot up the game, but so long as you don't click on it while the game is loading, it's totally safe, plus the browser opening when closing down the game, thankfully that is also totally safe compared to the possibility of installing toolbars etc that the usual MPC games include. :)

Thank you, Whiterabbit.
I'm only thinking about uninstalling the game because I know my 9-year-old son who sometimes uses my PC (without asking or being watched) and I know that he often just klicks something... such as the starting advertisement with this game... I'll think it over...

...................Moderator Comment........................

I understand; we had the same problem with our children when they were younger; actually we stll do, though they do have their own computers now. I often have to go rescue my daughters computer by sifting through the registry and deleting the offending registry entries and deleting unwanted programs that she has allowed to be installed though not reading instructions etc. :)

Nidda, Why the hell is GGOTD allowing a company that is clearly a spammer/hijacker/scammer offering games that 'only open a browser window instead of what we NORMALLY do which is hijack your computer, add stuff you don't want, and generally screw your life up trying to remove the garbage we install without your permission' on the site. This is the last straw. GGOTD and GOTD, have a good life. I'm done.

...................Moderator Comment........................

Hi Ticked Off, MPC do not install anything on your computer without your permissiom apart from maybe the three extra icons on your desktop, which can be deleted by moving them to the recycle bin. The browser opening as I've mentioned elsewhere is totally innocuous and necessary for the survival of the free game site. They earn cash for ever visitor to their site due to the advertising on that site. I don't know exactly how much they get for each vistior to the site. todays game has had approaching $000 downloads. If they get $0.50 for each visit, they will earn $2000 for the initial installation and futher $2000 when the community close the game becasue in the initial installation you are directed to the site twice, on top of that I'm sure a lot of community memebrs will come back to play the game several times, so potentially the site has earned several thousand dollars for giving this game away. some of that will be paid to the developer, the rest goes to the sites owners. If they diodn't include browser openings, then they wouldn't earn anything, which means they would not be able to pay the developer, who would withdraw the game from their portfolio, becasue technically the games are not freeware, but commercial games which have to be paid for elsewhere. MPC have removed the checkboxes for toolbars, home page changes etc and we do not get any of those inconviniences with the giveaway version of the MPC game.

MPC do not spamm/hijack or scam, if they did, they would not be in buisness now. I've seen MPC operating for over 10 years. They used to be a straight developer then started giving away free games from other developers (with their permission) about 11 years ago. If you download directly from their site you will always be asked if you want to install toolbars or hav your home page or browser changed. As for the browser opening, i've already explained that. :)

Nidda,
Fortunately, it just goes to MPC site, which has nothing but free games. Now, he might download something and you could get a browser hijack, but you can still revert those with a few clicks. It isn't convenient, but he also won't be causing too much trouble if he does it.

Nidda, when he click on the advert it will open the browser with an online-game. Mostly you must have an account to play it. So relatively harmless - this can happen just by clicking on every advert on every internet-site.