Phantom Gamestore Launched

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Phantom Gamestore Launched

Tue, Dec 16, 2008

phantom

Does anybody remember Infinium Labs? You know, the folks that hyped their uber-awesome home console to end all home consoles, the Phantom, hyped since 2002, destined to never actually be released, only to be replaced by the equally awesome (so too awesome for words, right?) Phantom Lapboard? Yeah, that's the Infinium Labs I'm talking about. Anyway, nowadays they're called Phantom Entertainment, and they seem to have actually managed to get somewhere with the launch of their latest project. That's very much news-worthy if you want to ask me.

What did they launch, you ask? Why, the beta version of a web-based digital distribution platform, the Phantom Gamestore of course. What's even more surprising is that they have managed to secure some pretty big names already, with available titles ranging from the likes of Call of Duty 2 and Civilization IV, to Fallout 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV. All that right alongside games you aren't likely to even take a single look at, much like, uh, Drive Green (made you look!), which is probably how they've managed the claim of more than 2600 readily available titles already.

The website's layout is relatively pleasing with its simplicity, the individual game pages offer some decent information and often video previews, and the prices, from what I've seen so far, aren't too shabby either. While I couldn't find anything specific about the hot topic of DRM -- though the FAQ mentions a few worrying things about activations and expansion compatibility -- I feel that if they manage to incorporate their touted features of game streaming, rentals and time trials -- among other plans -- they might actually become a pretty competitive alternative to Steam, Impulse, Good old Games, Direct2Drive, or whatever other service you're currently willing to use.

Bring it on Phantom Entertainment, your fans still believe in you! At least, I think so, I haven't actually met any. Just make sure this project lasts, okay? Please excuse my cheeky-ness while you're at it!

Update: Caveat emptor.

Digital Distribution, Direct2Drive, game industry, Good Old Games, Impulse, PC, phantom, Publishers, Steam

This post was written by:

Alexander Galerakis - who has written 140 posts on GameCyte.

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10 Comments For This Post

_Arthur Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Why is it Beta ? Do the Demo games downloads work ?
_Arthur Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 8:29 am
This is a company that is notorious for an uninterrupted string of broken promises.
Their founder was indicted by the SEC for manipulating the company stock with bogus faxes, at Christmas time.

As you observed, they are awful vague about the DRM that must accompany the games.
They promise streaming at some undefined date: why streaming if download works ? Streaming require a lot of custom programming: no two games have the same set of required and optional files.

How did they manage to secure the distribution rights of all those games companies ?
Why did none of those game companies saw fit to announce this brand-new partnership and those exclusive and heretofore-unknown download policies ??

On their own gamestore forum, some astroturfing users pretend they have been able to make a purchase. Can YOU confirm this ?
Alexander Galerakis Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am
@ Arthur 1: In short, Betas are called that when a product is not yet considered complete. Demo downloads take a click to find out. Macromedia-powered self-downloader app seemed to work fine, but I didn't complete a download as I just tested to see what sort of setup they used (ie, the self downloader).

@ Arthur 2: No, I'm not crazy enough to try it. Don't shoot the messenger.

Streaming is probably possible to do, Valve does a lot of things with other games' files that they initially made just for their Source stuff I guess. Streaming would be better so that you can play the game before it's fully complete I guess, considering even though a lot of people have a very fast connection by now (not me, sadly) it's still a chore for games of several gigabytes, like most modern titles.
_Arthur Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I'm holding fire, Alex.

So far, their penny stock is DOWN from 3 hundreths of a cent to 2 hundreths of a cent, so, if this a stock-oriented hoax, the hoaxer netted at most $12K.

Plus a few credit cards numbers, maybe.
_Arthur Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Alex, Infinium originally claimed to be developping a technique allowing them to stream games to their Phantom Console, so playing could be started even with a partial download.
It was a dubious claim, because games from various companies are build in many ways, and not all can be played gracefully with only a subset of the complete files.
The streaming was intended to remedy a weakness of the planned Phantom console, which had a smallish hard drive.

Their console was expected to feature some beefed-up proprietary DRM.
This is not the case in the current case, where games can be downloaded on any PC hardware meeting the minimum requirements.

On one blog of the purported company rep say they are still working out the kinks of their servers, whatever that means.
_Arthur Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Right as rain, the Phantom game store website is down for maintenance.
Sean Hollister Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
@_Arthur:

Thanks for the heads up. We're looking into it.

And I don't just mean the fact that their website is down.
pheadbaq Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Hi _Arthur,
Not sure if you were referring to me and some others as the astroturfers or not... I can only speak for myself, though, when I say that I do frequent and post to their blog, and I do happen to own some stock because I always thought they had some great ideas and hoped they could capitalize on them, but it's not like I'm employed by them or anything. There's not really anything I could do to convince you that I actually did download a non-demo version of a game. Albeit, it was one of the $3.99 titles (Grimm: The Fisherman and His Wife), frankly because I don't want to spend more just to see how something works, and no I didn't get billed yet. Not sure why.

I did download several demos and they all downloaded and installed fine. EuroTruck Sim started up fine and even showed some 3D models of trucks you could pick, but my machine doesn't like it apparently, so I couldn't run it after picking an actual track to drive on. I would imagine it's more likely an issue with my machine or the game itself than the actual game service. I don't have a gaming PC rig anyway, so no biggy. That's pretty much all I can say. No sense getting in a flame war over all this, so I'll leave it at that.
_Arthur Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Thanks for the honesty, Phead, I'm still searching for independent confirmation that the (now closed) game site had actual content.

One of my E-mail inquiry came back, second-hand from RockStar, they were terse but stated "it's another place to buy [Grand Theft Auto IV]."

Or, not to get it, the case being.
pheadbaq Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Heh heh. No problem. I truly do understand the skepticism. If you can get the confirmation you're looking for, all the better for Phantom. Otherwise, more of the same (shrug).

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