It should come as no surprise to our readers that we at PC Perspective have been big fans of what AMD has been doing with game bundles over the last year. With the start of the Never Settle campaign in October of 2012, AMD began down a path to help sell Radeon cards with amazing game bundles and pack ins that NVIDIA and its GeForce brand still have yet to match. It was an amazing move for a company that really wanted to drive sales and gain market share in the discrete graphics space.
Fast forward to today, past the Never Settle Reloaded and Never Settle Level Up campaigns and AMD has another offer for gamers looking to upgrade their GPU: Never Settle Forever. The crux of this new campaign is choice. AMD is allowing gamers to select the free game or games they get out of a curated list rather than having AMD select them for you.
Depending on the card you buy and the tier it falls in, you'll be able to select 1, 2 or 3 games from a list. There are a few catches though that we need to discuss. First, the game list for each tier is NOT the same.
For example, Tomb Raider is only avaiable in the top tier. The currect tier sets work out as follows:
- Gold Tier (3 games): HD 7950 and HD 7970
- Silver Tier (2 games): HD 7800 series
- Bronze Tier (1 game): HD 7770 and HD 7790
The Radeon HD 7990 is not included on these tiers but it will continue with the "8 free games" bundle for the life of the card we were told.
When you buy a card from a participating retailer you'll get a code that you can then take to AMD's Radeon Rewards website and redemption portal. You enter your reward code, register yourself and then you get to browse the games in the available packages. Here are some of the interesting notes:
- Once you register your code, you have until December 31st, 2013 to perform your transaction.
- You can only perform a SINGLE transaction meaning you must use all of your game choices at one time. You CANNOT select one game now and another game later.
- Other games can be added or removed at any time in the Never Settle Forever bundle so once something leaves you cannot get that game anymore.
- There are no promises on what other games may or may not be added to the program between now and the end of the year.
Not being able to split up your selections is a hard pill to swallow as you means you cannot pick up Tomb Raider today and then plan on getting another title next month; if Tomb Raider is gone when a new game is added you will not have access to it. There is likely no techical reason for this restriction other than publisher and business agreements in place with AMD.
It is a letdown that AMD has not included any new games with this bundle refresh. All 9 of the available titles in the Gold tier have been bundled with AMD cards before. Even worse, arguably the two best titles from the previous campaign are missing: Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3. We do expect other games to be added but AMD would only allude that "new retail games will be added on several occasions" before the end of the year. Does that mean Battlefield 4, Thief or watch_dogs? While I can't say for certain I think it is pretty likely.
So where does that leave us with the new Never Settle Forever bundle today? It's kind of a mixed bag as it stands with the games avaiable in the tiers today getting long in the tooth. Of the 9 games available in Gold only DMC, Tomb Raider and Blood Dragon were released this year. Dues Ex and Dirt 3 were released in 2011 and the rest were sometime in that magical year of 2012. And of those 9 games only two of them are currently for sale for the $49 value (DMC and Tomb Raider) that AMD places on a single game title. Others can be found for $39 (Far Cry 3), $24 (Hitman) or $14 (Blood Dragon).
AMD is still the leader in the bundle and add-on battle for discrete graphics cards but this particular launch is a bit less astounding than the previous ones have been. The upside though is that AMD can now very easily add other games to the mix without having to re-launch the entire program which was obviously the point of this revamp. So while Never Settle Forever doesn't have me as excited as the original campaign, I have a feeling 2013 holds some very good things for it!
It makes complete sense to
It makes complete sense to segment their products in that way. If users want the most expensive games they have to buy the most expensive cards. Finding a fault in that must be a hard thing to do. Especially considering the outstanding value regardless of which level you chose.
Finding fault because AMD isn’t giving enough away?? Really??
Regarding the games list, perhaps someone new to gaming hasn’t played those games. I’d rather see the gaming market grow than shrink. Enthusiasts as a rule are very greedy.
There are going to be here
There are going to be here and there people who will find faults. Those are the guys who don’t like AMD, or like their competitors (call me Nvidia), or those who, when you give them something free, they don’t say “thank you” but they are shouting at you because it was not enough!
What I meant to say is
What I meant to say is enthusiasts have to have completely unreal expectations and demands for this do be a bad thing.
i bought a 7870 witht he Tomb
i bought a 7870 witht he Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite bundle (a month and a half before they did the Level up). i got the 7870 because of the game bundle, i have it sitting in a box waiting for me to upgrade my Mobo and CPU (later this month to a Asus M5A99FX and FX8350).
i was planning to buy one at the same time as the mobo and CPU, but the combo made me buy it early.
i am also planning on buying
i am also planning on buying a second 7870 later this year (or next year) depending on performance and budget; and a new bundle for that GPU will only make me want a second card more.
I was some lucky when i
I was some lucky when i bought my second 7870. the starting price was $249cnd before any rebates which was 2 $20 off rebates dropping the price down to $209.
So then i bought it came with Tomb Raider, and Bioshock, but also included Far Cry 3 as different promotion. Than automatic got upgraded to include FC3: Blood Dragon making a total of 4 free games.
Looks like desperation.
Looks like desperation.
eu comprei hd7970 e como faço
eu comprei hd7970 e como faço para ter esses jogos
Id love a better selection of
Id love a better selection of games the only game I didnt already own is Saints Row
6th of november:
also DMC Far
6th of november:
also DMC Far Cry 3, Tomb raider and Dirt showdown have now been removed from the bundle, leaving only 6 games:
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper 2 (or shooter 2)
stand alone game: Far Cry 3: Blood dragon (80ths game)
Hitman Absolution
Dirt 3
Deus Ex
— luckily i already have collectors editions of Bioshock and tomb raider making me not miss those games that much —
But the current offer is not even in my interest for getting a shaggy pirate version..
I hope December and christmas will bring new games into the basket here!!!