Game Sessions is a beta service
which offers the chance to sample games on
Steam. This features the ability to
purchase full versions from within these sample sessions, and the system also
supports game rentals.
Ryse Son of Rome
is the newest game they feature, saying Crytek is allowing players one trial of
Crytek's action game that can run as long as 24 minutes. "We passionately
believe that people will buy more games if they can try them first," explains Ed
French, CEO of GameSessions. "With our free trial service our mission is to
deliver more great game experiences to more players." They also claim
compression-related download speed advantages:
GameSessions’ proprietary
technology ensures publishers’ content is secure, so ensuring the best content
can be available, and typically downloads games 3x* faster. The service also
helps to avoid downloading games that won’t run well on users’ hardware, and
final peace-of-mind comes from the guarantee of always playing a game before
purchase.
Users can now download and play the free trial of the stunning ‘Ryse – Son of
Rome’ on PC as part of the Beta 2 phase. More exciting titles will be added in
the run up to the full launch of the service in early 2015.
…
* Benchmark tests show games reduced by 50% to 80% using GameSessions
compression technology.