GameTap, for those unfamiliar, is a self-described “games on demand service” that zaps thousands of games – some aged and impenetrable, others still warm and wrapped in soggy design document – straight to your PC. It’s pretty neat! However, if you’re just now finding out about the goose that lays golden games, please refrain from getting too excited; GameTap’s vaunted free games section won’t be quite the looker it once was come next week. Said GameTap’s official blog:

“As many of you know, over the past year or so we’ve released well over one hundred games for free, in order to entice people to sample what GameTap has to offer and, hopefully, subscribe to our service. This strategy has worked incredibly well for us, and now we’re ready to move on.”

“Starting next week, we’re going to return a large chunk of our free games back to the Gold vault. They will still be available, but only to GameTap Gold subscribers.”

97 games, including heavy-hitters like Deus Ex, Psychonauts and, well, Daikatana (there’s always a silver lining) will be yanked out of the pet shop window, bringing Gametap’s free section down to a comparatively paltry 40. Weekly trials of select games will also be available.
 
So then, does this turn of events have you unbolting the padlock on your credit card, or does GameTap have some ‘splainin’ to do?