If you're wondering about the infrequent updates and giveaways, well, to be honest we're:
a) Really busy - work projects have never been more intense!
b) Cash strapped - we have a massive tax bill due in April, and our accountant is strongly recommending we reduce expensives wherever we can.
Busy Gamer News has always been a labor of love. It's never made enough to cover our expenses (not even close). It's been our way of expressing our passion for games and connecting with and helping out the growing community of grownup gamers who have to balance their love for play with adult obligations. So we've retooled the site, cut back on the time-intensive content and refocused around our community. We hope you'll join in wherever you can!
In the meantime, we'll see if we can keep doing occasional giveaways, minus the need for postage whenever we can. This month, we have a gift copy of the Indie Game Music Bundle 2, which is NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. This includes the five soundtracks pictured above:
- Aquaria
- Jamestown
- Machinarium
- Sword & Sworcery (sample music in our Best of Busy Gamer Podcast review)
- To the Moon
Just the two of those that are available on iTunes (Sword & Sworcery and Machinarium) would cost you $19, and there are 14 additional albums (mostly soundtracks, a few EPs) that were added to the bundle after it launched:
- 8-Bit Pimp EP
- Cat Astro Phi
- Eternal Daughter
- Machinarium Bonus EP
- Mighty Switch Force
- Passcode: Soul of the Traveler
- Preschtale
- Sharing is Caring Indie Mashup EP
- Shatter
- Shuttle Scuttle
- Songs for the Cure 2010
- Squids
- Thunderbeam
- Tower of Heaven
This is a pretty amazing collection and a worthy prize for yourself or the videogame music fan in your life.
Here's how to enter and boost your odds one or both prizes (up to 4 chances to win!):
- Enter a comment here, as usual. That's all you really NEED to do.
- Tweet the following on Twitter: Win Indie Game Music Bundle 2 (19 albums!) at BusyGamerNews.com, now community sourced! RT + Enter here: http://bit.ly/z70LOC #bgnfsf
- Review (or re-review) our Busy Gamer Podcast on iTunes.
- Review (or re-review) the Best of Busy Gamer Podcast on iTunes. This is a short audio highlights feed with our reviews, audio tours and other timeless bits!
If you do 2, 3 and/or 4, you do need to let us know your Twitter/iTunes name(s) in your comment so we can find, verify and include your bonus entries in the drawing and match them up to contact you if one of them wins.
If we can't confirm the bonus entry and easily tell who you are on Twitter and/or iTunes, the bonus entry is disqualified. If you tweet vigorously (more than 5 times a day on average), include the direct link to your tweet and don't delete it!
You DO have to enter a comment here and follow the other rules to be eligible:
Simply post a comment on this page. (You can do the other things listed above if you want to earn some extra chances to win.) Say whatever is on your mind as long as it's not an ad or profane. Be sure to read the Sweepstakes Rules to ensure you are eligible to win and don't get disqualified by double-posting or forgetting to provide an e-mail address.
NOTE: If you play for extra chances on Twitter or by posting podcast reviews on iTunes, you still have to enter here AND let us know your Twitter and/or iTunes names so we can match you up. iTunes ratings alone do not count since we can't see who posted them, so add a comment! If you already posted an iTunes review, you can update your review once a week for a bonus entry in each week's giveaway. Just log in to iTunes and click Write a Review; it should load your existing review and let you modify it. Make a change (even a small one) and then check to ensure that it appears on top with the new date or it won't count!
You may also want to white list this domain; we've had MANY would-be winners lose out because they never responded to their prize notification! If you use TypeKey/TypePad, be sure your e-mail address will be shared. No e-mail address, no prize. (Don't worry, no one else will see it - and we'll only use it to contact you if you win.)
Note that unless you're an authenticated poster who has been active on the site and marked as trusted, your comment will NOT appear immediately. It will go into a queue for me to approve, which I'll do several times a day (except the first weekend, where comments may not be approved until sometime late on Sunday). Do NOT double-post. We'll extend the entry period for this until 8:01 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, March 31 to ensure you have plenty of time to enter and verify your entry was posted.
We also sometimes give away unannounced Instant Win prizes and podcast extras. Here are a few tips since this can happen at any time. 1) Follow Gamewatcher on Twitter. Before we post the next Instant Win, we'll give you a fair warning tweet. 2) Subscribe to our RSS feed and set it to check for updates frequently.
We continue to stock up on cool goodies for Free Stuff Friday - and we will keep doing so as long as there's enough response. So tell your friends about this! Hey, if we get bigger, so will the prizes that YOU could win! While you're at it, post comments wherever you see something interesting. Also, if you get a game code you don't need or have some other cool game-related prize you want to donate, we'd be very grateful (we pay for much of this stuff ourselves!).
Thanks for the giveaway, entered and retweeted as @ropes
Great giveaway!
Thanks for the contest!
@JasperDolphin85 -- Twitter
Phoenix Bauer -- Facebook
I love game music. Thanks for this opportunity.
thanks for the giveaway :)
tweeted the link as @taronowens108
A great collection of music.
Thanks for your generosity
Thanks for the giveaway guys!
Can't wait for Spring Break, but damn those assignments I have to complete on my way there... >.
awesome giveaway!
GREAT Collection of tunes!
Ive heard great things from to the moon. Thanks guys!
Great giveaway, wish more people would enter but gives us more chances.
I absolutely LOVE the Sword & Sworcery soundtrack! Hopefully, I can get a decent chance at this one :P
https://twitter.com/qzmpwxni
Thanks for the giveaway!
Thanks for the giveaway.
Twitter: @Gram_Cracker
Count me in! Thanks for the chance! :)
Thanks for another amazing giveaway guys!
Tweeted as @drpixl.
@blbeel loves indie game music
WANT MUSIC!!!!
Tweeted: https://twitter.com/#!/BrianIMdiesel/status/185552991829499905
And the winner is: 1. ropes - with a bonus entry!
Grats! Next giveaway should be something big. Still working out the details.
Thanks for the music and sorry for the late reply sorta thought it was an April Fools joke.
Thanks for the music.