Take a trip to the Flipside

Gaming service providers have had a hard time of it over the last few years, with the pay-to-play model largely thrown out the window (unless you happen to have your own successful massively multiplayer game) and older services like DWANGO and HEAT.net going to the wall. Owned by Havas Interactive, the French company which runs Half-Life publisher Sierra, Won.net was one of the survivors, running a mixture of servers for hardcore action games and fiendishly addictive web games like Scrabble-style board game Wordox. Now they have relaunched as Flipside.com, a free online gaming service with that same mix of hardcore and web games.

One of the new additions to the Flipside site is a loyalty points scheme where you collect tokens called "Flips" as you play their games. These can then be spent on a wide selection of goods available from the Flipside website, taking in everything from "gourmet food and wine through sportswear and music to electronic equipment". There are over 40 games to play already, including Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Wordox, Bridge, SnowCraft and Chess. To find out more, read the press release, or simply head over to the UK Flipside site.