Play Sega: Casual Games Online for Prizes

As if the world needed more reasons to waste time online now Sega are getting in on the act offering up a new casual gaming website titled ‘Play Sega’. The website is in a Beta state at the moment with only a handful of games playable but according to casualgaming.biz 30 more are coming soon. Tantalizingly some of these won’t be throwaway games with Sega offering up the very real prospect of bringing some old franchises back from the dead.

“There are only a couple of other companies out there that have anything like the heritage we do – or can inspire the same affection amongst their fans. This is the first time the Sega community can come together in one place, whilst enjoying some of our most exciting vintage and new IP”

Play Sega is more than just somewhere to go for a diversion though with some real cash prizes up for grabs. All the games can be played for free and in them you collect ‘Sega Rings’. The rings can be spent on a verity of customizable features for your own corner of Play Sega and can also be used to enter weekly prize draws to win actual money.

At the moment Play Sega’s prizes are only open to residents of the United Kingdom and there’s no word on a similar site benefiting people from other territories. Indeed typing ‘playsega.com’ into your browser redirects you to the co.uk website. At least you can play Sonic at the Olympic games for free though. Apparently Mario and company had better things to do after the actual Olympics were over.

UPDATE BY TRISTAN TUESDAY 6PM ET: It looks like Sega’s going the global route for this one.  When I type in PlaySega.com, I get the American site with icon, dot-com and all (though with some hints of UK English scattered here and there.)  This is probably due to the prize factor–different things may be given out in different territories.