Batman: Arkham Asylum 75% off until Monday

Microsoft is announcing that beginning with today, Friday, February 26, those who have a Gamertag and have downloaded the Games for Windows Live client can pick up last year's Batman: Arkham Asylum for the low, low price of 12.49 dollars, which is 75% off the 59.99 that players usually have to pay for the videogame when getting it through the software giant-powered digital distribution service. Batman: Arkham Asylum was the best action adventure title of 2009 and really managed to convey the feeling of being the powerful comics superhero.

The offer is only available until 10:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time on March 1, 2010. Microsoft is also saying that throughout March, it plans to deliver more special offers every Friday, in an effort to show Games for Windows Live is a service that can compete with other channels, like Steam, Impulse, GamersGate or Direct2Drive.

Steam, for example, offers a new deal every Friday for the weekend and also pushes out a Midweek Madness deal, which covers the empty space between Monday and Friday. Impulse also has regular weekend-based deals.

Those who have long bought videogames on one of them, mostly those linked with Steam and who have long used its community features, tend not to look at other products out of a sense of loyalty. If the Redmond-based company hopes to gain a significant market share in the digital download business, which is growing on the PC, it will need to keep delivering amazing deals for quite some time so that it can lure customers in.

Games for Windows Live is used by some PC games in order to authenticate and get Xbox 360-style Achievements and Gamer Points. For some time, Microsoft has pretty much ignored the digital distribution elements of its service, which it is now aiming to bring into focus with these special offers.