[Saxon]

Niche markets have their problems, but throw in a niche customer and you have a problem. I live in Kenya and like the turn based strategy game niche and find it hard to buy any game software, never mind within our little niche! Recognizing that I am an unusual and rather small market, I will still throw out my two bits.

Game software is pretty much not available here, with the occasional pirated CD coming in from the Far East. If I want legitimate games, I can do one of three things. One, download. Two, mail order. Three, fly to Europe or North America and buy retail.

This year I took my vacation in Zimbabwe, so I did not get to do my yearly pilgrimage to a games store and I am hurting for new games. I have used mail order before, Dom II and SEIV amongst others, but things also go missing in the mail at a fairly high frequency. As such, I have been exploring downloading games. From my somewhat arbitrary survey, based upon my tastes, I have found that this is an area which is not terribly well developed on a commercial basis and problems arise fairly often. Good, secures systems may exist, we handle our payroll Online after all, but they are not common. I find downloading to be about as problematic as my regular losses to the Kenyan Postal Service.

As such, I find myself booking a trip in November and planning to get my games that way. Well, actually, Mom put her foot down about not seeing me in over a year, but I will take the opportunity pick up games along the way. What my point is that in locations where the mail service is decent (most of the rest of the world), it would beat my experiences with downloading. I would argue, as a customer, that while downloading is seductive, until the systems improve, mail order is better.

PS Any good games stores in Phoenix? I am stopping there on the way to Mom and Dad in Canada.