A simple thank you

[Murph]

This has been an interesting thread for me (other than the flame war, which is actually the first really serious-seeming one that I've seen on a Shrapnel forum - usually people here are remarkably polite and reasonable - probably why I keep coming back).

I'm particularly interested because I've experienced all three of the distribution methods being discussed here, and I'm curious as to why some some methods seem to be prefered by people.

I've bought most games in retail stores, in fact, I bought GalCiv that way - which I did not like a fraction as much as I liked SE IV, truth be known. And I didn't see much different about GalCiv than your general retail game. Needed to be patched, and generally paid a lot of money for something i ended up not being crazy about - par for the course.

I bought Dom2 through Shrapnel's website, after I got the demo in PC Gamer. Played the demo until I loved it so much I had to buy the game, then bought the game Online - my first Online purchase - and now comes the kicker - waited 2 weeks to get the game, because I live in a small town in Canada and they apparently carried my copy to me ON FOOT!

But that wait did give me a chance to play the demo through, oh, 40 times or so. So basically I experienced all the drawbacks of the on-line system; I was reluctant to order something on-line, had to wait a long time for my product and even had to use customer service for my out-of-US credit card.

And guess what, they were great! Shrapnel was very responsive and helped me out - which is big for me, as I'm a customer service manager - and I was fully happy when I finally got my order.

And I ordered SE IV not too long after- no fear or worries this time, and it only took a week. No problem after the Last time. All the problems i had didn't turn me off one bit from ordering Online - why? Because the product was great - the service was great and the support was great.

Now, I've also gotten software Online via DD, and haven't been much impressed - albeit that it was mostly apps. Long download times (even now that i'm on ADSL) for the complex stuff, and exactly the same reluctance to provide credit card info Online. So how is direct download better? If you want this game - or any other Shrapnel Game - you'll buy it, hells with how you have to do it.

I thought the real problem with Shrapnel was not their distribution - which keeps their costs down and lets them pay devs more, but their marketing. Lets face it, for a lot of people, they go and browse the game store and see if anything looks cool, and that's how they find out about stuff, or they hear about it on game review sites or in magazines. I'm a serious strategy game player and I'd never heard of Shrapnel until I saw the demo in PCG (I think it was PCG anyways, quite a while ago).

I don't think Shrapnel needs to put games on shelves in stores, or allow you to download their games directly, although both I'm sure open up their own portion of market share - they need to make more great games and get the word out there through marketing that they exist - Field of Dreams was wrong - you have to build it AND tell them about it, before they come... How you get them to it will work itself out, because people will come to quality.

We all did.

Well, that's my rant. And let me do what this thread was intended to do in the first place - say "Thanks Illwinter, thanks Shrapnel - thanks to all the forum junkies. I spend more time than is healthy here, and I don't feel bad about it at all."