Frustration

Atrocities · #1 January 9th, 2005, 05:07 AM

Quote:

TheBirthdayParty said:
Ahhhh! My copy of Space Empires IV gold has been on back order for over a week!!!! Damn them for not having a downloadable Version!

Believe me we have asked. I know many people would have gladly paid extra for the option to DOWNLOAD now, and have the disk sent to them.

David E. Gervais · #2 January 9th, 2005, 07:09 AM

I just did a check of my se4:Gold dir (fresh install including latest patch) and it's only 206meg "Uncompressed" hmmm,.. I'm curious.. brb.. I rar'd my game dir and it shrunk to 65meg More than small enough to make a D/L Version available. Heck there are many game 'Demos' that are 250meg+ and they are available for free (with no guarantee of a purchase after the download) so it a 'Paying' customer would like the option to have a downloadable Version I think it's just plain wrong that it is not available.

(I would understand if the installer was huge like 640meg (full CD size) but 65meg? It's just not right.)

..I just checked and the 'Demo' for Dom2 is 71meg and the 'demo' for Starfury is 60meg So there really is no reason that a 'Download-Option' should not be made available.

I simply do not understand why there is not a D/L option for SE4:Gold. The arguement for 'Bandwidth' does not fly since they already have 'Demos' of equal or greater size which do not guarantee a sale.

Nuf said,.. Cheers!

Edit,.. I just checked the setup.exe on the SE4:Gold CD and it's 80meg... still not bad. Oh, and some of you might argue that the download Version would not have the 'Extras' but most of the stuff is allready outdated and more recent Versions of the mods are available from fan sites. So are the many utilities. And, I would further say that the D/L Version could be cheaper, there is no need for a printed manual, the .htm Version is included in the install. And The player who pays for the downloaded Version should make a CD backup to protect his purchase. It might be argued that this would encourage piracy, but the setup.exe could be protected by a reg key or some such animal.. Anyway,.. I'm babbling, sorry.

Fyron · #3 January 9th, 2005, 07:15 AM

There is a whole new layer of hassle and trouble involved with providing purchased products for download. Demos don't matter much, since they just get downloaded without any purcahsing going on.

DeadZone · #4 January 9th, 2005, 08:10 AM

For example, like making sure no-one fiqures out the direct link to the download itself
Or making sure proper secruity is in place if it does happen

Slick · #5 January 9th, 2005, 01:34 PM

It's also much riskier from the standpoint of piracy. It's much easier to find a copy of a piece of software if there is already a bundled downloadable Version floating around.

Arkcon · #6 January 9th, 2005, 01:58 PM

Slick said:
"It's also much riskier from the standpoint of piracy. It's much easier to find a copy of a piece of software if there is already a bundled downloadable Version floating around."

Precisely, having a downloadable Version anywhere seems to invite a piracy attitude, like the company was asking for it.

I suppose there could be a free download, with a separate key code to unlock the executable. But then what? Pirates will just copy the key code. SE4 isn't like Diablo or other MMPORG's -- there's no scanning of your disk when you log on to the PBW server. SE4 can even be played over Email, so it would catch nobody.

I was indifferent to the download issue. My disks took a couple of days to arrive, and I could wait. But people in Europe, for example, had to endure a real long wait.

boran_blok · #7 January 9th, 2005, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Arkcon said:
Slick said:
"It's also much riskier from the standpoint of piracy. It's much easier to find a copy of a piece of software if there is already a bundled downloadable Version floating around."

Precisely, having a downloadable Version anywhere seems to invite a piracy attitude, like the company was asking for it.

I suppose there could be a free download, with a seperate key code to unlock the executable. But then what? Pirates will just copy the key code. SE4 isn't like Diablo or other MMPORG's -- there's no scanning of your disk when you log on to the PBW server. SE4 can even be played over Email, so it would catch nobody.

I was indifferent to the download issue. My disks took a couple of days to arrive, and I could wait. But people in Europe, for example, had to endure a real long wait.

damnd right :/

capnq · #8 January 9th, 2005, 03:11 PM

Quote:

David E. Gervais said:
And, I would further say that the D/L Version could be cheaper, there is no need for a printed manual, the .htm Version is included in the install.

The printed Gold manual was a significant improvement over the original docs.