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Charles2222 -> RE: Problems trying to purchase from you - fed up (7/18/2007 10:42:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd
I expect your point was generalised rather than directed at me, but being as it was in posted in reaction to the current topic I posted, I feel I could mention a couple of things here. So whilst I'll take your points and answer them, it goes without saying that I don't suggest you made the comments specifically at me...
I wasn't painting myself to be a wargame supporter...I am not. I am a computer game enthusiast. I will try and buy any games I think take my fancy. I've bought plenty of donkeys in my time, and that does make me more cautious about what I by...but I still buy a game if
- I hear good things about it OR
- I like the subject OR
- I've read good reviews (plural) or
- I've played the demo
or any combination of the above. To use ravinhood as an example, he wants to suggest I buy games just for the sake of it...I believe his exact terms to deride me were "...you can't control your spending..." and "...while you support your addiction and habit..." but as usual he's talking out his arse. Quite clearly, from the criteria I've specified above, I am more choosey about the games I buy than he suggests. He rarely posts anything of benefit for anyone anyway.
Also, I wasn't suggesting that people stop buying budget. In fact I did say that I have bought budget in the past. In particular if it''s a game that I may not normally have bought but think "What the hell".
Again, to use ravinhood as an example (he lends himself so well to being used as such) he uses these forums constantly to deride and abuse companies, developers and other members. I can't remember the last time he posted anything good about Matrix Games. The point is, and I'm usre he'll come back and confirm or otherwise, he has very little nice things to say about Matrix Games and yet uses these boards to hurl his abuse...and the icing on the cake is he doesn't own a single, full priced Matrix Game...not one.
Even in his penultimate post on this thread he suggests when Matrix Games supply manuals with there back catalogue, he'll buy them from NWS.
I might start a petition to try and get NWS to start a forum so he can piss the hell off out of here and go post ****e there.
Yes, I knew I was in danger of painting you in too dark a corner, and that is why I referred to developer supporters in general. Though I'm sure you realize it, but your response didn't reflect it, one of my more submerged points was that there's more than one level in the industry that needs support. Let's take a purist wargamer, which apparently you a I are not, to drive the point. PW (purist wargamer) was buying discount during the shelf days, but bought all the wargame titles he could find; no matter the quality. PW is so adament about supporting wargaming that he bought them all, but PW has a very limited budget. One day PW would get some fairly decent bucks, but in those days he reasoned it was the only way he could support the business with much impact. Now, as you say, the developer goit nothing, but if those sales spurred the stores to hold onto wargames that much more likely, then it could be seen that PW in the long run was probably putting more money into the system than many buyers who buy right away. The ironic thing about the PW story is that if PW really put more money into the system than you or I in that day, he had less to put into it in the first place.
I know the cheap software disease to some extent. It tends to make you think you can be careless with your money, since it's all cheap anyway. But in my mind there's something much more important than how much I paid for it, but what the quality of the product is, and do I have too much already. Contrast that to quality buyers, and often you find the discount guy is spending more. The discount buyer can accumulate so many games that are absolute dogmeat, and yet is in the pathetic situation of not being able to play them all. What's even sadder, and I hope these descriptions aren't accurate for RH, because I doubt they are close to being accurate if they were, just joe-schmoe you can call these tendencies, is that having so many games tends to make people not give games very fair shakes and drop them far too quickly. Naturally, as I was saying earlier, he or any discount-only buyer may be actually putting more money into the system than either you or I, and because of some of those type accruing the attitudes and situations I described, end up having less of a good time too.
As you were saying earlier, they are also putting little or nothing in the developer's pocket, but, then again, if we are talking stores, these sort of buyers are helping in a secondary sort of way which even to this day still has some importance. One important reason I can think of is this. Do you know how many times a year I go to a software store anymore? Once maybe. For my part it's largely because I don't expect to find wargames there. For the most part wargames are my focus, and if the stores pretty much don't stock them, why should I go there? But what about the PW discount guy again? You know what he is doing? He is keeping the possibility of shelves being stock with wargames still hanging by a thread with his cheapo buying. I guarantee you he's putting more into the stores than I am these days, though I may exceed his developer contributions. Besides, I think wargaming is such a niche group that we cannot afford to have people discouraged to buy cheap, if that's the only way they can muster it. Me, I think buying cheap is way too much of an effort on my part as I don't like going to a store and just seeing endless titles of graphic eyesores and finding nothing I like. I'm sure it takes quite a bit of effort to watch stores for cheapo titles and a good close locale is needed too. It's just way too much effort on my part, and I have more games than I can play as it is. RH said he admired the patience angle that such buying needs to thrive, and I say I admire that too, but the one thing it does to some people that is none too pretty is the tendency for the patience gained to be lost in how their games can be treated, since they were bought cheap in the first place, therefore possibly treated more cheaply, and evaluated more hastily.
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