Too much money

Richard · #1 August 9th, 2000, 01:17 AM

Not much we can do about it EXCEPT the eventaul retail deal in Europe, probably next year.

However Chips and Bits does offer cheaper shipping (however with NONE of the security our mailing offers) and does sell our games.

We make nothing on shipping and handling...

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

Tim Brooks · #2 August 9th, 2000, 03:20 PM

I think it is important for everyone to understand what we, Shrapnel Games, are doing. Richard speaks of retail which is a possibility, but in no way a guarantee. What I want to speak to is Shrapnel Games' mission:

Most of our Wargames Fans know what we are doing. We are bringing quality, small developer products to the marketplace. These are products that wouldn't be in the marketplace otherwise - at least not with the larger publishers.

We give our developers the lions share of the money. We do this so that they can hopefully keep bringing you new and excellent products. Since we don't take 75-85% of the money earned on a product, we cannot afford to offer you shipping at a discount. If we had more orders, we would (and will as we grow) get better rates. But we would go out of business if we had to eat the costs of getting the products to Europe or other countries. We actually pay more than we charge on many foreign orders as it stands.

You can support Shrapnel Games and our developers or not. But don't ask us to do something that is going to put us out of business. If you are unhappy with what we charge then don't order.

Just try to remember what we are about: Bringing you quality products that otherwise wouldn't make the marketplace, and keeping our developers in business.

Thank all of you who support our efforts.

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Tim Brooks
Shrapnel Games

jars_u · #3 August 9th, 2000, 05:46 PM

Tim,

What about a full Version of the game that you can download, for the same price as the "retail" Version - just without any printed documentation or an acutal copy of the game on cd. That would save all the shipping costs for people outside the US.

jars_u

Tim Brooks · #4 August 9th, 2000, 07:08 PM

Hi jars_u:

Uuhhh, not really. First of all, I believe this game is going to come in at over 400MB - makes dl impractical. Plus there is the pirating issues involved in downloadable products. Plus, we have to pay for our bandwidth. Just a for instance: Our demo downloads cost us about $700 Last month and the largest demo is 32MB! Could you imagine what a 400MB download would cost!

I wish there was a better answer. We could ship like one of our competitors and maybe save $5.00, but then we would just get complaints that it takes 45 days to get the game! A true no win situation...

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Tim Brooks
Shrapnel Games

Master Belisarius · #5 August 9th, 2000, 09:10 PM

Overseas:
I understand you perfectly, because I live in Uruguay (

), and you can be sure that in most of cases, your problem is bigger outside of Europe!
But the truth is that I am already accustomed, and to solve the problem, I was forced to purchase a mail box in Miami...

[This message has been edited by Master Belisarius (edited 09 August 2000).]

jars_u · #6 August 10th, 2000, 05:13 AM

Tim,

Mhhh, oh well never really thought about it like that. I suppose when the world is wired with cable and dsl lines that might ease the download/bandwith problems. As far as the piracy issues goes right now I think the entire industry is mostly on an "honor" system anyway - people that want to steal by burning a cd or otherwise making illegal copies are going to do it easily and any time they feel like it. I hate to see a return to the day of "decoder wheels" or other such annoying copy right protection devices but someone needs to invent something new. Even Sega's "home brew" format which takes out the ECC on CD's for dreamcast is no longer immunne... Guess my good forutne at living in the US of A got a little better today and saved me some cash 2. For everyone else I guess you will have to hope that Online sales are so outstanding that a retail Version will come out soon... I did my part

jars_u

Mike Tremblay · #7 August 13th, 2000, 10:22 AM

I have to agree with Overseas. I only live in Canada, and with the shipping costs that are tacked on, I am facing a 37% increase in the price of the game considering your flat rate of $13 for shipping to Canada. Now a flat rate of $19 for orders to Europe amounts to a greater than 50% increase in the price of the game. Surely something can be done to reduce this outrageous condition. I was definitly going to buy the game until I saw the total that I was going to have to pay (including your shipping charges). Now I will have to wait until either the shipping charges are reduced or you have more than one (or two) games that I want to order at the same time. I think you seriously have to look at your shipping charges if you consider including the profit potential of your overseas markets.

BTW Tim. I don't want to discourage the intent of Shrapnel Games in order to keep the Game out of the Retail market, but hopefully some sort of arrangement can be made to supply the (obviously) superior games of your company to overseas markets without compromising your stand while at the same time being fair to us - perhaps having overseas distributors for example.

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Mike Tremblay
"Bitter Mike"

[This message has been edited by Mike Tremblay (edited 13 August 2000).]