Gamestop shipping Armada already!

[Sti]

Sorry if I came off as too harsh (not a native speaker). I sure can understand the problems you have with this. It just sounds a little weird. I'll shut up for now. [:)]

[wilddemoncat]

I must admit if i'd lived near gamestop or in area they deliver too i'd have bought it already....

[Epsilon]

Before the weekend you were waiting on word as well Erik, did that ever come? If it didn't, theres not much hope of you receiving word today either. Which makes it all a bit pointless in my humble opinion.

[Flaviusx]

Erik, must say that you are showing far more concern for the needs of your business partner than thay are of yours. You may want to reconsider this partnership for the future, as the benefits of the relationship appear to be all on one side.
 
 

[Erik Rutins]

Well, we just heard back. Retail has not yet reached enough stores for them to consider it widely available, so we are sticking with the planned release date tomorrow (November 24th). We will set this live in our online store as soon as we get into the office tomorrow morning. Sorry for the extra wait, thanks for your patience.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Erik, must say that you are showing far more concern for the needs of your business partner than thay are of yours. You may want to reconsider this partnership for the future, as the benefits of the relationship appear to be all on one side.

That is the nature of retail and PC games these days, unfortunately, and that's why we rarely send releases to retail any longer. In some cases, it makes sense for the game though and in this case it did.

[wilddemoncat]

Sigh, and what time is the gmt.

[Flaviusx]

Incredible.
 
Can we expect this to happen in future releases?
 
The definition of "wide availability" in this instance is so elastic that the retail side can do pretty much whatever it wants here and Matrix is left holding the bag. Meanwhile, you've already lost many potential customers. I've been holding off purchasing myself solely due to my desire to help out the actual developers of the game, and nothing else.
 
This isn't a happy partnership, in my estimation.  

[csebal]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Well, we just heard back. Retail has not yet reached enough stores for them to consider it widely available, so we are sticking with the planned release date tomorrow (November 24th). We will set this live in our online store as soon as we get into the office tomorrow morning. Sorry for the extra wait, thanks for your patience.

Regards,

- Erik

I guess worst case scenario was a little optimistic then, eh?

Why do people value brick and mortar stores so much anyway? Seriously.. its been like some 5 years i set my foot in a gaming store the last time, and it was for something you couldnt get elsewhere at that time, namely wow. Before that, and ever since then, i pick digital downloads whenever i can, and order my stuff from the internet.

[Epsilon]

Yeah I don't much like being treated as a second rate customer either, just because I favor the digital downloads and am unwilling to support the big retail chains.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Can we expect this to happen in future releases?

If they are retail + download releases, then I can't promise this won't happen again. For our normal releases, which do not involve retail, nothing like this happens. If not for the decision to involve retail in this release, we would have had this out to you all much earlier.

There is no question that dealing with retail right now for a PC Game publisher is not an entirely pleasant experience and falls somewhere between blackmail and extortion (I exaggerate, but only a bit). That's just the way it is, but for some games and some releases, retail still makes sense. I wish retail were still as it was in the 80s/90s or even the early 00s, but it's not.

On the positive side, at this point we're talking less than another day to wait and we communicated from the beginning that the planned release date was the 24th. I was hopeful that we could get an exception to push that earlier when copies started showing up in retail stores, but that was not to be.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: csebal
I guess worst case scenario was a little optimistic then, eh?

Yes, I was apparently too clever for my own good there in thinking that I could use the "it's the 24th in some part of the world" as a bargaining tool. That didn't fly.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: wilddemoncat
Sigh, and what time is the gmt.

We're in Eastern US time here, Digital River is in Central US time. What I expect is that it will start going live around 9AM US Central time. I believe it should be fully live by around 10AM US Central time, unless we run into any unexpected issues, but at this point it's at the "flip the switch" stage, so I don't expect any problems.

Regards,

- Erik

[wilddemoncat]

so what - 6gmt, so up by 4pm [:(]

[Tom_Holsinger]

Erik, could you make it possible for us to make our purchases today, but start our downloads tomorrow?  That extra Central Time hour from 0900 to 1000 could be a problem for those of us on Pacific Time.  I'm generally out the door by 0730 Pacific Time, which is 0930 Central.

[bssybeep]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Well, we just heard back. Retail has not yet reached enough stores for them to consider it widely available, so we are sticking with the planned release date tomorrow (November 24th). We will set this live in our online store as soon as we get into the office tomorrow morning. Sorry for the extra wait, thanks for your patience.

Regards,

- Erik

I was hoping for a release today as well. But I noticed the Gamestop page for Armada now shows not available online. Oh well, one more day.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger
Erik, could you make it possible for us to make our purchases today, but start our downloads tomorrow?  That extra Central Time hour from 0900 to 1000 could be a problem for those of us on Pacific Time.  I'm generally out the door by 0730 Pacific Time, which is 0930 Central.

Sorry Tom, but our store doesn't support pre-orders. I would have turned them on last week if it did.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger

Erik, could you make it possible for us to make our purchases today, but start our downloads tomorrow?  That extra Central Time hour from 0900 to 1000 could be a problem for those of us on Pacific Time.  I'm generally out the door by 0730 Pacific Time, which is 0930 Central.

Oh come on, it's a GAME. Grow up.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Terminus
Oh come on, it's a GAME. Grow up.

There's no need for that - if I were sitting where you all are sitting, I would also be asking us to hurry up. Anticipation and excitement are expected and we want to get this to you all as early as we possibly can, which means first thing tomorrow morning.

[Terminus]

Okay, I was over the line. Sorry.