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CMSF:UK preorder question


Scipio

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May I ask if there will be only the usual "Download+Hardcopy for 10$ less" option as usual? I would prefer a simple download-only preorder.

Reason is that I would like to preorder, but don't want to waste money for the shipment of the hardcopy, since the hardcopy ain't important for me. A small discount of 3-5$ would surely be nice anyway :D.

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Why would you want to pre-order a download? You won't be able to download sooner than others. And giving people a discount for pre-ordering doesn't make sense from a business point of view either - the early pre-order customers are the most likely to purchase and/or spend more money on the product. They're hardcore customers by definition. Giving a discount makes no sense.

The pre-order deal we offer on the other hand helps both parties involved: you get a discount on a nice printed product you can put on your shelf and keep forever. We increase the percentage of hardgoods sold, reducing our cost of production considerably (and making forecasting easier and therefore reducing upfront investments). Win-win. Pre-ordering downloads on the other hand gives you less $avings than most people will care about while costing us a decent chunk of revenue.

The only alternative to the pre-orders we're doing really is not offering pre-orders at all. We're going to do a trial on that soon enough with another game. Don't tell anybody though :)

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Why would you want to pre-order a download? ...
I thought that's obvious. Because I will get a nice email that tell's me that I can now download the new game as soon as it's released. At least this was the case in the past, IIRC. Or am I wrong? :confused:

Taking your logic, I can also ask: why preorder at all? I can't download earlier than others, and the hardcopy is shipped not until some weeks after the release anyway. :P

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Yes, you get a little advance notice. What usually happens though is that people can't keep their mouths shut on the forums ;) and you know that the game has been released the same instant as pre-order customer.

So to answer your question, Scipio: Pre-ordering ONLY to get a head start is a weak reason to pre-order if you ask me. The deal is more interesting with the hardgoods part because you get that without the extra $10 when you pre-order. The advance notice is only a little bonus on top of it.

As I said, the main reason from our end however is that it allows us to better plan hardgoods production. A lot of effort and money goes into providing printed manuals etc. and without this aid it may be not viable at all. You save more money AND get nice printed goods, while we can produce more economically.

If you don't want hardgoods, simply don't pre-order. Nobody is forced to pre-order. The deal is mainly aimed at the people who are sure that they want the game and who value the extra printed materials and/or backup CD (keep in mind, downloads expire after 365 days, and since our new store launched Oct 1, 2007 we're now getting the first customers that are hit by that time limit and wish that they had ordered the hardgoods option... we do still make exceptions for them at this point, but not much longer).

Martin

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