Darwinia reduced in price to £19.99

[m]

Also, if the market dictates that all game prices are £40, then that is what they will cost, but if more games were sold , rather than copied, then the overall price would (probably) drop.

Actually, by free market economics (about which I know squat btw) a publisher will charge as much as people will pay. So even in a world where games can be illegally downloaded for free, people must still be willing to pay £40 for a game. If prices came down, piracy would probably go down too, but I'm sure EA have spent some money researching these issues and I guess whatever approach they take is the right one.

[roblord]

Actually, by free market economics (about which I know squat btw) a publisher will charge as much as people will pay.

You might be right about that, I don't know very much about it either.

I suppose it probably falls into the market strategy, ie charge full price first, then reduce it, which is fair enough in my opinion.

It still doesn't excuse piracy though, as I'm sure you'll agree. None of us would like it if we didn't get paid for the work we did because people were stealing it without paying.

[m]

It still doesn't excuse piracy though, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Absolutely. I think the pricing structure is quite fair but then, I nearly always wait for the price to drop by £10 or £20 before I buy a game (darwinia was a gift).

[robm15]

Has the US postal service lost it? What is going on?? . . . I do wish it would hurry up and arrive.

Why cant the PC version be distributed for online download like Ambrosia does with the Mac version? That would make it a LOT less frustrating for those of us outside the UK!

I ordered Darwinia on the 14th of last month and still haven't received it. Coming up on that 28 days soon . . . An online download version would be great indeed.

I will buy the Windows version of Darwinia, but not until it is distributed online, excactly because of issues like this.

[elDiablo]

What did you do before download distribution then? Surely you haven't felt this way all the time?

I think posting is fine. I've never had a problem with it, and always (especially from Iv) got my stuff within a week or so.

Downloading is good, don't get me wrong, but post is still acceptable...

[robm15]

What did you do before download distribution then? Surely you haven't felt this way all the time?

That is a fair question, and honestly, I usually buy my games in stores. But Darwinia isn't sold in stores in the US.

I did seriously consider ordering Darwinia, and just wait (and hope) for the post office to deliver it. But considering the time it takes for a over seas package to make it here, I didn't want to do that. Besides, from other posts I have read, a new store front, and downloads should be available within in the month. If I have to wait up to 4 weeks, I'd rather have a more reliable download than trust the US Post Office.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

The US postal service is generally very good. I mean when you handle as much mail as they do accidents are bound to happen, but generally it is only a week maybe two at most for packages from IV to get to people in the US.

[ccampbell1]

I think you all have fair comments about posting and downloading.
In my experience though, letters and such do not normally take this long to go UK<->US. Although I currently live in the US, I am from the UK (ironic isnt it - if I was still in the UK I could just buy Darwinia in a store...[not to mention be able to watch the new doctor who series - but I digress]) and my family is still in the UK. We send letters and cards and such back and forth all the time by regular US and UK post, and it never takes this long. Usually less than a week. I am almost on 2 weeks waiting for Darwinia now. However, perhaps packages can take longer than letters in general - and maybe one of the reasons it is taking so long is that it has been stopped by US customs, and so may take time for them to assess it. (And then send me a nice bill for duty when it comes....) That may be why IV says to allow 28 days.

Regardless, it is still EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. If they are going to ship internationally, it would be nice to at least have the option of paying a little extra for delivery using Fedex or DHL or somesuch.

And why the Mac version can be made purchasable online but the Windows version cannot puzzles me too. However, I am sure there are reasons.

Anyway, I suppose I will just have to wait a little while longer. I am only halfway to my frustrating 28 days.....

[xander]

...And why the Mac version can be made purchasable online but the Windows version cannot puzzles me too. However, I am sure there are reasons...

Simple: the Mac version is being published by Ambrosia Software. They already have a system set up to sell software online. IV has no such system, and are working to build it. Also, you must remember that Mac users get no physical copy of the game, and none of the other extras that IV has promised to throw in.

xander

[martin]

OK, i've changed my mind. I said that IV had ripped off all the hardcore IV supporters who brought it quickly, actually I guess they had to.

As for consoles I'd hate to see IV go purely to consoles as (even though I 14 and the prime age to have a PS2 or XBOX) I really don't like consoles. Please release for PC too.

[Darksun]

I doubt IV will ever go purely console. It's just not bedroom coder-ish

[piratebob]

Wow stews, you must be one of the few USPS supporters. I don't know how it is in other countries but in the US the postal service is pretty much the whipping boy for anything and everything that can possibly go wrong in your life. It's nice to have someone to blame.

People have goggled at the 2-15% sales for pc games. while I agree that the number does seem extremely low that's still thousands of retail game sales. Fact: there are over 300 million people in the US even if only 5-10% of those people are buying games that's 15-30+ million people buying games. So what's 2% of 30 million? A hell of a lot that's what.

Now on to price. Since the days of the NES new games have always costed $50 on release and since those days I've never boughten a game until 3-6 months after release when the price often has dropped by half. The price of new games has stayed steady for 20 years how many things can you say that about. As for console v pc personally I like them both and own them both. There are some games for console that work well for that platform and I wouldn't play them on pc, soul reaver being one of my favs, there are also many games for pc that should definitely stay there. I can't think of a single games software publisher that puts out only for one platform, simply too big of a market.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

I do wonder at what is happening with the Darwinia orders, though. Mine took nearly a month to get to me. Everything else IV has shipped has been here in less than a week. People have always commented on how fast IVs shipping has been in the past (they were still using regular post) but for some reason Darwinia has had a lot of shipping issues. I sort of wonder if IV has changed something.

[LLamaBoy]

Could be the number of orders is what's causing the delay. Darwinia's had a hell of a lot more coverage than Uplink did, in a much shorter timespan. Even if they get 20 orders a day, it's still only Mark's dad (I think) that's handling the packing and shipping for each one. I may be wrong about this, but that's the last I heard about it.

[ccampbell1]

Well, my copy of Darwinia finally arrived on Friday so I'm as happy as a ... well, a happy person! In all maybe 18 days since I placed the order, so I cant complain too much given some of the other stories here from other people who ordered from the US.

I dont think the long shipping time is on the Introversion side - I got an email from them 2 days after ordering saying it had been shipped. That being the case, I dont know why it takes another 16 days to cross the atlantic and get to me in Chicago, but like I said earlier, maybe it got delayed at US customs or something.

Anyway, this game is so great that it is worth the wait. To be honest I have become bored with most recent games. Great graphics and all, sometimes even great stories and gameplay - but NO originality anymore. It's all been seen before.

Not so with Darwinia! This game just oozes class and originality. I will certainly be showing this game off to any of my friends who care about computer games. Not since waiting for my copy of Elite for my speccy have I been so jazzed about a game I hope IV get rich from this game, they deserve it!