There are a lot of angry customers of Gearbox' Borderlands game, because of dishonest (or at least staggeringly incompetent) digital distribution outlets. I'd like to see at least one of the major gaming news outlets make them sweat over this issue. They do this stuff all the time, and no one holds them accountable.
Not to be overly butthurt about borderlands, but these are just examples of the bullshit they get away with:
1) D2D said borderlands was "avialalbe now" last thursday. It turns out, they meant the *preorder* was available now, but you don't find out about that until after you've paid. The button on their front page didn't say "preorder" like it usually does, it said "DOWNLOAD". OK i got over that bit of butthurt. I was going to buy it anyway, and it wasn't going to be availabe thursday even if D2D hadn't lied.
2) Yesterday, D2D had a countdown timer to the official midnight release time, at which time retailers would begin selling the physical copies. I talked myslf out of canceling the preorder, since it was just a few more hours... Turns out that on a separate page on the website, D2D mentioned that the game would be unlocked at 1pm PST, not midnight. Why have a countdown timer to midnight then?
3) Steam told all their preorders that the game would be unlocked on 10/26 at 1pm. At noon on 10/26 (meaning, just over an hour ago), everyone in Europe and Australia got notified that they wouldn't get the game until 10/30. Again, these are people who preordered believing that they would be playing the game today.
Sure, no one actually lost anything or was materially damaged. EU players weren't going to get to play today, even if Steam hadnt misled them. I wouldn't be playing borderlands before 3pm today, even if D2D hadn't lied to me, twice, to make me think I'd get it sooner. But its precisely because people find it easy to dismiss as pure whinage that D2D and steam continue to get away with this stuff.
Someone, in the next interview or feature on steam or D2D, needs to mention this publicly and get it out in the open.
Not to be overly butthurt about borderlands, but these are just examples of the bullshit they get away with:
1) D2D said borderlands was "avialalbe now" last thursday. It turns out, they meant the *preorder* was available now, but you don't find out about that until after you've paid. The button on their front page didn't say "preorder" like it usually does, it said "DOWNLOAD". OK i got over that bit of butthurt. I was going to buy it anyway, and it wasn't going to be availabe thursday even if D2D hadn't lied.
2) Yesterday, D2D had a countdown timer to the official midnight release time, at which time retailers would begin selling the physical copies. I talked myslf out of canceling the preorder, since it was just a few more hours... Turns out that on a separate page on the website, D2D mentioned that the game would be unlocked at 1pm PST, not midnight. Why have a countdown timer to midnight then?
3) Steam told all their preorders that the game would be unlocked on 10/26 at 1pm. At noon on 10/26 (meaning, just over an hour ago), everyone in Europe and Australia got notified that they wouldn't get the game until 10/30. Again, these are people who preordered believing that they would be playing the game today.
Sure, no one actually lost anything or was materially damaged. EU players weren't going to get to play today, even if Steam hadnt misled them. I wouldn't be playing borderlands before 3pm today, even if D2D hadn't lied to me, twice, to make me think I'd get it sooner. But its precisely because people find it easy to dismiss as pure whinage that D2D and steam continue to get away with this stuff.
Someone, in the next interview or feature on steam or D2D, needs to mention this publicly and get it out in the open.
