Thanks all!!!  

I guess you don't understand what a TON of other companies do, and READ what it says; limited time offer. A pre-order traditionally is just to make sure you get the game. Like say you didn't pre order WoW : WotLK CE guess what you don't get it. I'm really sick of fanboy answers, in all honestly it wasn't presented properly.

DO NOT CLOSE THREAD

Closing a thread where critical opinions against the forum's owners are expressed would have all the appearances of intolerance & censorship.

It is in StarDock's interest that those negative opinions are freely & fully expressed, so that SD can measure the length, width & depth of the problem.

My family has been regularly beta-testing & buying stuff from SD for the past 8 years : we have no complaint whatsoever ... but one cannot generalize, by induction, from a particular case.

I've read each & every post on this thread, and it enlightens me to read about perceptions & interpretations that are contrary to my family's cheerful position.

Closing a thread because it has become too negative (according to those who are too positive!) is a clumsy manner of crushing dissent.

Those of you who feel that the thread has become boring, useless, sterile, repetitive ... well, of course :

You're free not to visit it anymore.   [to mimick Annatar!]

P.S. > I somewhat agree with verspunken (see his reply #73).

A "contract" does not always legally come in the form of a paper document to be signed with ink by at least 2 parties. You can have a verbal contract, and also, how StarDock presents its pre-order-plus-beta-participation package is a contractual offer, to which the customers in effect agrees when he pays by credit card. But ... in American Law, there is the notion of "meeting of the minds" : for a contract to have legal value, it must have been entered into by a mutual awareness, in all parties, of its terms & conditions -- and on that fundamental point, the critics, on this thread, might have a legal leg to stand on, if they can show that the info (about the terms & conditions) was not sufficiently & explicitly presented. (V*d** Pr*f*ss*r, anyone ?!)

My sources concerning American contractual law are : Judge Joe Brown, Judge Mathis, Judge Milian, Judge Lopez, and of course, Judge Judy.

*Rushes in panting, out of breath*

As per usual, I am late to the party. 

Everytime SD does a Beta release, there is at least one thread like this.  I think that some of us ("Us" being both the customer base and the SD staff) take for granted that we know how this works after a few times through the dance.   For any one that's been around a little while, we plunk down our cash ahead of time, not to reserve a compy of the software, but to help them with their dev costs and get in to the closed beta.  Yes, it's different that the norm, but it's how it's done here.

If you pay attention to the forums before the pre-order starts, Brad and the others make it pretty darn clear how the Beta's gonna work.  It works the same way for every game they make that we can preoder.  Always has, and probably always will. 

And every time, there's a couple of people that feel like they got burned.

It's getting to the point that I think SD needs to put a big flashing banner on the preorder that says, "Hey, buddy!  We've warned you - there's no turning back if you click!"

Yeah, it sucks that you feel that you were taken advantage of...but if you'd paid attention around here before you ordered, you would have seen what you were getting.  I know that before the Beta went out, there were a very good number of threads titled things like, "When does the Beta start" etc, and most of them had warnings from Brad as to how the pre-order/beta works.

I know it's hard to trust game companies, but that's what you need to do with SD.  You pre-order, and in response, StarDock promises you a game some time down the line.  I've never known them to cancel a game that I've paid to pre-order.  Sure, I'm taking it on faith that the finished product is going to be something I like - but in the mean time, I am rewarded for my faith by being allowed to play the game as it's being made, make suggestions and ultimetly make it my own.  For example, there were conversations that I was involved in with SoaSE that eventually made it in to the game.  To me, that's just down-right cool.

I know, this post rambled all over the place, but I wanted to put my 2¢ in.

@Weidbrewer: The problem is it does not say anywhere on the site as you are purchasing your pre-order that you cannot cancel the pre-order for a refund. If it had, then this would not be such a problem. Posting it on the forum only helps people that read the forum post before pre-ordering.

Case and point this was not clearly stated and as a new customer I'm very disappointed. Yes, I downloaded the beta, played it for a day or so, posted the most bugs then stopped. But the whole point to this thread is Stardock did NOT make it clear that you could not cancel pre order because the product you bought was beta software. Also you say if you read through the other forums you would find this out, I shouldn't have to search through thousands of posts to find out about a companies unique stance on somthing like this. As a new customer, this isn't as obvious as many people seem to think. Yes, I understand people who have been with SD for awhile already knew all of these rules, but I did not.

No, a lot of you are being rude and ignorant in this thread. No I don't need a banner, but you should have it known. Sorry, but the beta shouldn't cost me 25% on $60.00. Sorry, but if you do things a lot different than other companies just let us know. And it's not logical thinking.

Thanks for the official word on this. Your policy sounds perfectly reasonable.

I think a real-world physical analogy is in order...

The T-Mobile G-1 (dream) phone is due to come out on the 22nd. 1.5 million people pre-ordererd one.

What does this mean?

1) They will get the phone shipped to them.

2) They are NOT garanteed that the phone will be shipped early, nor are they garanteed that it will be released on the 22nd. They are just garanteed to get the phone before other online orders do.

3) If they don't like the phone because they tried it out at a friend's house, then it will not get their refunt except where permitted. If the phone does not work in their area with 3G service, they might get a refund.

The same applies here.

1) You pre-order the game. Therefore you are garanteed to get a copy when it is shipped (if you ordered the CD, digital... duh)

2) You are GARANTEED to get the game. If not then stardock will refund you. OR they will have to pay a hefty ammount: The pre-order price plus your legal expenses to sue them. After all you pre-ordered a product that you expect to be given to you. You bought an item that will exist. If the item will not exist then your transaction was void. You did NOT buy a promise, you bought an item.

3) As an added perk and incentive to help fund some development by pre-ordering you get the following:

- Access to BETA. You are bored, and you like demigod, its a perfect match.

- Ability to shape the game, you give feedback which at this stage gets read and seriously considered. If you don't like something NOW it may very well be changed to your liking before it is released. This is not true with post-release feedback. Post-release is usually balancing, some tweaks, but generally the game mechanics are set in stone.

4) Unfortunately this also means you get the game before any reviews are written (at this point there is no point in reviews)

Now if you were unclear about why you pre-ordered then it is a mistake on your part to blindly pre-order something when you are not even confident that you will ever like it. If there is a technical challenge: "My game won't start, and stardock is not addressing it at all, thus negating any benefit of me pre-ordering" then make your case to their support.

In any case, I hope I get into Beta 2 to see this game soon. If I don't like it I'll give my license to a friend who would.

At this point keep my money, I don't even care anymore, no one is handling this correctly. As for someone who has worked in customer service for a long time, yours is poor. Your stance was unclear and not shown to others correctly. I've uninstalled Impulse and just gave up. This has been obscene and taken too long. To leave a bad taste in people's mouths for just 25% is sad. I love RTS and hoped SD was going to show a bright future, now I'll never bother with them again.

I think everything that can be said on the topic has been said.

The Demigod beta is not a demo or a shareware program. 

A person who pre-orders the game gains access to the beta. A user who pre-orders can cancel their order at any time for a full refund prior to actually getting the game.

Someone who pre-orders the game, installs Impulse, downloads the game, installs the game, plays the game is certainly not just a person who pre-ordered the game. They are trying out the game in beta form. A beta that has been explicitly and intentionally made not very fun in order to focus players on testing the components and not playing for fun.

We apologize to those who don't feel that the policy is "clear enough", we have been running pre-order betas just like this for 15 years now and in that time, only a handful of users have ever had difficulty understanding the difference between pre-ordering a game and downloading/installing/playing the beta and then later wanting a refund because they didn't like the beta.  

Thread closed.