20% Coupons suck

Quoting pacov,

I'd wager even SD believes they should have had a > expiration date. Keep in mind we were told this coupon would be released about 2+ weeks ago (see here https://forums.demigodthegame.com/354794). I don't understand the ins and outs... but there are really only 3 possibilites here. Either SD felt they would take a big financial hit by sending out a coupon and giving a decent expiration date so they chose a 3 day coupon, SD felt 3 days was a good length for the sale, or something got screwed up internally and we ended up with a 3 day coupon. I, frankly, think something got screwed up internally. The coupon was supposed to be out 2+ weeks ago. The coupon is the exact same code AND for unlimited usage. To us, it seems really simple to just have a coupon that expires after 2 weeks for 20%, but perhaps there are alot of factors behind the scenes that make it more complicated to issue a coupon. And, that's my thought... I do think a coupon was setup and good to go about 2-3 weeks ago though, but was delayed...

Of course I could be totally off base. Anyway, at least for me, I was able to use the coupon and got in on elemental at 20%. Sorry for those of you that couldn't get in on the deal. I completely agree that a coupon, that we were told by stardock would be out 2-3 weeks ago, should not have been dropped on us with a 3 day expiration date, 2-3 weeks after the promised date. Had I been out of town this past weekend, I'd be pretty freakin pissed...

I might be asking for alot, but is there any chance for a clear response from SD regarding this? Why the 3 day expiration? PM's are swell too...

least you got yours man. I beat that drum about as loud as you just in irc instead of the forums and i didn't even get a coupon. I'll be sending them an email later today but at this point it won't be for a coupon.

there are some valid complaints here, like not receiving a coupon despite having owned demigod for a while or not having a reasonable way of using the coupon

however, complaining about the actual value of the coupon is in poor taste, and the expiration date was pretty clear to me in my e-mail.

I would like an offical stardock comment on the length of the expiration and if it was intended because I'll be honest, I was gonna buy either Sins or Galactix Civ 2, but I did not realise the coupon expired after literally a day after getting it.

My only complaint would be the 15th's expiration. It wasnt clear that it actually expired on the 15th at 12:01 or whatever. They could have worded it a lot better.

Quoting taintofven,

reply 2

there are some valid complaints here, like not receiving a coupon despite having owned demigod for a while or not having a reasonable way of using the coupon

however, complaining about the actual value of the coupon is in poor taste, and the expiration date was pretty clear to me in my e-mail.

hehe... ah the internet... the only place where someone with an avatar of "my taint" comments on poor taste. Smile!

Quoting taintofven,

reply 2

there are some valid complaints here, like not receiving a coupon despite having owned demigod for a while or not having a reasonable way of using the coupon

however, complaining about the actual value of the coupon is in poor taste, and the expiration date was pretty clear to me in my e-mail.

I feel I have no reason to complain. I am just frustrated that I selected several games I wanted to buy but due to some weird error the purchase could not be processed. Now the coupon has expired and Stardock missed out on the sales.

As was said:

Quoting Colonel_Jessep,

reply 6

Well, I lose a 20% bonus but Stardock loses 100% of the money they could have made...

I don't have enough time to play all these games so I don't really miss out much. Stardock just missed an opportunity to make money. I might now purchase one of these games somewhere else.

There are 2 blunders here that I can see: 1) short duration of coupon, and 2) inaccurate details (expiration date).

These coupons are good for those who were already able and willing to buy a game from them, meaning that Stardock actually lost out on 20% revenue. Giving coupons to these people usually don't benefit the company monetarily, except making a loyal customer base happier than they already are.

The more usualy point of a coupon (for those that don't understand marketing) is to create interest in a brand. You "lure" customers to your store/website by offering a discount. It's usually for customers who normally would not have bought anything, but now will actually buy. It is in those circumstances that coupons are beneficial, both in terms of revenue and new customer interest. A short expiration date is good for the first group, but are bad for the latter group (most will likely not buy anything at all, until maybe the next promo).

On another subject, the generally accepted standard is when it says, "Expires: June 15, 2009", it means that for the entire day of June 15, 2009, it is still usable. Every coupon I've ever seen operates on this standard, and more often than I should, I've used coupons on the "expires" date. They've always been valid. For example, if you credit card says, "Expires: 04/09", it's usually AT LEAST on the first day of April, depending on company policy. It doesn't mean it expires by the end of March 31.

Both of these things make me, as a typical customer, think that Stardock doesn't really care for my money, as someone stated already.

Quoting Mazuo,

reply 5

Yeah, I don't understand the rage

The "rage" has everything to do with the rather limited method of distribution. How come only 3 days? What time zone was that expiration date based on? Why couldn't the coupon still be used after a first failed attempt? Some players didn't even got the coupon?

For those of you that were able to use it, for those that didn't care about the promotion, this is nothing. But please, try to understand those that actually wanted to use the coupon but couldn't do it. Given the circumstance, it's hard to ignore a number of discrepancies that comes with this promotion, which seems very unlike Stardock.

For those of us raging, QQing, ranting about it, this was an opportunity lost in the worst possible way. I still don't know if I lost the coupon due to the time limit or because of a technical glitch. A discount in any shape or form is money that can be saved. I value the amount that comes out of my wallet. How about you?

As the coupon mentioned, there will be others.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 9

As the coupon mentioned, there will be others.

Hi Frogboy. Your direct input is greatly appreciated as always. I'm sure that you're not immune to the headache that Demigod is still causing and it is unfortunate that this situation happened the way it did, and the somewhat frustrated tone from me and others in the same circumstance.

When you say that there will be others, I hope that the problems indicated will be addressed. How about for those coupons lost due to a technical glitch?

Thanks again for your willingness to communicate with your costumers.

I'm not aware of any significant issues with Demigod at this point. The most recent connectivity update has pretty much, in my view, made it bullet proof.

As for coupons lost, in 99% of cases the coupons weren't lost but rather got filtered out via spam filters and such.

The difficulty in putting out such broad ranged coupons (20% off EVERYTHING) is that it requires the buy in of a LOT of third parties for obvious reasons so we're somewhat limited in how long we can offer a coupon.

What we can do is continue to occasionally keep sending coupons to active Demigod players with a warning that they're going out so that people know they're coming. But no system is going to be 100%. All we can do is try our best to get them to you.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 11

I'm not aware of any significant issues with Demigod at this point. The most recent connectivity update has pretty much, in my view, made it bullet proof.

I was referring to the overall problems that triggered the can't-please-all offer of very limited coupons. For people like me that were unlucky to see this on time (or due to technical glitches), this brought up feelings of dismay and frustration.

As for coupons lost, in 99% of cases the coupons weren't lost but rather got filtered out via spam filters and such.

The difficulty in putting out such broad ranged coupons (20% off EVERYTHING) is that it requires the buy in of a LOT of third parties for obvious reasons so we're somewhat limited in how long we can offer a coupon.

In my view, as a customer, there could be a possibility of a second-chance reissuing of those coupons for people that lost them due to technical reasons and proven as such. It seems that the chances of that are slim though. That is unfortunate, but your candor is appreciated.

What we can do is continue to occasionally keep sending coupons to active Demigod players with a warning that they're going out so that people know they're coming. But no system is going to be 100%. All we can do is try our best to get them to you.

I won't expect to be getting more coupons since I won't be playing Demigod that much. It's not really my game and there's also latency issues and available time to consider. I initally bought Demigod as a way to support Stardock, which was right in the middle of a maelstrom at that time. I kind of viewed the discount as a form of one time only quid pro quo...

Cheers.

Hey - frogboy. I've seen huge improvements. Honestly, I felt like something SHOULD HAVE be done when the 50% off coupon went out. But everything else has been gravy. My only complaint is that if a coupon is said to be offered during X week, that it will be. The 20% off coupon went out late (promised what - 2 weeks ago?) which, of course, leads me to believe that any promise I hear should be taken with a grain of salt. From your posts, I believe that 1.1 will be out this month, but I assume it will come out a few weeks after. Paying customers assuming you won't back up your word is bad news. Better not to give your word in the first place. If the next promise is accurate or close to accurate, I probably won't be thinking SD if full of crap in the future... everybody forgives a 1 time mistep.

frog on a side not do u have any new info about the 2 new demis

ohh and could u make the next coupon arround 3 weeks so people have plenty of time to get buying

All we can do is try our best to get them to you.

And then make sure that we can actually use them when we try on time?

I always get a bit giddy when buying stuff, so then seeing the "An error has occured processing your personal details" seven times in a row was a bit of a let-down.

well u know that it is pissing people off when someone below 1000000 starts moaning about it

try to understand those that actually wanted to use the coupon but couldn't do it.

You mean like...me? I already explained that I wasn't satisfied with trying to order on Monday and being told it had expired. I was just saying I don't empathize with those trying to make a federal case about this. Could SD do these coupon/promotions better? Yes, and they should. Did they do something horribly wrong by giving us a limited discount? No.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 11

I'm not aware of any significant issues with Demigod at this point. The most recent connectivity update has pretty much, in my view, made it bullet proof.

As for coupons lost, in 99% of cases the coupons weren't lost but rather got filtered out via spam filters and such.

The difficulty in putting out such broad ranged coupons (20% off EVERYTHING) is that it requires the buy in of a LOT of third parties for obvious reasons so we're somewhat limited in how long we can offer a coupon.

What we can do is continue to occasionally keep sending coupons to active Demigod players with a warning that they're going out so that people know they're coming. But no system is going to be 100%. All we can do is try our best to get them to you.

Can you please put a time stamp on coupon next time so I know to order before the date not on the date. Even though I got back from vacation and tried as soon as I could on the expiration date it was a no go so please add time to coupon for all so we avoid this in future.

We send out the emails to every user who has Demigod in our database. We cannot control what ISPs or end users mail programs do with that email.

Hey - frogboy. I've seen huge improvements. Honestly, I felt like something SHOULD HAVE be done when the 50% off coupon went out. But everything else has been gravy. My only complaint is that if a coupon is said to be offered during X week, that it will be. The 20% off coupon went out late (promised what - 2 weeks ago?) which, of course, leads me to believe that any promise I hear should be taken with a grain of salt. From your posts, I believe that 1.1 will be out this month, but I assume it will come out a few weeks after. Paying customers assuming you won't back up your word is bad news. Better not to give your word in the first place. If the next promise is accurate or close to accurate, I probably won't be thinking SD if full of crap in the future... everybody forgives a 1 time mistep.

It's never a good idea to take "We expect X to happen" to be the same as a promise.

If you look at what I write, I almost always qualify what I say with "We plan" or "We expect".

The coupon came out a week or so after we had expected primarily because we had to get the approval of a lot of people in order to do such a far reaching coupon.

I don't consider me telling people what we're planning to be "giving my word". If that ever became a widespread impression then the answer would be for me to not communicate with people.

Often time, my job is much like a herder of cats.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 11

I'm not aware of any significant issues with Demigod at this point. The most recent connectivity update has pretty much, in my view, made it bullet proof.

As for coupons lost, in 99% of cases the coupons weren't lost but rather got filtered out via spam filters and such.

The difficulty in putting out such broad ranged coupons (20% off EVERYTHING) is that it requires the buy in of a LOT of third parties for obvious reasons so we're somewhat limited in how long we can offer a coupon.

What we can do is continue to occasionally keep sending coupons to active Demigod players with a warning that they're going out so that people know they're coming. But no system is going to be 100%. All we can do is try our best to get them to you.

Hi Frogboy, thanks for posting. Anyways, severely time-limited coupons are perfectly fine, as many companies do weekend sales, etc. I'm not too concerned about that one.

What I am actually upset with is the fact that the expiration date was incorrect. If it had been more accurate, I could have arranged my schedule differently so I could have time to browse through reviews and stuff so I can decide what I wanted to buy (something which I had planned to do Monday so I could buy the game, but alas can no longer). I don't have a list of games I'm JUST WAITING to buy. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that is my voice on the issue. But the whole expiration date issue HAD to be Stardock, there's no way that had anything to do with any third-parties.

I love Stardock, I want it to succeed, it's just disappointing when something like this occurs. Yes, there may be more, but here was an opportunity missed. How many "there-will-be-more"s before I get fed up and delete your mailings as junk?

Here's your birthday present.

Um, I can't use it.

Don't worry, there's one next time! <-- See, that's just weird...

Help me help you!

Quoting Istari,

reply 19

<snip> We cannot control what ISPs or end users mail programs do with that email.

Tss... well there goes my whole belief system!

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 20

<snip>
I don't consider me telling people what we're planning to be "giving my word". If that ever became a widespread impression then the answer would be for me to not communicate with people.

Often time, my job is much like a herder of cats. <snip>

Hear, hear! Talking to a bunch of s is not a very thankful job but I can safely speak for most of 'us' that we really do appreciate your communications. For me personally it is one of the many things that makes Stardock stand out from other big Game companies.

You have to see the humour in this tho: You give something away, and people get pissed off as a result . That's human nature for you.

I probably stated this before; I only wanted to buy these games with the discount to support the developers and Stardock, I'm not really waiting for a game to play (still have SoaSE, GalcivII and SotS sitting idle.). I feel mostly sorry for SaintXi who missed out of my money because of the technical issue that stopped me from making the purchase; I doubt Stardock will lose too much sleep about the little money that I was trying to put into Elemental.

Let's all just lighten up and move on. I've seen much worse situations from other companies (taking your money and not actually giving you anything in return).

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.