Going all in on cdrom

[FUDU]

Does the CD ROM game have an ATG version or disk?

Or do you have to play each season etc?

[PJ Axelsson]

That's what I thought. Typical crappy customer service, and don't forget, this is the new face of the online game...



I gotta say I'm hesitant to buy the thing just out of principle now.

:?

[PJ Axelsson]

Would an external floppy drive work around the old team disk problem? They're pretty cheap, like $15. I'd buy one if that would save my old team disks.

[PJ Axelsson]

dang...just installed the new game and am about to play a nice little Yankees-Red Sox "friendly"...

:D

[Valen]

No, an external floppy disk will not help. I have a floppy drive in my system.
The floppies had the copy protection DRM on the disk. The current cdrom game uses an online protection system. All seasons are on the cdrom with the game you purchase. For each season you purchase a registration code is provided on a little card. You then log in to a website and enter that code which then makes the season available to you.

That is a large part of what irritates me about their decision not to honor the seasons we have currently in our posession. It costs them almost nothing to provide the season and honor your prior purchase. Their cost is the expense of printing a little card. And even that could be avoided by emailing you an authorization code.

This is what I really hate about DRM. Companies can invalidate your purchase and take back what you have purchased at any time they please. And strat-o-matic has chosen to use it to cheat their customers. I have decided not to make any additional purchases ever because they could do this again any time they want. You could pay a couple thousand to completely replace your collection now and 5 years from now have to do it again.

[Valen]

[quote:0029dbe563]Does the CD ROM game have an ATG version or disk? [/quote:0029dbe563]

Does the CD ROM game have an ATG version or disk?
There is nothing you can buy that corresponds to the ATG version.
You could buy the entire collection of seasons which is what I planned before I found out they were going to cheat me out of my previously purchased seasons.

If you purchased all seasons you could create a league and import the various players in to your league. But even then you could not fully mirror ATG because in many cases different cards were provided to TSN than are on the cdrom game. This is probably particularly true of the fantasim cards.

[PJ Axelsson]

I got this reply from Strat Tech Support:

[quote:151a140d28]We stopped making floppy disk products around 2004, at that time we did begin a disk exchange program but that program has closed after going for almost 7 years. We sent out emails and had postings on our website for most of 2010 regarding the end of floppy disk support and exchanges at the end of 2010.

The disk exchange program ended on 12/31/10 so at this time we are not supporting or exchanging any older floppy disk products so there is unfortunately no way to make those older floppy products work with version 16 or higher.

SOM[/quote:151a140d28]

Beyond the "you missed the boat, why weren't you paying attention" tone of the reply, what bugs me is that I live over here, and as far as I can tell they made no announcement here. There are how many stratoholics here, some of whom could have benefited from the info and many many other "potential" customers.

I replied to tech support (yes I know, the wrong ear but it's all I got) that they should open a window during the migration to allow floppy transfers again. Wouldn't this be a good customer service thing to do, as well as potentially generating new business?

Oh well, the CD game is super cool! :D

[Valen]

I got that same reply. Basically they are saying tough luck sucker. Because you took a break from buying an upgrade every year you do not matter to us.

Great customer service and excellent way to get customers who you obviously lost for some reason for an extended period of time to return and start buying from you again. This is like an electronics store saying because you have not bought anything from us for a couple years we are going to reposess the last stereo you bought from us. Wanna come in and buy a new one? :lol:

[doug_tucker10]

I can't remember where but it was posted somewhere online about exchanging the floppy disks for the key card to the same season(s). I brought in about 10 floppy's and got some kind of discount for each towards the same season(s) key card. Right now i'm having silly issue with CD rom game. I can't get the font back to 12 from 16. Enlarging the font size caused bottom of menu under Options "miscellaneous" to be cut off so now i can't ok the changes. I've emailed SOM tech support. They didn't give me a good answer on my last question about old seasons being rendered obsolete by game upgrades, had to give it a shot even tho my expectations with current question are low.

I just checked and now i can't even click on game setup to ok my lineup to play a game because bottom of that menu is cut off as well from the font enlargement.

[Valen]

Having it posted on your site is rather meaningless if people do not frequent that site. Those people who for whatever reason were not buying upgrades every year had what reason for visiting the site? Can you imagine if your TV quit working and you could no longer watch it because you had not visited the Sony website in the last 3 years?

Principle is really simple. Do the right thing and do not invalidate what people have previously purchased. If the original purchase had been advertised as a rental or lease that would expire in 5 years I would not be upset. But there was no such marketing at that time. And the only reason they can get by with cheating their customer as they have is the copy protection digital right management built in to those disks and that which is currently used by the cdrom. And that means anyone buying now is subject to their whims or policies in the future that could invalidate what we buy today. That is why I will never purchase anything else unless it is DRM free.