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Funcom marketing Scam
Reanim
Member Posts: 103
I purchased AOC weeks ago on a preorder from gamer.com. Today I find that funcom is not going to honor my early access key. And I will not be able to get early access. They cite there was limited availabily but they continued to give keys to retailers.
Below is my purchase of a Early Access Key ( Not a pre order key ) and the official statement from gogamer. Buyer beware funcom is not an ethical company.
Dear GoGamer.com Customer,
Thank you for pre-ordering the Age of Conan™ from GoGamer.com.
As a pre-order customer, you will have the chance to experience the glory of Age of Conan™ combat before the rest world. All you need to do is redeem your Early Access code found in this email and pay FunCom $5 to begin playing. See official comments from Eidos below.
From Eidos: Go to http://register.ageofconan.com and enter your key. You may begin downloading the game client software and installing as early as May 14. Then you may create a character and begin playing on May 17, 3 days before commercial release on May 20, 2008. Your character and all his/her progress will be preserved into commercial release. Note: There is a nominal fee of $5 that covers the cost of the download and includes 10 days of additional game time. Some restrictions apply, see registration page for details.
EARLY ACCESS CODE: xxxxxxxxxx
If you have any questions regarding activation or how to sign up for the Age of Conan Pre-Order Early Access Program I highly recommend visiting the official Age of Conan internet forum http://forums.ageofconan.com/ or official website www.ageofconan.com for more information.
Thank you very much for shopping with GoGamer.com and we appreciate your sticking by GoGamer during this most interesting MMO launch. We hope you enjoy Age of Conan!
Sincerely,
Jason Williams
Marketing Director
GoGamer.com
Hello Everyone,
Just a quick official word from GoGamer.com.
First, we had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that FunCom had a limited number of Early Access spaces available. Please believe me when I say this comes as a COMPLETE SURPRISE to us and we apologize to every one of our customers that has not yet registered for the Early Access program simply because they were waiting for the 14th or the 17th to arrive. Had we known that space was limited we would have notified our customers and posted it on our website immediately. Matter of fact, when we asked for more keys Eidos gladly sent us more keys. Had space been limited my guess is they would not have given us more keys nor would I have asked for more! My hope is they will turn the early access back on so all of our Pre-Order customers will have the opportunity to play early.
I personally just found out about this this morning when customers began emailing me. So, I apologize for any confusion on our end and again this is a complete surprise to me and my guess is all the retailers.
As a courtesy, regardless of what Eidos does now, we will continue to send out what Early Access keys we have left to our pre-order cusotmers with the hope they will open EA back up. Also, it appears that at least some of our keys will give the Rhino when entered. I cannot say this for sure, but I will continue to send out the keys just in case it will give you the Rhino.
Again, we apologize for any confusion and dissappointment this new development causes out customer, but please be aware this is news to us and it is a dissappointment to GoGamer.com. We wish would have been properly informed.
Jason Williams
Marketing Director
GoGamer.com
Comments
What everyone neglects to read is: $5 is for 10 days play time, AND Early Access, and Early Access Download. 30/3 = 10. 15/3 = 5. People are morons and gave the Early Access download link to everyone, even the non early access and griefers that wants to spit on AoC. This is not Funcoms fault... It is the communities.
Stop making threads about it now.
Oh and if anyone bothered to read AoC Announcements they said that the Early Access was LIMITED.
That key is for your in game item, it also gives you the CHANCE to get early access. It isn't promised and never was,
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3968/aoccardob5.jpg
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
If you bothered to actually read the post you would see I purchased an early access Key. Not a preorder key. Gogamer requested Early access Keys. Eidos/funcom sent them Early access keys.
Mismarketing fine Print Scam
If you bothered to actually read the post you would see I purchased an early access Key. Not a preorder key. Gogamer requested Early access Keys. Eidos/funcom sent them Early access keys.
Mismarketing fine Print Scam
Then you got shafted by gogamer.com not Funcom, those keys are all pre-order keys, there is no such thing as an early access key. The pre-order key gives you your in game items and the chance to enter the early access, if you feel that you've been scammed it was by gogamer.com. I suggest you send them an email and request a full refund if they described the key as an "early access key", because there is no such thing.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
The fans can nitpick the wording all they want and it does not even matter whether you are right or the OP is. Funcom is still the ones with egg all over their faces and the bad publicity. I wonder how many pre orders got canceled today over this situation?
I miss DAoC
I just can't abide people whining when it's stated everywhere that EA is limited, just because you didn't read the email properly or some other company screwed up everyone starts crying like a whining little punk. You'd think that the FC DEVs had got in a car and just killed their families in a drive by or something! You didn't make it into EA, suck it up!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
I just can't abide people whining when it's stated everywhere that EA is limited, just because you didn't read the email properly or some other company screwed up everyone starts crying like a whining little punk. You'd think that the FC DEVs had got in a car and just killed their families in a drive by or something! You didn't make it into EA, suck it up!
^agreed^Retailers are the ones to blame by not informing people, the thing is, they simply don't care enough.
Big deal. You have to wait a few days...
0 out of 10 for you and your supplier...
THE SKY IS FALLING
Marketing scam, play on words, timing intent on "limited availability" either way they're fuckin with consumers be it Eidos, Funcom or your local retailer. They used the market to fuck you out of your cash, patience and any limited belief system you might hold for this entertainment.
If I went to a theater to see a flick, and they were sold out, you bet your ass I wouldn't give them my cash anyway...
Would you care to explain how giving out the download link hurt anyone?
From my experience with Funcom over the various beta phases it just seems like they are prone to making a lot of miscomunication related mistakes. Are those mistakes going to be game breaking? Probably not, but if they keep pissing off people like this over time they could potentially lose a lot of paying customers. I would say to Funcom get your s**t together and stop saying one thing and doing another.
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AMD FX-4300
8gb DDR 667
Nvidia GTX 770
Why do people not understand the dire warnings that early access is limited, and to hurry while supplies last? I really don't get the shock and horror of it all. I feel really glad to know I don't cancel pre-orders and vow never to play a great game because of three fing days! Way to miss out..
(By the way, they state if you don't get into early access, they don't take your five measly dollars )
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'Cry Havoc, and Let Loose the Dogs of WARRRRR!!!'
I still don't see how it's Funcom's fault for the retailers being retards and not reading. Although typically when a company says 'limited supply' that supply is more than the demand.
heh, oh yes I am sure that the few customer's misunderstandings of what was clearly stated by FC will cause disastrous effects to the game.
I am awaiting the thousands of posts on this subject tomorrow, over-crowding the forums.
I'm pretty sure we would be seeing many more complaints on the main site over this subject. So far this along with one other are the only ones I could fine... as for everyone else they seem to be doing fine, so I usually believe the most obvious. Even so, the few that it does effect... as stated by everyone else, is not the mistake of FC, but it's distributors, and even then, really isn't too difficult an issue to solve. If you don't notice this can happen pretty frequently.
It's called early access PROGRAM, not early access. The "program" part signifies that it is not entitled to everyone that pre-ordered or else it would just say, "Early Access" on the pre-order cards/emails. If you are going to be pissed off, be pissed off about poor reading comprehension.
Fanboi much?? Sure its easy to say "suck it up" when you have your spot set in EA, but if you were one of the many who got shafted, I am sure you would be ranting up a storm... I think the point the OP is making, as well as many others, is that Funcom has some serious customer service issues. Yes, EA was limited and it was stated to be so several times. However, if Funcom is still passing out keys to retailers to pass on to pre-order customers, it would be easy to assume that there are still EA spots available. They should have just stopped giving them out, instead they make it into some kind of lottery.You see, the PRE-ORDER code, which is the ONLY code given out to anyone, is for the special items
Mammoth mount
Rhino mount
Bow
This is why they still give out the codes, and this is why Funcom still issue the codes. For every pre-order sold you get one of these items, AFAIK.
In addition to the special item the PRE-ORDER CODE entitles you to APPLY for early access, which itself has conditions;
Must register before a certain date
Must pay £5 $5
Limited supply of Early Access slots
Really, how simple is this?
I just can't abide people whining when it's stated everywhere that EA is limited, just because you didn't read the email properly or some other company screwed up everyone starts crying like a whining little punk. You'd think that the FC DEVs had got in a car and just killed their families in a drive by or something! You didn't make it into EA, suck it up!
still dude anyway you cut it this is not the way to start. The real thing to do in my opinion would be for Funcom to allow anyone who preordered into early access. Quite frankly I hhave never heard of a "limited" early access before. Can you point out any other game that has done that? I know Lotro was open to anyone who preordered, as was Vanguard. Funcom sure has a weird way of doing business, just my opinion. Not that I give a damn one way or the other, Open beta left a bad taste in my mouth. AoC's launch is just of acedemic interest to me, I may buy it six months from now, if it survives launch that is.
I miss DAoC
I understand why people would be angry about this, I would be too. This was a double mistake, one by FunCom, one by some of the retailers.
First, FunCom should NEVER have sold more Early Entry Codes to the retailers than were available to be sold. Period.
And Secondly, if I purchased a Code from a retailer I would expect that it be sent BEFORE the day I can use it. Some people were still waiting on their Codes today.
This was an amature move from an amature industry run by amatures.
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
The second option would be that EIDOS deliberately told retailers that those were EA Keys even if they were not. I do not like the sound of that. It's possible, but would be wrong, Period.
Third option, the retailers simply ignored that they were only Pre-Order keys and sold them as EA keys. Result, see the second option.
It is curious however that some retailers apparently got it right and some didn't.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I was planning on going tomorrow to pre-order at gamestop, does that mean I cant play early!!!
?
i wrote this in another thread
The problem i have is that these sites don't come up with this information, descriptions, or dates unless dictated by the developing companies Marketing Department. Usually, the way it works, is that say in this case, Funcom, comes up with a marketing description of the game, informations, system requirements, dates, etc and sends them to the marketing department of the said website which is promoting the sale. So while if it was a type from converting the marketing information from Funcom by the said website, or if it was a typo/misinformation from Funcom themselves, you can't really be sure. So neither side should be pointing fingers at this moment.
Although GoGamer.com also lacks this information, so i am being wary that it might not be something on funcom's end
that would be correct
If you bothered to actually read the post you would see I purchased an early access Key. Not a preorder key. Gogamer requested Early access Keys. Eidos/funcom sent them Early access keys.
Mismarketing fine Print Scam
It doens't get more clear than that. I don't really care about early access I just wanted a special mount. Call me shallow. I did pay $5 for the early access, but I actually think I'll be out of town for that weekend. Too bad my laptop can't play AoC.