Slitherine

Comment on the Matrix Forums has me musing the thread title above. (note I am not on Matrix Games forums because these ones are better).

So you get the urge to buy a game, and you buy it via a digital download process and it takes longer than it will to eat a %$@##@! sandwich and your first reaction is ^$%$@$$ service bloody sucks.

WTF?

I've had game downloads that took a few hours. I didn't give a damn. Reason, well fortunately my life has ALWAYS gone one when I have had to wait longer to get what I wanted. I had to wait almost a month to get Panzer Corps Afrika Korps. First needed to wait on the funds, then I had to wait to make sure I could use the funds and finally it took Paypal almost 2 weeks (they only use business days eh) to get the funds out of my bank account.

I survived. I survived the more than 20 minutes needed to download the file too.

Bloody hell, have we seriously become that friggin spoiled? That we will rant on a forum and threaten to never buy again all because the process took longer than 20 minutes?

Damn sparky, why not do us a favour and just get lost period. Clearly you will suck long and large playing PBEM against you if I take more than a minute to send my turn to you.

I don't care what YOUR ISP provides you for service, not one iota. I have broadband DSL, so what. I still manage to find things I want that will take me as long as the source will offer it to me. I've waited a couple of WEEKS on a torrent to process through. It was not the end of the world.

Ah for the good ole days when you could really see who really cared. My first download of Steel Panthers World at War from Matrix Games (which they provided for free a thing they will always possess in their credit margin), and with my then dial up service and limitations on my own options, I had to phone friends and family to alert them I was downloading a file and sorry the phone will be 'busy' for 3 straight days without interruption. 3 days to get a 250ish meg file transferred. Dang today my friend can download that faster than can ever be measured. Blueray discs are only a few minutes for him to UPLOAD let alone download. Me I am limited still to 750k but a tv show in 20 minutes is hardly a travesty.

I am not overly sure I like Plimus any more than Digital River, but in both cases neither has ever resulted in my having any troubles. I once had to wait about 20 minutes to get the download link sent to me. It was 20 minutes I think, I decided to watch some Netflix while I waited. So it might have been 10 for all I know.

I can just see the person I am responding to, trying to cook dinner. Damn it the last time I used this pot it only took 5 minutes to boil, what's wrong with it now, I've been waiting here already 10 minutes. This is unacceptable, I'm never using this pot again.

Really mac, that is precisely how I saw your post. Bloody idiotic sounding.

I think the keyword here is frustration.
People feel frustrated for not having immediately the product they bought. And I bet that some of those are impulsive buys. If you don't have the immediate access to the product, some people will just become possessed and frustrated. So they prefer to go on a rant to steam out the pressure.

But yes, we're spoiled, not only with that but with a lot of other things.

Every time I read one of those posts I remember downloading SPWAW the first time. Set it up just before bedtime and let it go. Hope it is done in the morning. When 8.0 came along, I downloaded it at work and burned it to a CD. Some people always have to have the latest, greatest, like high speed DSL and when it doesn't do what they thought it would, they get upset. Same with people that scream about FPS in 3D games.

Yeah I recall my first disc copy, on a 2 speed burner, it was awesome, it could burn the game to disc in 30 minutes

Now I can transfer 2 TBs in 30 minutes over my wifi.

Times change, tech changes, people remain the same though.

DSWargamer wrote:I still manage to find things I want that will take me as long as the source will offer it to me. I've waited a couple of WEEKS on a torrent to process through. It was not the end of the world.

I never browsed these forums outside PzC forum so my reply is pretty late but I think its still worth it.
I have the impression that the level of rant and frustration caused by "slow" or "unexpected slow" donwloads is hugely in correlation to experience and age of the person cause those of us who are 40+ know exactly how things have been since we all started with 56k modems back then...a website could take minutes to display in the early years...installing a game into a DX 386 could take the entire day as one were fiddeling around with the treibers...so coming from there anything which is faster is still an improovement...
I too waited weeks for torrents to come thru since they were huge...15-20GB or even more...
who cares ?...things do not materialize instantly...they only do that in Star Trek...

One huge problem here is that a fair part of the younger and very young generation have adquiered a certain "I want it and I want it now and if I dont get it I have to attack somebody/something" highly ignorant borderline mentality which is resistant and completey beyond reach of common sense.
This particular behavior is a combination of a problem originated by the abundance consumer societys and parents failure in promoting the evolution of frustration tolerance and patience in their kids...children and young people in poorer countrys, were you often have to wait a long time before getting something new or getting something at all, do not show this attitude at all...