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| Author | Poly.Play plays late (Read 32890 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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68040
512 MB  Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done ! 
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on: February 06, 2025, 13:33
Got an e-mail yesterday that my order - from over 4 months ago - is being "processed and shipped NOW". What a genius marketing and customer care strategy. Truly trust inspiring. |
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #1 on: February 06, 2025, 18:01
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As you may remember, I had pre-ordered a game from them that seemed to take ages until it was shipped. From what I understand, poly.play is a one-man's show - he is doing everything, from the online shop to shipping to package design. What poly.play IS lacking is effective communication with customers. The attitude seems to be "if this product is for your 32 year old home computer, it's no problem for you to wait until it is done". That is wrong. If I put down money and don't hear anything for months, it's just a bad customer experience. I want to stress that I eventually got the product as it got released. Turned out there were multiple reasons for the delay. I'm not critizing this. It's a part-time one person business with a lot of dependencies. But I critize the lack of any communication. What's so hard in sitting down and sending an e-mail "folks, I know you ordered it, but looks like it'll take a month or two longer because the packaging hasn't been shipped to me yet". That takes like 5 minutes sending such an e-mail to everybody who bought it. I don't get it. And it's a shame. Because poly.play is doing a darn good job with its games.
Last Edit: February 07, 2025, 04:05 by Bolkonskij
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #2 on: February 06, 2025, 20:00
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you think thats bad when it comes to not just shipping but manufacturing my dad wayyy back in 2012 ordered from germany a handmade no machinery used study bible and he gave up on waiting for it after 3 months and guess what just came 3 day's ago.... just that ive heard though that books before the printing press took many year's to make
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #3 on: February 09, 2025, 13:14
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@Bolkonskij - Well, what p1sses me off about this is, that I wrote them several e-mails and only now - ten days before my departure - did they find it fit to respond. Lord knows how long it'll take for that sheeit to arrive here and if I'll still be around by then. @snes1423 - Sounds like that Bible was translated and written by hand, like in them good old days. So, take your time to read it. 
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #4 on: February 10, 2025, 05:15
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@68040 sorry if you didnt pick it up but my dad was the one who got it for himself i personally have no real interest in going through almost 2500 pages plus and additional 500 pages of "notes" (hence the difference between a bible and a study bible)
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #5 on: February 10, 2025, 08:14
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@snes1423 - Sorry, I forgot. Young people don't do scripture anymore (for the most part). When grew up it would have been normal to have a Bible in the house. Times change. Once I indeed read the whole new testament - but never touched the old one for more than a page or two.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #6 on: February 18, 2025, 11:50
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Finally! End of last week my two Poly.Play game sets arrived: "Air7ock" and "0ceanus Prime" I didn't had a chance yet to install them, as I'm deriving a bizarre kind of slow-mo satisfaction out of backing up roughly 250GB of data from my vintage drives. Yet the content of the physical packages is, well, totally overkill. I mean, these are supposed to be games for vintage machines. But the leaflets, hint booklets, heck even the box covers themselves look like something out of a Warhammer production. Someone must have spend day and night - including throwing the kitchen sink into the graphics work - just for designing the packaging and the manuals. I'll try to post picture of it later on to the Garden but give me a break: How can you still make a profit if you put that much effort just into the look of things? My advise: Buy these games before the author has to file for bankruptcy. Even if they only sit on your shelve as an eye catcher, they'll probably worth the price.
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #7 on: February 18, 2025, 18:04
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I couldn't entirely tell if you really LIKED the art, or were being slightly sarcastic due to their way late arrival, so had to look them up myself. That is some killer art (likely, ai generated, sadly), and if the physical packaging matches, it must be quite good, and, as you said, maybe a bit overkill. Those games look RIGHT up my alley, so please do tell of your play experience with them. I had previously purchased "The Queen's Footsteps" from poly play, myself. It looks like "0ceanus Prime" is either a sequel, or just part of a series, but either way comes after "Air7ock"? The poly play site is not well designed for finding individual games, but instead organized by platform and/or I am having trouble finding info about both due to the numbers in their names. Could you tell more about the games themselves, would you recommend them (or prior ones in the same series)? And, finally, killer question: I'd love to show my support via funding the authors and/or support poly play for THEIR support of publishing the authors. I'm thinking you can't, without large reservation due to customer support experience, recommend purchasing these from poly play, correct? Maybe there's a way to more directly support the authors...
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #8 on: February 18, 2025, 20:50
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@lauland, I love the art its just ... I can't shake the suspicion that their craving for perfection on the packaging is a prime reason for the delayed shipment. I mean, I get the drive to match the way these programs used to be sold as closely as possible. But hey, just because I use vintage tech doesn't mean I didn't look at the calendar. These days 99.9% of software is sold with no packaging at all (over the Internet). They got hint booklets with "secret" ink and red glasses. Maps, an elaborate background story, adhesive stickers, the works. But I wish they'd spend more of their energy on fast delivery, rather than breathtaking polish & shine. I'll try to play these games next week, because after that I'll be headed to the airport and be on the move for months to come. As far as supporting the author is concerned: I doubt that Poly.Play would let you anywhere near him. As Bolkonskij mentioned, it looks like a 1 man outfit and I strongly suspect that their development team isn't much bigger either. Being a worker ant in corporate IT myself, I know that you guard your developers more carefully than your crown jewels. Exposing them to direct customer contact is usually the first step in getting them distracted, frustrated and then ... But you can always support them the old fashioned way: Buy their product and be extra patient waiting for it.
Last Edit: February 19, 2025, 12:18 by 68040
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #9 on: February 20, 2025, 16:54
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Actually, Poly.Play isn't making the games, they are just the publisher for the physical (boxed) releases. Many of the authors do offer their games digitally as well, for example via itch.io (which requires a modern browser) I also was in touch with the author of The Queen's Footsteps about the delayed delivery and he helped by using his "direct line" to the poly.play owner. The reality is simply that the person behind poly.play does this as a hobby to provide us with great software in boxes, on real floppy disks and goodies like back in the 1980's. Which is an amazing experience as you noted, much like buying software in the 1980's. I bought other software recently published and absolutely none come close to what poly.play offers. It's not a profit-driven business and that explains the low prices and the sloppy communication, the latter really being my only complaint. My take-away from the experience was to only order products that are in stock and readily available. No pre-orders anymore. That way stuff that is actually physically present at their HQ gets shipped without the waiting time. That said, I'd be very interested to hear from you about your impression of the software? I'm actually undecided whether to buy it myself. It sounds really cool and tempting, but I'm still stuck at Hibernated 1. Usually trying to only buy new stuff when I've finished the old game :-)
Last Edit: February 20, 2025, 16:58 by Bolkonskij
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #10 on: February 20, 2025, 17:13
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@Bolkonskij: I'd buy them anyway, at least while his operations are still up, you know? just in case
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #11 on: February 20, 2025, 17:28
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@Bolkonskij, yeah, that gives a better perspective on it. Their quality is absolutely top notch, and that's what you're paying for, the experience of the whole thing. It's a boutique kind of thing. Even the manuals for what I've bought are gorgeous, and the infocom style "feelies". I think the slick website is a bit deceptive, and makes it seem far more "business like" than it is, just one guy as a "hobby". I looked into the author of Airlock and Oceanus Prime, and his prior work, the Andromeda Series, of which they fit in, won in competitions and are free downloads. I've been doing a LOT of reading on my Kindle and have discovered countless amazing independent authors, and feel it's a (sort of) similar situation. Getting their work out in ways that they couldn't do on their own. (Not that I'm making a comparison to a huge faceless corporation, but you get what I mean). For these authors there's no way I would've discovered their work otherwise. Anyway, I, too, want to support them (poly play AND the creators), and purchase more...but also feel I need to finish the games I've already bought!
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