And today, I've achieved a level of livid that I'm not used to getting to.
So, February 24th, one of the commercial pinball simulations I was running on Radiant Silverball, Zaccaria Pinball, had an update pushed for a new table. Unfortunately, that update broke the multiple screen support that enabled full Cabinet Mode. Everything but the freebie pack-in table started to just crash to desktop, 100% of the time, unless the software was set to use a single screen.
This is the first problem. Realize that I only play virtual pinball simulations on my home-built cabinet. I won't play it single screen that way, that's not the way I want to run the cabinet.
The second problem is that they decided that the fix could wait for the next table to be released. OK, fine, I can be patient and merely remove stuff from the menus until it's fixed.
The third problem is that they are not communicating reliably on Steam. Basically, if you want regularly monitored support threads, you have to subscribe to their Discord server. For software sold on Steam. Now, as awful as I've heard the forum tools on Steam are, that's not good. Do I have a Discord account? Yes, I do, as Black Aeronaut can attest. Do I want to subscribe to at least a half dozen of those for software I regularly use, just to get official support that should be provided via the service on which I actually purchased? No, and I should not be expected to.
So we're now up to three strikes.
And today? I found out through the grapevine that they consider those of us asking for cabinet mode to be fixed to be asking for something for free. This was posted by their social media guy to the Discord channel.
This is a feature they advertise. This is a feature that's been present in the software since August of 2017. This is a feature that I expected that I was paying to have when I was buying DLC. If they did not actually price the feature into the pricing of the DLC, that's on them and not on me.
I have not, and will not buy the table that was in the mode breaking update. I will not be buying their DLC going forward. I changed my review to "not recommended" and made edits to point out why. I completely uninstalled the software from the cabinet, from my desktop, and even the version (that I paid for DLC separately) from my phone.
I'm probably going to add "must be out a year, have cabinet support, not break cabinet support at all" to my criteria list for commercial pinball simulation going forward.
So, February 24th, one of the commercial pinball simulations I was running on Radiant Silverball, Zaccaria Pinball, had an update pushed for a new table. Unfortunately, that update broke the multiple screen support that enabled full Cabinet Mode. Everything but the freebie pack-in table started to just crash to desktop, 100% of the time, unless the software was set to use a single screen.
This is the first problem. Realize that I only play virtual pinball simulations on my home-built cabinet. I won't play it single screen that way, that's not the way I want to run the cabinet.
The second problem is that they decided that the fix could wait for the next table to be released. OK, fine, I can be patient and merely remove stuff from the menus until it's fixed.
The third problem is that they are not communicating reliably on Steam. Basically, if you want regularly monitored support threads, you have to subscribe to their Discord server. For software sold on Steam. Now, as awful as I've heard the forum tools on Steam are, that's not good. Do I have a Discord account? Yes, I do, as Black Aeronaut can attest. Do I want to subscribe to at least a half dozen of those for software I regularly use, just to get official support that should be provided via the service on which I actually purchased? No, and I should not be expected to.
So we're now up to three strikes.
And today? I found out through the grapevine that they consider those of us asking for cabinet mode to be fixed to be asking for something for free. This was posted by their social media guy to the Discord channel.
This is a feature they advertise. This is a feature that's been present in the software since August of 2017. This is a feature that I expected that I was paying to have when I was buying DLC. If they did not actually price the feature into the pricing of the DLC, that's on them and not on me.
I have not, and will not buy the table that was in the mode breaking update. I will not be buying their DLC going forward. I changed my review to "not recommended" and made edits to point out why. I completely uninstalled the software from the cabinet, from my desktop, and even the version (that I paid for DLC separately) from my phone.
I'm probably going to add "must be out a year, have cabinet support, not break cabinet support at all" to my criteria list for commercial pinball simulation going forward.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor