Sharks 1.0 Bundled on CD: Caveat Emptor

[bdwilcox]

I have just confirmed with Prolific Publishing that if you buy Sharks 1.0 bundled on CD along with other products (such as Marine Aquarium), you are not eligible for a free upgrade to Sharks 2.0; the upgrade will cost you $6. Only people who purchased Sharks 1.0 from the website are eligible for the free upgrade.

These are my emails to Proflic Publishing:

================================================== =====

Q:
I recently purchased a bundle of Marine Aquarium 2.0
and Sharks: Terror of the Deep 1.0 that were on the
same CD from Encore.
I saw on your site that you were offering a free
upgrade from Sharks 1.0 to 2.0, but it seemed to need
a serial code to install. My documentation said that
my CD will act as a serial code.
Your website's links to upgrading Sharks from either
CD or Serial Code are broken.
FAQ:
http://www.lifeglobe.com/support/faq...id=6#faq3_1070
"What upgrades does my purchase entitle me too?
If you purchased the download version of Sharks:
Terrors of the Deep 1 and wish to upgrade to Sharks:
Terrors of the Deep 2, see our upgrade page HERE.
If you purchased the CD version of Sharks: Terrors of
the Deep 1 and wish to upgrade to Sharks: Terrors of
the Deep 2, see our upgrade page HERE.
Thank you for your continued interest!"
Both links to an upgrade page go nowhere.
Did I miss something?

A:
Hello,

You may purchase the upgrade to the Sharks: Terrors of the Deep CD from
us directly. We accept credit cards, checks, and money orders. If you
are interested in purchasing Sharks please print out the attached order
form and send along with your payment via fax at: (818) 562-8410 or you
may mail us your payment to:

Prolific Publishing, Inc.
Attn: LifeGlobe – Shark Sales
3100 West Burbank Blvd., Suite 101
Burbank, CA 91505, USA

If you will be mailing your payment please be sure to include your name
and email address along with your payment. We will email your keycode
to you as soon as we receive your payment. Please note you will not be
receiving a CD, this purchase is for our electronic download version
only.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us directly via
email.

Thank you for your patience!

Auden Reiter
Customer Support
Prolific Publishing, Inc.
www.Prolific.com

================================================== =====

Q:
Hi Auden,

I already have Sharks 1.0 that came bundled along with
Marine Aquarium 2.0 on the same CD. I'm asking how I
can get the upgrade to Sharks 2.0 since the upgrade
installer won't recognize my CD as a Sharks 1.0
original CD. Am I disqualified from the upgrade since
I got Sharks 1.0 in a bundle?

A:
Sorry I wasn't more clear. The none of the shark CDs are eligible for
the free upgrade. The offer in my previous e-mail was for a $5.95
upgrade to the CD you now have.

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Auden Reiter
Customer Support
Prolific Publishing, Inc.
www.Prolific.com

================================================== =====

Q:
Auden,
When you install Sharks 2.0, it says to place your
Sharks 1.0 CD in the drive or enter your serial number
and Sharks will be upgraded automatically, so there is
a place to upgrade Sharks from 1.0 to 2.0 using a
Sharks 1.0 CD.
Also, on the bulletin boards here:
https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums...ead.php?t=3410
user "Huffy" started a thread about upgrading Sharks
1.0 to 2.0 using a bundle CD like mine and one of your
developers, Jim, states:
"Huffy, I have just uploaded the pages required to
upgrade Sharks V1 to Sharks V2. Please give it a try
if you are so inclined."

Also, on the Register tab of my Sharks 1.0 it states:
"Your product has been registered from a CD.
To reinstall the product, you will need your original
CD. When upgrades are available, please go to
www.LifeGlobe.com. Your CD will serve as your
Keycode."
Plus, there's a button at the bottom of the screen:
"Get updates and help at www.LifeGlobe.com"

Am I missing something here? It seems like I'm
eligible for the free upgrade.

A:
The CD works in conjunction with the upgrade keycode to verify the
upgrade process.

The posts you quoted are from February '06. We have changed to a
different shopping cart system, which left us without the Sharks
upgrade
page, but the upgrade policy is the same. If you purchased a download
keycode from us in the past, the upgrade is free. If you purchased any
CD, the upgrade is $5.95. This is why there are two upgrade paths
outlined in the FAQ entry here:
http://www.lifeglobe.com/support/faq.php?productid=6#faq3_1070

Changing the shopping cart invalidated the old links. I'll have to go
in
and change that manually.

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Auden Reiter
Customer Support
Prolific Publishing, Inc.
www.Prolific.com

================================================== =====

[feldon34]

I can certainly see their point.

The Marine Aquarium and Sharks bundle costs $19.95 (or less) at the store. A tiny fraction of that goes to the publisher. Prolific/LifeGlobe developed Sharks. Jim Sachs developed Marine Aquarium. Imagine that the two developers each get $1 or less.

Marine Aquarium at SereneScreen.com and Sharks at LifeGlobe.com, are each $19.95 and a large percentage of that goes to each author of each product.

[Jim Sachs]

bdwilcox - Though I have nothing to do with Sharks, maybe I can clear up some of the confusion.

When a copy of Sharks is sold and downloaded from the website, the creators of the program (in this case Prolific) get most of the money. When a CD copy is sold from a store, then the store, the distributor, the CD publisher, and a lot of other people take most of the money. If Sharks happens to be bundled with Eric Daniels' Goldfish and my Marine Aquarium, then the profit going to the creators of Sharks is virtually nonexistant.

So, for Prolific to provide a free upgrade to a product which generated almost no revenue might be asking a bit much. Even allowing the CD-buyer to upgrade for $5.95 means that they are basically selling the latest version for $5.95. Things are different for copies sold on the website, and a case can be made for free upgrades, if the revisions did not take too many man-hours.

I'm sure that Prolific will be re-writing the text on their website to eliminate future confusion.

Edit - I see that Morgan beat me to the punch and posted before I did. He says basically the same thing, but his numbers are wildly optimistic (by about a factor of 10).

[feldon34]

Updated a bit.