23 November 2009

FU2 Codemasters

I purchased OVERLORD 2 because I liked the first one. Then I hit some issues with the installation. Yeah it was copy protection stuff. As usual a 3rd party company created it. So I muttered a lot and started sending e-mails copying Codemasters to the to line so they could be aware of the issue. After a day the company responded. It was an easy fix. But, Codemaster's also responded with they did not think the game would run on my machine as my video card was too old. Sigh. It is not THAT old, but ok.

It loaded, the registrations went through so I had hope. The cut scene started fine, but when the game went to start, it turned out Codemasters was right. It was a no go. The game still sits on my shelf laughing at me.

So sometime, not so long ago I got a survey request from Codemasters to tell them what I think of Overlord II. THey noticed I registered the game. COOL! A chance to let them know why I was disappointed. A chance to let them know I love their games but cannot afford to upgrade every year just to play a game. So off I go to the site to fill in the info. A site run by another 3rd party company.

The survey starts out with the usual qualifying questions. (Yeah i did that for a living for a while too) Do I work in any of the following industries - no, Do I own this game, yes. What age and sex am I? I answer. Suddenly the screen pops up and and get Sorry you do not qualify. So first i have to ask myself. Why send the email inviting me to the survey when you got that info off the registration? Did they not share that infor with the survey company?

Then I get more annoyed. You see, since I did do that for a while I sort have an idea of how a company decides who to survey. They base it on who they perceive their market to be. Which means that they are not reading the refistration infor or at least not querying it before they contact the buyers of the game. That or they just do not like females that are older to purchase and play their product. In speaking to other gaming friends it seems many companies do not like males over 30 either. So I got some news for ya CODEMASTERS. PEOPLE OVER 20 PLAY GAMES AND GUESS WHAT SOME OF US are *GASP* FEMALE. So deal with it.