The reason for the delay is somwwhat obvious if you read the posts.  It is not the best work they can do.  They can provide better with more time.

At most, you could say you are owed a refund if you pre-ordered for breach of contract [based on delivery time].  I don't think you'd have a case  . . but more power to you if you wanted to try.  Anyone can take anyone to court for whatever crazy reason they want.  I can't see why they should give you anything for free.

I am not pleased with the delay either, and agree that we could have been told sooner but perhaps they are relying on the beta sales for pay for finishing entrenchment. If that is the case, preannouncing a delay not be good for us at all.

Remember nothing in this life is guaranteed, and things could be worse - in a bad economy (especially in December) many companies presell product, memberships, gift cards, etc which are often given as Christmas gifts. Some of these companies choose to go out of business in January, keeping the money to pay their own bills, and giving the customer nothing. How fair is that?

Personally, I am tired of the beta crashing and hope that the final release gets things right, even if it means we keep waiting. Of course, if I were in charge anyone who paid for the beta, and waited for the delayed final entrenchment would get a few bucks off the next expansion module. They could call it customer appreciation, or a thank you for beta testing. (real testers get paid after all)

Alright, let me put it this way: I got quite some fun out of SoaSE and had so far not a complaint about Ironclad/Stardock.

Although curious about the expansion, I was aware of some balancing problems in the beta version (in particular issues with mines), which were supposed to be fixed in the final version.

Anyway, I bought entrenchment on Jan 1st, the nominal release date.  Before I did so, a casual glance confirmed that this WAS still the release date.

I normally read through the sales blurb quite carefully and I do not remember having read the word "beta" anywhere, nor the word "preorder". Just to be sure I actually just reread my purchase confirmation email, where both words interestingly can not be found either.

That I effectively did not purchase a finished game version, but instead just preordered and effectively trawled in the beta version I discovered only after the download through impulse started. And that the official release date was effectively pushed back by one month only after a quick google in order to find out what's actually going on. And lo-and-behold next thing you know is that impulse flags up the game as delayed ?!?

A very peculiar way to do buisness for a company that makes a big deal out of their "customer first" attitude. Well, since their track record so far was positive, I'll write this off as the most clumsy release shift I have seen recently.

Anyway, meanwhile I have played the entrenchment beta twice, only to discover that the Vassari mine spam basically takes completely the fun out of the endgame (no real way to mine-sweep and they spam until my machine goes into stutter-mode) and that the issues flagged up in the forums are not addressed.

So let me put it this way:  I can fully understand AxEmAlls feelings, since this really sucks. In my books Ironclad/Stardock just burned their existing credit and in case they do not deliver really quick as advertised, I WILL get my tenner back and they will irrevocably loose a customer, period.

Look, I like SoaSE and spend some nice hours playing it and - let's put things in proportion - since a tenner is really not worth getting worked up about, I have no real harsh feelings about this entrenchment beta-gig. Let Ironclad get this fixed fast and let's forget this.

Having said this, I'm still quite amazed to what length fanboys go to find excuses for bad buisness policy.

I normally play this kind of computer game nonsense off and on to unwind from my real job which - ironically - includes among other things yelling on the phone to subcontractors to finally get their rear in gear and deliver what they did already bill and cash-in for. 

What I have received from Stardock is a an order and billing confirmation bundled with detailed download instructions for a product. Doesn't say anything about "which will be available at some undisclosed date in the future".

This is called a purchase contract.

Turns out the product is not available but instead beta-grade code is made available in the last minute.

So could you explain to me again in this context what a PLACEHOLDER release date is supposed to be?

If you don't have it, don't sell it.

You are aware that Ironclad is a very young startup which had with SoaSE a low-budget surprise hit last year. Good for them. So I imagine they experiment with this slice-by-slice expansion pack stuff to create continuous income since they don't have the capital to finance a proper development cycle. Fair enough. But there is a flipside to this coin: I imagine if their first expansion pack doesn't deliver, these guys are history. From here on they should tread very lightly.

AFAIK there was only 1 delay and that was announced in November when the game mini expansion was initially planned to be released. Since then numerous post have been made that the final release is still TBD and a BETA would be made available to those who preorder to play/test during the holidays. Which they did give access to those who preordered.

The only difference I see between BETA and Retail (Correct me if I am wrong here) is that in BETA you can still suggest changes which still impact the retail, and I mean more then just tweaking the units stats.

As a side note, if people where to get free game because they preordered and didn't get it on the date it was advertised because of development delays, a lot of gaming publisher/developers would have gone out of business a long time ago or you would end up with crappy bugged games.  

Just my $0.02.

Cheers 

Um I seem too recall that there has been 3 delays so far with this game one in september that is when they said it was coming out in november 5, Second delay is when they changed it to december then announced that if you preorder the game you get a beta to test, and now the third delay saying not until febuary is when its going to be released. Just watch febuary rolls around and it gets pushed back even more.

Let me put it this

Wow, drama much?  I am very entertained by all of the armchair developers, economists and most of all, the wannabe lawyers that feel they have the ins and outs of the business pegged, yet demonstrate a very poor knowledge of their topic. 

Let me put it this way:  You have been given a chance to help beta test a game that you already like.  People would give body parts to be part of the beta process of a game.  Look at the fervor over beta status from WoW, Age of Conan, and other games and you will see that this is a cool chance to be part of the development process (this is how the space ponies achievement came into being in the first place).

Either play the game and enjoy, knowing that these imbalances will be ironed out in the end, not when you feel they should, but when the right solution has been reached, or stop playing, cry for a refund and move on to another game.

Stardock has been around for a while now and Ironclad is just a portion of an already successful company.  Don't hold your breath on that prediction.

Wannabe lawyers?

I AM A LAWYER.

I passed the Bar exams two years ago. Everyone is entitled to share his opinions on this blog. It is the best way to thresh out differences and learn from one another.

Not all lawyers are unreasonable. I understand your zeal in defending the developers of Entrenchment.

I just wish that they better stop posting release dates if they could not promise to keep them, or at the very least informed us way ahead of time that the planned release date of January 1st of the final retail version would have to be delayed another month, and not announce it only on the very day we were all expecting the final version to be released. 

It would have been better if they said that the final version would be downloaded on the first quarter of 2009. Any businessman with common sense knows that any delay is bad business practice. I just hope that Ironclad and Stardock would keep their word that Feb 9th would be the actual final release. If there would still be any problems with it, then release a patch afterward, like what most PC game publishers do.

I have also worked in the software (and hardware) development divisions of a couple of large corporations, so I guess my point of view is a little different.  Usually, developers aren't nearly as forthcoming as SD has been on this one.  Usually you are treated like a mushroom (kept in the dark and fed poop).    I agree that it is frustrating when release dates are not met and refunds are probable, SD is pretty good about that stuff, but they did put out quite a large ammount of forewarning concerning the beta nature of the release and that the 1-1-09 date was no more than a placeholder as the Impulse system requires that something be entered in the release date.

Sorry if I am a little salty about my responses, but this has become almost like therapy, allowing me to vent like I never could while in IT development. 

Perhaps they could only input dates? That happens a lot when they use a database to store all this stuff, which I'm happy to bet they do.

also regarding this:

Very few games get released on time. Also I think they want to release as few patches afterwards as they can, because there'll be less whinging from us, and because it's cheaper in the long run.

When i locked into Impulse on 01. January, Entrenchment got the label 'Released'. It was clearly not, because it is still in BETA. So tell me please, if they never intended to release on January the first, why was it listed as released on the very same day?

They messed that one up, simple as that.

I still love Stardock, but as a consumer i should be allowed to talk about things gone wrong.