Don't buy the Pack direct

[Cy-Fox]

A few months ago I purchased the Complete Naval Combat Pack directly on Strategy First's website as a digital download. It consisted of the games 688(i) Hunter/Killer, Fleet Command, Sub Command & Dangerous Waters. Out of these four games, two (688(i) and Fleet Command) work out of the (digital) box. Sub Comoumand and Dangerous Waters have a broken activation system in place that won't let me run the game. It acts for a CD key (which none had, and there were no DRM keys indicated in the order e-mail). I e-mailed Strategy First's support department regarding Dangerous Waters and didn't get a response (a patch for Dangerous Waters) until I sent a followup e-mail. That was at the end of February

April 9th, I decide to fire up Sub Command. It has the same exact DRM, same exact problem. Sent an e-mail to support. I expected at most to be kept on the hook for a week, maybe two at most.

It's now been past a month to the day I e-mailed them for a patch. No response at all. I just sent them another e-mail and I'm pissed. I paid close to $50 for that pack. $50.00 for games that range from 7 to 15 years in age and only two work.

This is a case in point that DRM is getting out of hand. I'm a paying customer, so I expect my money's worth in product AND in support. I could've probably pirated these games, but instead I wanted to be legit.

It's rather sad that buying direct to get around using Steam ended up making me want to use Steam.

[Blacklight]

That's funny because I ordered the Naval Combat Pack directly as well as Dangerous Waters and there was NO DRM on ANY of them. Is this a new thing they're doing ???

[Robsoie]

It acts for a CD key (which none had, and there were no DRM keys indicated in the order e-mail).
If i understand well, you're saying that what prevents you to run both Dangerous Waters and Sub Command are the CD Keys missing for those 2 games ?

If it is indeed the case, that may be why you have difficulty to obtain an answer if you are asking them for a "patch", it may confuse them as you should instead ask them for the missing CD keys instead.

But still, no reply in a month is a sign of a really awfull customer support.

[Cy-Fox]

If i understand well, you're saying that what prevents you to run both Dangerous Waters and Sub Command are the CD Keys missing for those 2 games ?

If it is indeed the case, that may be why you have difficulty to obtain an answer if you are asking them for a "patch", it may confuse them as you should instead ask them for the missing CD keys instead.

But still, no reply in a month is a sign of a really awfull customer support.

The thing is, they didn't come with activation keys for the DRM. They gave me a patched EXE for DW to bypass that DRM. I figured they were going to do the same for Sub Command.

Anyways, I had sent them an e-mail earlier this week and had to essentially threaten them with litigation on the account of failure to provide the support they were obligated to and selling me a defective product. A few hours later same day, I finally got an activation key