Here's the deal; in the olde days (1999-2005) Subsim made its operating revenue by selling the games. Since 2005 we have been running on two load-balanced servers most of the time and that runs me a little over $480 a month. Each month and every month. And that doesn't count the overage costs, like when I put GW and NYGM mods in main downloads and three weeks later EV1 charged my credit card $1800 for over bandwidth charges
In Jan 2006 our affiliate partner Chips and Bits went belly up. So we had to switch to Amazon and they only pay 1/2 the rate we got before. I expect most people order SH4 directly from Ubisoft, they really don't care to spend a minute thinking where they get the game from, they just want it. I can understand that. I can also understand why Ubisoft would prefer that, they probably get a bigger cut when they sell direct. And they hype all these "extras" and collector's editions to make people think they better get the game right away through them, or miss some goodies.
I'm
not going to ask anyone to wait or risk missing the "extras" by buying through Subsim/Amazon. Subsim may miss a lot of sales of the biggest game in 3 years, but not much I can do about that. In fact, Amazon still does not have affilate links for the game, probably because Ubisoft told them to wait.
They do have a placeholder, here:
SILENT HUNTER 4
So that tells me they may be getting ready to set up for the same preorders as Ubi. When it goes live I will shout out. If you want to order SH4 through Subsim, it is appreciated.
So, I would prefer you to make the purchase decision you are most comfortable with. Many people tell me they would rather buy the game at EB or CompUSA, or order through Ubi, and make a $5 donation to Subsim. That's cool, I just don't want someone to miss out on anything by trying to help the website.