EQII's Sentinel's Fate retail boxes will give players a seven day head-start over the digital download. Is it good for the game? Is it fair to the players? We take a look.

The pre-order of Sentinel's Fate, the 6th EverQuest II expansion, was announced yesterday with a couple of surprises.  There are three packages:  a digital download, a retail box, and a collector's edition.  There are goodies in the boxes (depending on which you buy) like a copy of EverCracked, Station Cash and a $10 coupon for Sentinel's Fate to entice your friends to play.  The really big surprise:  players who buy a physical box will have access to the new content 7 days sooner than players who purchase it digitally.

Naturally some brouhaha occured.

The big deal with a 7 day head start is that, for many players, MMOs are competitive games.  There are players and whole guilds who play the game as "race to the level cap."  They want to be the first to hit level 90, the first to conquer a zone, the first to slay a boss mob, and the world-wide discoverer of Smed's Sword of Ungoldly Uberness.

The largest outcry is from players outside the continental United States.  They feel they have been neglected by SOE because the physical box distribution doesn't make it to their area, or doesn't make it in a timely manner.  To get early access they will have to order from an onlne retailer (who may or may not ship to their area), pay shipping and perhaps VAT or postal fees, and trust the retailer to get it to them on time. Many have little faith in the shipping process and are irked at the extra cost.

Christie "Kiara" Renzetti, EQII Community Manager, has been highly communicative on the official forums regarding SOE's arrangements with the online retailers.  "The agreement," she posted, "is that they will ship early enough (and we are providing the product early to enable this) that it will be in your hands on the day of release."  There have been some minor hiccups, like Amazon not yet accepting overseas orders, which SOE is working to resolve. 

For players who want to lay hands on the box, nothing has really changed.  Once SOE ships the package it's out of their hands; they've made their deals with retailers to assure it will be available and now we hope the retailers follow through.  Back in the old days before digital download if you didn't live near a major retail area in the Lower 48 chances were you wouldn't be able to get a retail box on launch day.  Digital download alleviated that issue, making it available to everyone with access and inhibited only by download speeds.  Digital download is an attractive package:  There's no overhead for the disc, package, or shipping; the content is up-to-date and you'll have minimal patching; and it's readily available to darn near anyone with an internet connection.

The problem with the focus on digital downloads is the traditional retail market has suffered.   For years players have complained mightily that the physical box of EverQuest II just isn't available.  It appeared that many retailers had just stopped carrying it or once the launch copies sold they were not replaced.  SOE really seemed to be moving toward all-digital sales, and players complained that the game had no visibility anywhere, from retail shelves to mass media advertising.  In the eyes of many players, that's no way to grow a game.

A new aggressive marketing campaign has been mentioned several times recently. The release of the EverQuest II Complete Collection in October appears to be the first step in this campaign as old packages are removed from the shelves and the Collection package goes up, holding the place for February's release of Sentinel's Fate.  SOE cannot force retailers to put their products on the shelves.  With WoW making sales of every other game in the universe look minuscule, incentives are required to sweeten the deal and make giving SOE titles valuable shelf space profitable for the retailer.

Hence the 7 day advantage with the retail box.

In my opinion SOE has done everything possible to assure that all of the three expansion packages are available to the majority of players.  Special arrangements have been made with the online retailers to assure the boxes will arrive on time.  Some players will have to pay a higher cost for shipping if they want a physical box, but until they invent the instant-service teleporters there's not much to be done about shipping costs and times.  The digital download is still available if you're not in a hurry.  There will no doubt still be players who are just out of luck for one reason or another, but short of sending out staff with cases of the game to hand-stock every game retailer in the world, what else could SOE do?

I sincerely hope that the online retailers are able to honor SOE's commitment to customer service by properly anticipating shipping times to distant locations.  I remain optimistic as usual, and can't wait to see players who are jaded by past experiences be pleasently suprised when the expansion boxes arrive on time for launch.