Lately I’ve been seriously questioning my FilePlanet subscription. It costs $59.95 per year to be a “Founders’ Club” member. FilePlanet used to be the site to download PC game betas and demos, but lately they have less exclusives than they used to and are even beginning to fall behind the rest of the Internet in posting patches and other updates. They routinely give glowing recommendations of new games without any hint of their bugs or other gameplay issues. Everything has gone from feeling “by gamers, for gamers” to “by IGN Inc., for profit”.
I recently sent an E-Mail to “Ferret” at FilePlanet but and – not surprisingly – have received no response. Here is what I sent Ferret:
6/4/08
Ferret:
Lately I’ve been very displeased with my Fileplanet Subscription, and especially Founder’s Club. I just don’t see what I’m paying for with Founder’s Club. I don’t think I’ve seen a single exclusive for Founder’s Club worth mentioning since I upgraded my account to that level. Even when I’m logged in, the FC site doesn’t seem to know it – it still serves up “Join Now” and “Log In” links everywhere. Even the FP home page offers me a “Upgrade Now” link on the home page, though there is nothing for me to upgrade to.
Further, and of a more serious nature, I’m reconsidering my long standing File Planet membership altogether. There just haven’t been many Fileplanet exclusives in a long time, and those that are released aren’t what I’d call major “gets”. Not having the ads disabled by default after I log in is a pain as well, and just makes me feel less valuable as a paying customer.
The lack of CoD4 1.6 Patch availability prompted this E-Mail. The patch has been released already, and I’m still looking at a “Reserved” download in my FP Download Manager. Not only is the patch already officially out at nZone, but tek-9.org already posted and linked to it, and Google indexed their site! This is yet another reason why I’m seeing the value of FP fade.
Please tell me that something is just around the corner that is going to change all this. I’ve not seen any positive changes in a long, long time. I’ve been a loyal FP user and customer since the Gamespy days, so I’m really at wits end writing this.
I’m sure I am just one of thousands of Founders’ Club members, but I think I at least deserve a response from someone. FilePlanet has really been slacking off lately and it’s just a matter of time before they lose their crown.