Quoted from gregh43:
Iam in North Dakota if you find a builder/seller that has everything preloaded. Please let me know. I'll keep a look out too.. from what I know . A seller is not allowed to sell a virtual pin with games on it. I understand the concept since it's freeware and the authors that put the tables out dont get a dime off VP sellers. But to me it's like buying a sports car without the engine. The software can be frustrating installing and time consuming. I myself would like to buy a cab all preloaded and set up with everything.
Yeah, this is a big debate that goes on and on from both "sides" of the argument.
I understand your analogy, however the engine still costs something that you would have to pay the manufacturer for. With the software, you aren't paying the actual "manufacturers" of it, but are paying someone to "put someone else's engine into your car" for a fee.
Again, I still see your point. I was wondering about that a couple of years ago myself when I was first getting started, so I am not criticizing that. For those of us that have been around for a little while, it isn't a huge deal to setup/update things anymore, but when first starting out it was a little stumped, even with the tutorials out there. Took a few tries, but got it, and learned along the way. Yes, it could be easier, but it isn't horribly terrible either.
With all of that said, we have lost some good tables and table creators from people taking their work, putting it on these pre-setup machines, and selling them. I mean, what is their incentive to offer all of their work for free if someone else is going to turn around and make money off of it by claiming that they are "just charging for the 'time' to set things up?" So now I stand on the side of "don't sell fully configured machines" as I am not talented enough to create tables myself, so I rely on the super-talented people that do all of that work for free not to mention the people that provide the software and tools to make it all work too. Without them, we've got nothing.
You will get other people that are much more aggressive about this, but don't ever really explain their point of view. Hopefully my reply isn't aggressive, but explains how a lot of people feel about this and the desire not to lose the quality talent that make this all possible.