I could've told you that a month ago. I put a deposit down with Tilt around then, and that's what they told me. I'm looking at probably FEBRUARY next year. If they get Pros before then, I should be on their list for that as well, and if they come in before June or so, I'll get a Pro and sit on it for a while, then pass it along at cost, or a few hundred under when the premium is ready. I bet lots of other people are doing the same.

If Stern raises the prices again at all this year, they can kiss my money goodbye. Godzilla was literally the game I thought would never be run as a theme again, but.... yeah, no. I'm not paying 10 or 11k for a Premium just because they can't get their s--t together and get games out in a timely manner. I told the first distro I talked to about this as well. If a distro wants to lock me in for a year and possibly eat the price increase, I'll pay in full *right now*, but if you're not willing to sell me a product at a set price, and tell me when it's coming and what the price will be?

Nope. You can have my hundred bucks and put me on the list, but you're likely not getting a sale after Stern screws you over with further price increases when they can't even meet their orders they already have....and keep taking more. That's not my problem.

I gotta say...one thing that is really irking me about this whole situation is that distros seem to be on a really short fuse right now.

Like...okay, great. I get that you're probably getting a bunch of stupid questions, and it's exhausting to deal with. When I email you asking if you can tell me where I'm at on the list for a *pro*, as I'm considering making a drive to buy one, but will wait a month or two if they're actually coming. You tell me that I've only had a deposit in for a month, and it's a year out (which is what you previously told me the wait for a *premium* was, and that you'd put me on the list for a pro as well, and had approx 20 or so in front of me and it shouldn't be too long)...and blast that out to me almost instantly, but then I tell you I'm asking about the pro, and if that gets ignored (Not saying that's the situation currently, I'll allow them a reasonable amount of time to reply).....that's a real good way to piss me off real fast, talking down to me like I'm an idiot after not actually answering the question...

*EDIT* I did get another response from this one saying effectively "We don't know, we're not going to make a promise we can't guarantee, and we are supposed to have some pros this month but who knows."

Frankly, this is going to be the second time I've been completely brushed off by a distro on GZ pro if I don't get a reasonable answer without the BS. I spent about a week talking to a smaller distro and the guy just couldn't ever get his shit together and tell me when he was expecting to have premiums, strung me along that whole time, then told him fine, put me down for a pro since you're expecting to have them in May.....sent him all my info...he *never* responded back with where to send a deposit to.I have absolutely NO issue saying this particular one (not the one above) was Arcade Game Sales of Maryland. That dude is entirely swamped with his work, or incompetent, or BOTH. Based on the fact he couldn't even tell me after days and days of telling me to call back later in the day and he would know for sure what he had, and that he couldn't be arsed to tell me where to send money to...I'm leaning towards incompetence. I won't even attempt to ever use him again after that interaction.

Frankly, I'm just about at the point where it's almost worth it to me to pay 11.5k for a used Premium just to avoid all this BS. If you don't want to take my ~20k in sales of a Pro *and* a Premium, then just freaking say that up front and stop wasting my time. Spending this much money shouldn't be so damn hard. Is it "worth" an extra 2k to avoid stress, a year wait, and the hassle of trying to turn around a Pro when the premium comes up? Yeah...honestly...it probably is.

Again, it's not hard to say "we only do local sales." I've got several other people that have corroborated the experience I had, so it's not just me, but it's not my place to speak for them. Had he just told me "Yep, you're good for May/June/Whatever, here's where to send the money." it would've already been in his hands. His loss....under normal circumstances...but these are far from normal, and I have zero doubts he won't miss my money at all. At least he was totally honest about the premiums, telling me he didn't have any clue when he might get more after he told me his next batch was sold. That's about the only positive I can walk away from the experience with.

23 days since our last communication where I gave him my info and told him to send me the payment info. Either you want the money or you don't, I'm not going to chase these guys around and beg. I allowed far more than anyone sane would consider "reasonable" for a response. What other people tell me is the same story....no communication for months...calls and emails ignored....etc etc... frankly I feel like he did me a favor at this point.

I get it...I'm just not going to tolerate it. If I walk into a car dealership with 9k and tell them I'm looking to spend 9k...they're not going to tell me to come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. They MIGHT tell me to screw off (literally had a sales guy laugh in my face in November when I told them I was looking for a 22 Civic Sport and had 15k in hand for down payment!), or they might show me some cars, but they're not going to leave me alone. They'll send emails for months and months afterwards asking if I'm still interested in a car ETC.

There's got to be some level of personal accountability is what I'm saying. If I can't even get through the *sale* without having to be a rabid dog chasing them.....what kind of support should I expect from a distro like that when there's a dead node board the first month, or whatever? The whole thing just kills all the mojo around getting a NIB game for me. I'd rather not have it than feel like I gave someone that much money that didn't do a single damn thing to earn it other than type out some forms and pass tax back to the government. I've passed on things I wanted plenty of times...this isn't new to me. I'm not a FOMO guy very much, so these "sit back and wait for it to happen" kind of things don't really work with me.

I buy NIB for two reasons:

Less BS than dealing with private sales.
After-purchase support if something happens with the game.

That's it. If either one of those things isn't in the equation...the math simply doesn't add up. I had stellar experiences with GEX previously with Metallica and AC/DC. Zero complaints. But now? They didn't even bother responding when I filled out their info request form. Sure, maybe it got lost in their email, accidentally deleted....whatever. That's not my fault, or my problem. If I had time to play phone tag with people all day, then I would've started there. Service across the board has gone to shit if you ask me. It's not really limited to this distro or that distro...it's all of them, just a question of degree.

At any rate, I've made my point and had my little crybaby rant. I'll pull up my pants now and move on with life.

"Blow off you wanker!" ??