Request: Try before you buy.

That would be helpful, or at least a better preview. I bought a couple and they weren't as good as they looked and I really havn't used them.

Applying watermark or time limit is fast and easy. Why they won't do this? It's out of my understanding...

It's been stated before that we won't be doing try-before-buy on the dreams, especially the pre-rendered ones.  Generally speaking, we do demos/previews for software, not for content.

Found this on an odd-ball site I was browsing, it seems you can run dreams on different versions.


*Edited by Moderator:  Please refrain from linking to sites that promote un-authorized workarounds to copyrighted software.

Okay then, rephrase of the question-

WHY isn't there a "try before you buy" program out there? Honestly, it's a little rediculous.

for those of us that seem to be comitted to buying and renewing with stardock every year our suggestion for a try before you buy is not so far fetched. seeing as vista is so new and there are so many people with ultimate and deskscape whose problems just keep growing whether it be software or a graphics card, we need to know if it is going to work on our systems. not just yours which could be close and and even maybe the same configuration, but if evreyone uploaded thier system stats to you I highly doubt that you are going to build every system and test.

1. We know vista has problems
2. We know that not all dreams work on everyones system
3. We know that you are trying to fix all the problems that you can
4. Is it to much to ask for a 1 day trial of a dream that cost money to see if it is going to work or if it doesn't then we wait and buy when it does............

I just renewed, and this does sound like a good idea. At least a video preview.

It's actually fairly time consuming and involves a fair bit of effort to setup 1-day trials of content.  Even a watermark on one of the rendered videos would be fairly resource-intensive. 

Instead of doing limited-time trials, or watermarked content, what we have done is released other dreams of similarly high-quality for free (or mostly free in the case of Desktop Earth for ODNT subscribers). 

You've seen the quality of the work being released.  And our two video premium dreams have flash animation previews so you can get an idea of how they look in potion.  For the dynamic content that isn't pre-rendered, it's trickier.  If you've seen Island Dog's video review of the Month in Dreams, you'll notice that capturing video on Vista with an animated background at the moment is very stuttery.  If we could easily do a high-quality video capture of the dynamic content, we'd post that just like with the video dreams, but right now there are technical limitations.

If you're concerned about a dream not properly working on your system, then wait a day or two, see how everything shakes out, then, if it looks appealing to you, buy it.  We've had one glitch where a dream didn't work on release (out of the 14 released to date) and it was caught within hours, pulled and a fix was up less than 24 hours later.

how did you translate this.
Found this on an odd-ball site I was browsing, it seems you can run dreams on different versions.

*Edited by Moderator:  Please refrain from linking to sites that promote un-authorized workarounds to copyrighted software.

it's russian.

I don't have Vista but it can be downloaded from that site for those interested...

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Extra: Windows DreamScene Patched to allow installation on versions of Vista other than Ultimate. ie: Run DreamScene on Home/Home remium/Business/Enterprise.

Hopefully this post will end this silly demand for a "try before you buy" version. Quite frankly, it's old. So without further wait I will quote Frogboy on his thoughts about this matter (and there are many) which can be found if you dig around this forum. Believe it or not, this has already been debated and the issue shut.

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I would purchase a 2007 car if it were 5 dollars without driving it. I also routlinely buy drinks and food out at restaurants without trying out the food first.

I understand what people are saying, but we're talking about something that is less than 5 dollars. The amount of time it would take to do "demo versions" of a 5 dollar thing would almost certainly not be made up in increased sales. If 5 dollars is a price point of pain, my suggestion would be to not buy it.
-Frogboy
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the issue is that we're talking about 5 dollars, not 30,000 dollars.

We make shareware/demos/etc. of software that costs even $15. But at $5, we simply feel there's just not that much risk involved. We have plenty of free ones on this site and you can see the quality of what we make.
-Frogboy
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How is this different from a book? I bought Stephen King's "The Cell" based on reviews. I didn't like it. But it was $5.95 so I didn't lose sleep on it.

I'll say it again: if 5 dollars is a concern, then just don't buy it.
-Frogboy
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A full length movie is $10 and you only get to see that once. A good animated wallpaper may be something you use on your desktop for years.

Full-length movies have economies of scale. The only reason they cost "only" $10 is because they expect millions to watch them. If millions of people were likely to buy this kind of thing, then one could justify lower prices.

This is my last post on the issue. We're not going to spend time making some "test" video over a 4 dollar and 95 cents thing. If 5 bucks is an issue, you're not the target audience for it. (bold done by me to emphasize the point)
-Frogboy
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Bottom line folks: It ain't gonna happen. Get over it. Not fair is it? Last I checked life NEVER was...

this is not about the cost of the dream but the fact that everyone who has different system configurations than what they have at stardock. people want to make sure that the dream is going to be stable on their system. some dreams work fine some don't and all the dreams work for some systems. until all the drivers from nvidia and the final dreamscene from MS can be hammered out, i don't see a problem with people being a little worried that they just spent $5 for a dream that did not work on their system and may not work until all the bugs are worked out. is it their fault for believing that all dreams are created the same and all systems are setup like theirs....i just think that until MS and Nvidia can get things squared away, stardock should offer them but with feedback from their customers so we can make stardock a place where we will eventually want to buy dreams that work on our systems when the problems start to slow down.....just my thought..not a suggestion...  

Okay everything you say is true, except, you must not look at the prices, because, there $9. Cool, but the very least you could do is have video preview. Have'nt seen one for $5. I would like to see what it looks like.

Tripdog - I understand where you're coming from, and you make a very, very valid point. I guess the only thing I can suggest is to follow Stardock's advice and compare their premium dreams with their free dreams, since the quality and general performance are always quite similar. As for the dynamic dreams, I don't think I've heard of one NOT working for someone (or at least not to the point that Stardock's tech team cant fix it once the person goes through the proper channels) Please correct me if I'm wrong on that last point since I may well be wrong.

Hippie - I will honestly admit I forgot about the 9 dollar price tag on some of the more recent dynamic dreams, meaning that a lot of the arguments I quoted from Frogboy are indeed a bit void. I've been here with dream.wincustomize.com since nearly the beginning so you have to understand I'm used to seeing the 4.95 price tag since dynamic content was not available until just recently. To answer one of your questions - click on Stellar Dream and Expanding Shapes from the homepage (they're premium dreams) and you will see that they have a 4.95 pricetag. Blissful Dream, which was originally Blissful Sunset, was once 4.95 (and is how much I paid for it) before it got the time trigger update.

Honestly I think a simple solution is.. If you know some dreams wont work for you.. don't buy any of them until you have upgraded. No one can garauntee anything will work after purchase, just last week I bough a fan at Wal-Mart, right out of the box.. no worky. You don't get to taste food before you buy it.. there are no try before you buy windowblinds.. or icon packs. To me I think Stardock does enough for everyone.. its a few bucks.. if you lose out.. perhaps it just wasn't your day.

I have to agree with vStyler. How many times have we all eaten out at a restaurant and not liked the food you ordered? Depending on the restaurant you might have easily spent over 10 dollars (I know some who wasted over 30 when dining in more expensive restaurants). That's just the way things are, unfortunately. We don't complain to the restaurant manager because the food didn't fit your tastes. We just don't eat the food and move on with our lives. I don't see how purchasing a premium dream here is any different. As with eating out, there will always be a certain risk when purchasing any dream, albeit the risk is relatively lower in some cases than others.

Personally I purchased the expanding shapes dream by Niel Banfield and found that I utterly hated it. My PC saw it for about 10 seconds and never again. So did I waste the 5 dollars? You bet! But do I like or dislike Stardock any more or any less because of it? Nope.

Yosmel: I am sorry you didn't like the expanding shapes dream.  What in particular did you not like about it?

Tripdog: All the dynamic dreams should work fine on all setups.  Unlike the video based dreams, they do not have compatibility problems due to different video codecs etc.

If you want to try a free dynamic dream, download the ovals dynamic dream by me.

If we end up doing $19.95 premium dreams down the line, those would probably have a test version.

But at less than 10 dollars, the incremental increase in sales isn't worth the time and effort to create one.

As has been said, if $5 or even $9 is a price point that causes you to think twice about something you might like, it's probably better not to buy it.

I spend $5 to $9 pretty regularly at lunch.  A lot of incidentals in life don't have "try before you buy". It's only at around $15 to $20 that it starts to become worth it.

 

Neil - I just loaded Expanding Shapes again to take a closer look and see what about it I didn't like, and I can honestly say I don't exactly know! The colors, the shapes, not enough movement, maybe a little bit of all of them? I really can't pin it down. It's one of those cases where you just look at something artistically and don't enjoy it as much as the next. That being said I did not and will never say or imply that your work is or ever was of poor quality. I can probably speak for a lot of us here and say that I appreciate all the work you and Stardock is putting into the expansion of DreamScene.

Keep it up!!

it has been stated before as well that dynamic dreams are more than just content, they are actuall peices of software that run in the background. stated by your own moderators.

I would say that they are more like DesktopX themes or gadgets than seperate software packages.  In any case, try the free ones.  If they don't work well, don't buy the premium ones.  There's the best preview that will be provided at this price-point.

but if we try the free ones which are not yours then is that like saying that you really want Windows but hey go try the Mac and if you don't like it come and buy Windows...you put some really good dynamic dreams out there for us to try and evaluate and then you can charge since they are yours...you are saying that if someone elses dream doesn't work then I should not buy yours...now that has got to be the best business practice i have ever seen....give credit to the people who make dreams and don't make it seem as though your dreams are above theirs.......

Try the free ones by Stardock Design.  So far they are the only folks selling dreams I think.

I've purchased all of Stardock's dreams except the Wallpaper Changer and the Shapes one, but I plan to add these two soon to my collection (just waiting to see if the wallpaper changer one will be updated to use multiple folders or if there will be a new one which will not be an update that will be released). I can therefore attest that it is really worth the few dollars they ask for it.

A few years ago I read from a developer /affiliate in the Regnow forums that TBYB is not such an good idea from a selling point of view, because people buy on impulse. A small developer who's website does not receive much traffic do not have much of a choice as to go the TBYB option, but other sites that draw much traffic will do much better selling directly. There was one guy that was totally against it and he engouraged other developers to rather give a 30 day money back guarantee instead of TBYB. From this guy's position in the sales ranks it was obvious that he had a point as he made more money in one day than what others made in months. So if I was in Stardock position I would also not consider TBYB for such an small dollar value product.

Zubaz I see that you say you "think" Stardock is the only folks selling dreams. Are other people who is creating dreams allowed to sell it from their own website? If I spend a few weeks creating a dream I would prefer to sell it. I fix a lot of other peoples PC's for free and spend hours sorting out their computer problems so I think I'm doing my part when it comes to free.

If you contribute a good amount of content to this website you will eventually earn the Master rank, which will allow you to sell your dreams through this website much like Stardock is doing right now.