do take into consideration that not everyone is in the same fiscal position, and that not everyone has a reliable, high speed internet connection. I presently get paid primarily in cash, making it difficult to to pay for things online. and my internet connection is patchy at best. As a result, i prefer to deal in physical commodities. So when i cannot secure a game because of a publishers disregard for alternate options, i tend to become disenfranchised with them as a company, rather than sympathetic to individuals trying to save a mere five dollars.
You need to understand that retail shops like EB/Gamestop generally don't stock anything other than sure-sells from major publishers. I read one report that said that Puzzle Quest for the Nintendo DS became extremely hard to find in shops, at least in the US, because stores were sending it back to the distributor after a week because it wasn't meeting their sales quota, and this despite the fact that it was a critically acclaimed title. Even major developers sometimes get the short shrift. For instance, when the Beyond the Sword expansion was released for Civilization IV, I managed to secure one of two available copies at my local Gamestop on release day, and this was an expansion pack for a very successful game coming from Firaxis and Sid "The Man" Meier, but since turn-based strategy is technically a niche genre, the store simply wasn't going to devote much if any store space to it.
Bottom line: I think you're wrong to blame Stardock for not somehow convincing stores to widely embrace a niche product from an independent developer.
