Susan, I have read of quite a few people this happened to - you are not alone. Whether they just haven't finished Phase One and that is why they were not converted to points, or whether you have to write to Customer Support, is something I don't know. If I hear anything else about this, I will let you know.

I used up all of my punch card coupons before the platform change so as to avoid any potential hassle. My one Game Club credit converted without issue.

As for the platform change, I think I will like the points system better. Having said that, I don't like the other changes they have made thus far. I will reserve total judgment, though, until I know that the whole thing is the way it is going to be from here on out.

So far, I don't like what I see either Marian but I'm sure it cannot be complete as is and more work is to be done. (I hope.)

What I'm wondering though, did you ever happen to see WHY they decided to close the other websites and combine them all into one? I would think it was much better the other way around.

Ob, since pretty much every decision made by any company on earth now is determined by the bottom line, which is money, I can only assume that they decided that it would be cheaper and more cost effective to eliminate the other websites.

Hi Reenie, I don't like the way they did the purchase history not being alphabetical, many people have mentioned it on the big fish fan club on face book. Hopefully BF will notice this & change it back.

I don't like that either, judith. Apparently the Purchase History is alphabetized, though, when you go to your Purchase History through the Game Manager.

If you don't wish to access your Purchase History through the Game Manager and wish to access it from the site only, then control + F will allow you to search for the game you are looking for via a keyword.

I have also noticed that they system does not warn you (at least at the present time) if you go to checkout with a game that you already have in your Purchase History, so buyer beware on that one.

My punch card coupon expires on August 18, so I will keep my eyes on the points in my account between now and then to see if they change. If they don't, I'll use the coupon code to pick up a SE. There is no point contacting Customer Service because chances of receiving a response before the expiry date are slim to nil since they are probably being inundated with questions and complaints. My Game Club credits converted without issue as well.

Is there something in particular that you are not happy with because the only thing that jumped out at me when I read the changes is the exchange rate. Up until now, all of the games (including the 65% off CE) and my membership fee were $7.14 Canadian, but now they are $8.98, and that will change whenever the exchange rate does. I'll have to see how the points work because each Game Club credit was converted to 699 points, but the dollar value is $8.98. It probably seems more confusing than it is, so I'll have to wait to see what happens the next time I buy a game.

Thanks very much for letting me know if you hear anything else about the punch card coupon conversion.

Susan

Hi Susan, thus far the things that I am not thrilled about are the fact that our Purchase Histories are not alphabetized unless you access them through the Game Manager. I also don't like the fact that the checkout does not alert you if you are trying to buy a game that you already own, like the old system did. Happily this has not been a problem for me (yet), but I can see where it might be for some. It's just a few little things like that which I hope will get fixed. It's very early days yet.

I have read several posts on other forums today where overseas customers have already canceled their memberships, saying that they can't afford the fluctuating prices. I am glad you have decided to wait and see how it works in its entirety, but I see a lot of people upset enough by this that they aren't going to wait to see how it plays out. Of course, I also understand that even a few dollars can make a difference to someone on a fixed income, and money is really tight right now for a lot of people.

I agree with you that this is probably not the best possible time to try to contact Customer Support if such a thing can be avoided. I get a headache just thinking about how they must be inundated with queries at this time.

I am glad we have this forum where we can discuss all of this.

Thanks for that tip, Old Broad. I will try it next time I download a game. Edit: Where do I find the Game Manager once I am at the BF site? I don't see it in any of the menus, drop-down or otherwise. Maybe it is because I am no longer a Paying Member?

Marion, I just tried the ctrl + F function in the "Search Games" menu box and asked for "Mystery Trackers" ~ and nothing happened. I must not understand your instructions. (BTW, I do not use Game Manager because I gave up my paid monthly subscription to BF years ago.)

You don't need to have a monthly subscription to BF to use the Game Manager. I am not a member but I still use the manager. You just have to sign in to it and then you can access your purchase history and download your games. I've never downloaded a game or even accessed my purchase history on the BF site until last night when Marian mentioned that you can see the quantity of games you own in there now (which I can't). And you do not need to be signed into your BF account on line to sign into the manager.

Hi, Marian!

I have always checked my Purchase History in the Game Manager. I will definitely be checking if an older game that I want to purchase looks familiar, though, because I did try to buy a game once that I already owned, and was warned ! Thanks for letting us know because I didn't realize they dropped the alerts.

I'm used to paying the U.S. exchange rate whenever I shop in the States, so that's not a problem for me. If our dollar ever surpasses the U.S. dollar, I'll be paying less ! My membership renews on August 11, so I'll see how many points I get. BFG converted 6 Game Club credits to points so, right now, I have 4,194 points with a Canadian dollar value of $53.94. I'm not sure how that's going to work when I buy games, but I guess I'll find out the next time they have a sale. Every dollar does count, but I believe the enjoyment level outweighs the extra dollar or so a month, and I can replay them whenever I want. A few years later, they're new again to me because, apparently, I don't remember much about them when I move on to another one. Since I haven't been buying as many games as I used to and only when they're on sale, the increase in my membership fee amounts to less than $25 a year.

I'm also glad we have this forum (especially at a time like this) because so often the answers to any questions we might have can be found right here.

Susan

Hi Reenie, you don't type ctrl +F into the search games menu box. Instead, you execute control + F on the keyboard and in the bottom left a search bar will pop up where you can enter a keyword. You have to do this for each page, though, so it's better to set the number of games per page displayed at 50 to make it less tedious.

And oldbroad is correct about the Game Manager. The Game Manager is not something linked to being a Game Club member. You can't download a game from Big Fish without it involving the Game Manager, for both members and non-members alike.

Susan, I am glad you are here to discuss it with, as well as everyone else here.

I still don't understand the Game Manager thing. Is it automatic or something I must open manually? I don't see any text with that regard when I log on to the BF site, and I tried all the pull-down menus without having "Game Manager" pop out. Sorry to be so obtuse, but I still don't get where it is located on the site and how to open and "use" it. I tried what you suggested (Instead, you execute control + F on the keyboard and in the bottom left a search bar will pop up where you can enter a keyword) and did not have an empty search bar pop up. Nothing popped up.

The game manager should be on your computer desktop unless you deleted the icon.

I don't actually mind the amount fluctuating for me in British pounds if I am charged the same dollar rate each month. But I didn't know it was going to happen - must have missed it when I read what was going to happen.

What I find frustrating is the confusion caused by the disrepancy when I go to my account. In one place "Subscription Profile" it says my sub is £5.70 per month but under "My Game Club" it says my next payment will be £6.84. My next payment will be taken on 28 August . How the heck do they know this will be the exchange rate several weeks hence? It should show in both places that my monthly sub is $6.99 and that this is the amount that will be taken..
6.84 is actually the EURO equivalent OF $6.99 not the british pound !!!! So they've muddled the currencies it seems.

What I'm going to try to achieve is to have all parts of my account showing the same rate (in dollars) if BFG lets me.. I'm also going to try to switch my payment source to a credit card I use for travel which makes no actual charge for the foreign currency transaction debited to be exchanged for British pounds. Wish me luck!

It is really sad that non US people have cancelled memberships because of all this.

I don't have an issue with the policy and won't be cancelling because of it. What would make me cancel is if BFG got its financial knickers in a twist on my account like it seems they have at the moment..

Reenie, if you try to download a game from Big Fish and you don't already have the Game Manager on your computer, the Game Manager automatically downloads prior to the downloading of the game - it is not optional.

So, as oldbroad says, it is possible that you deleted the desktop icon for it but it would still be on your computer.

On my computer, the Game Manager is located in ProgramFiles x86 and the Game Manager is in a folder called bfgclient.

Here's a link to an article about the Control + F command.

That all sounds very sensible and well reasoned, meryl. And I do wish you luck about the credit card. I'm glad you are here taking part in this discussion. It's good to get many perspectives on all of this.

Also, I realize that I was wrong when I said that we now have a game count on our games. The reason this is in error is because I went back and looked again. It just says "items" not games and makes it seem like there's 10 games per page but there's more than just games showing there. It also includes game club credits which counts as one of the "items." So, it is not a correct total in terms of number of games. Sorry for having been misleading about this!

Well, if you looked at the reviews for the new game you posted about today, it seems that purchasing is also a problem right now. I'm thinking that they made a HUGE mistake in making this change. I'm glad I'm not a worker there trying to sort this all out or keep customers happy.

Yes, it's terrible that some people are having trouble purchasing games. I have spoken to two people who initially had this problem and it was solved by purchasing the game through the game manager rather than through the game's download page and then it went through with no issues. But this is the sort of thing that should not be happening at all. I have not tried this method myself yet and frankly I am somewhat reluctant to do so until many people are reporting that this works correctly. I know a lot of people buy games through the Game Manager anyway, but I always used the download page to do so.

I don't think they made a huge mistake changing to the points system, but the rest of it I cannot see the logic in it. I am worried that the points system may have just been a part of a larger agenda that I am not going to like as much.

And yes, it is early days here, but what I have seen so far is not encouraging. I will try to continue to be patient and fair. Maybe it will work out in the end.

Yes, I suppose the point system may be fine. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to do all their changes at one time. I still feel that combining all the websites into one was more of a backwards move. Just my opinion.

One thing I see that I do like, is the Adventure games are separated out better. Now, if they can only get the "sort" button to work so you can view them by name.

I purchase through the site also, not the manager, but I do my downloading through the manager.

Well, supposedly they aren't doing all of their changes at the same time, as they say this on their site:



I also agree with you about the multiple website thing. Almost undoubtedly this was a dollars-and-cents decision.

Oh yeah. I did see something about phase one, but I wonder about how it's being implemented.

And, yes, I'm sure it was a $$ decision. Backwards moves usually are but I've never heard of them working. Doesn't mean they don't, of course. Just not to my limited knowledge.

Old Broad, that probably is what I did, thanks. It is something I never used and I didn't need yet another distracting icon. I guess I will have to figure out how to put it back on the desktop until all the BF changes are finished.

After reading most of the thread, I haven't seen anyone having the same issue that I have with the new Big Fish website.
Since I have checked each day since changes made, When trying to login, I get this error message: Exception printing is disabled by default for security reasons. Error log record number: f7a3cead69d3552febb4697e99abc05fa8e32518de1452edc86c62702e12cf46

If I go back one page, the website comes up, I cannot get any of my account info, add games to cart, or any other function. I did seng a trouble email to Big Fish. So will wait to see what they have to say.

Will say this, I do not like the new website at all. Seems to me, if they decided to make these changes, they should have worked all the bugs out before going live!

Has anyone else had the same issues trying to login, get account info and/or add games to cart?

Spankie

I don't have any trouble signing in or seeing account info. It is showing that I have no stored payment methods and that is fine with me as I wouldn't trust it on the site as it is now. I will not try to buy any games until they get things working better.

I am no techie of any kind but that doesn't sound like a BF error. It seems like I've seen that before somewhere else. Hopefully, somebody else can help you with that.

Thanks oldbroad for your thoughts. I do see in the error about printing being disabled which has nothing to do with logging in. I also tried to login through my email sent to me from Big Fish about the new changes which froze my computer! Really think they have a big mess right now.

Am really considering cancelling my membership because can't even add games to my cart! Will say again, they should have fixed the issues before going live.