TransGaming a little over-friendly?

[IBBoard]

Now that I'm trying to run more and more on Linux (Dawn of War plays almost perfectly the same, I've got access to C# development, all my MP3s, all my documents, all of my emails and bookmarks, etc) I tried using Transgaming's Cedega (a commercial version of Wine that runs Windows apps in Linux but has better DirectX support).

I paid for a three month subscription to try it out and see how it performed. The answer was "shockingly bad". About the only thing Cedega did that Wine didn't was show all of the menu backgrounds correctly, and after a recent update it doesn't even have that edge over Wine now. Wine runs Dawn of War at full speed on full res with full detail, the same as Windows. Cedega never managed over 1 frame per second (when it was actually working properly and showing models).

Anyway, my subscription ran out at the end of Feb, and I just got the following email:

Dear TransGamer,

Thank you for the contributions you have made to the Linux community by supporting CEDEGA and TransGaming Technologies. TransGaming is dedicated to providing the best gaming experience for the Linux community and thanks to your subscription, we have been able to make good progress on that path and have helped fuel the growth of Linux as the preferred operating system of choice.

On 2007-02-28, your subscription at TransGaming Technologies expired. With this expiration, you will no longer receive any of the benefits that subscription offers, including new development efforts, access to the hottest game titles and participation in the Cedega community. Its the contributions and support of individuals such as yourself that has accelerated the proliferation of Linux globally. With the expiration of your subscription, the Linux gaming community has lost a loyal and dedicated supporter.

The expiration of your subscription may have just been an oversight and we would love for you to renew and come back as a TransGamer. By renewing your subscription now, your TransGamer status will remain uninterrupted and you will continue to qualify for TransGamer Emerald status.

To renew your subscription to TransGaming Technologies simply log into: http://www.transgaming.org/subscription ... login.html.

Once again, thank you for your support of TransGaming Technologies and Linux gaming.

Sincerely,
Vikas

-------
Vikas Gupta
CEO & President
TransGaming Technologies

Anyone else think it's a little too 'friendly' and presumptuous?

...thanks to your subscription, we have been able to make good progress on that path...

With my $15 over three months? Man you must have a cheap work force. That'd not even cover an hour of my wages and I've only just started my career as a programmer!

With the expiration of your subscription, the Linux gaming community has lost a loyal and dedicated supporter.

I coughed up my money, made a couple of posts saying it wasn't working, and that was about it. Not exactly loyal and dedicated, especially if I bailed after my minimum three months because the software didn't do better than the free alternative!

Somehow I doubt Cedega is doing much to "[accelerate] the proliferation of Linux globally" when ATI can't even make fully compatible graphics drivers (the ATI ones can do compositing, which is required for lots of the 3D desktop effects, where as enabling compositing with ATI drivers means they fail to load and drop you back to some slow standard ones).

To make matters worse, they have actually terminated my forum account at transgaming.org, so you can't even get unofficial community support once you're not paying!


End of mini-rant.