VORTEX 93 is Online

Only skimmed through but was a bit peeved at someone complaining in the letter section that Big Finish dare offer the Short Trips that were exclusive at one time. No one says exclusive means exclusive forever. Some people were lucky to listen to them well before anyone else and that's perfectly reasonable but to say that no one else should ever have a chance to listen to them comes off a bit selfish. I am glad Big Finish doesn't think like this.

It doesn't say there's only a period of exclusively either though, so I don't think the writer was wrong to say that BF's listing is incorrect. The wording on the page is those stories "are uniquely available to those who have these releases in their subscriptions". That's not very ambiguous. In fact it's quite directly saying they're only for subscribers. No caveats whatsoever.

I happen to disagree with him purely on the basis that I think these stories shouldn't just be for those who can cough up a year's worth of cash but his point is perfectly valid if perhaps a bit selfish.

I think 5 years is a reasonable amount of time to keep something exclusive. I certainly wouldn't complain if they made it longer or even if they never did offer exclusive stuff to those of us who didn't subscribe in the past. I think that's up to Big Finish but I don't see that they are hurting the fans who did get these in the past. They still get something special at the time that no one else had and they got to listen to it years before anyone else. I don't really see how offering it up now to others takes away from it being special? It's like I really want to watch Stranger Things its exclusive to Netflix but in the future I am sure I'll be able to purchase it from other outlets. But by the time I can Netflix will move onto the next big exciting thing and its the same with Big Finish.

Nick Briggs also made a good point that people are even uploading these exclusives illegally showing that at least some fans don't seem to care that something is "exclusive" to them. But of course people who upload illegally is a whole other ballpark.

Lots of good stuff in this issue. I'm really excited for the new UNIT and Torchwood releases and the articles about them got me pretty pumped up to hear them. I also really enjoyed the focus on Tim Treloar's approach to playing the Third Doctor. I'm impressed with the approach Big Finish has taken to preserving the feel and energy of the earlier Doctors and Treloar's process was particularly interesting to read about.

If it's any consolation to the person who wrote into Vortex, any MR sub stories that I'm still missing after catching up to the range are because I didn't buy the particular set they come with by subscription but got them partly though sales and partly by paying by the higher per item price rather than the sub price for the remainder, which works out about the same as sub price. In those cases I'm still going to have to go back and pay full sub price again on top of what I originally paid, just to get the bonuses after all.

I'm very glad to see the Rarities range, even though it's eventually adding even more to the total cost, because I'll probably end up subbing in spite of them because personally I prize the behind-the-scenes and PDF scripts probably even more than I do the Short Trips stories themselves. The Rarity I was really excited about was The Toy since opportunities to buy a CD second-hand seemed to evaporate before I'd taken advantage of one, and that one wasn't a MR bonus.

As far as Short Trips that I do have because of more recent subs, I don't think I'd mind if Big Finish did earn a few extra dollars by offering more of the Short Trips independently of subscriptions, and probably wouldn't mind personally if they shortened the embargo. I probably don't really need to hear anything all of 5 years ahead of others.