When my kids bought me an isis back in 2006 I was hooked from the start. The forum was buzzing with excitement, the moderators were always posting and ‘PUZZ’ was frequently entering into the excitement with frequent posts and seemed to genuinely be keen to keep in touch with what his customers thought of the puzzles. Pyramids were being released every month (as promised) and although initially, without passwords, the gold coins quickly grabbed everyone seemed to still be keen and in hope that a pyramid would be introduced near them in the near future. The hidden puzzles were placed every month (as promised) and even with the clues getting progressively harder, the forum was always buzzing at the beginning of every month in the hope that they would solve the clue and get their hands on an isis literally as originally it was the puzzle that was hidden, not a coin as it is now. I think everyone was pleased to see SW doing well and expanding into the USA and Europe. Obviously with expansion comes an increase in commitments, operating costs and risk.
I think the first crack started to appear when there were some friction between past moderators and SW, then came the passwords to open pyramids and the pay to guess quickly afterwards. If I can recall correctly there was even an offer to buy shares in SW at one point. I lost count at the number of ‘Limited Edition’ ISIS 1s, ISIS 1A, B , C, Tut, Eagle ISIS, Inventor signed isis. I’m sure there are loads more but I can’t remember them all. Anyone keen enough will certainly have a nice collection of ISIS1s but they shouldn’t kid themselves that these offers were simply to entice more money from SW fans that had already demonstrated their support to the company. We then had to pay to visit the forum and enter the additional competitions. Well the forum has dried up and the competitions have dried up also. No longer do we have monthly hunts for a free isis. Understandably giving away the puzzles may have been expensive but it was always stated that the hunt was often greater than the reward and many would have happily hunted for a silver coin.
I never did buy a Ramisis. I felt I couldn’t justify the cost and my decision was quickly reinforced shortly after its launce and subsequent problems. Now the Platinum pyramid with its £10K prize money! Well if SW won’t give clues to hidden puzzles or pyramid passwords there is very little chance that the clues in the yet more limited edition Black and Copper ISIS will give any significant help to help solve the Platinum Pyramid.
I hope that SW revamp their customer services to the very high standard it was at the outset. I hope that ISIS 3 is a success and I hope the KUKU also proves successful. I hope that SW start to issue additional clues for the hidden ISIS (some of which have been hidden for a long time). I hope they get a webmaster who can conduct some of the very simple edits to the website that have driven me mad for years. I hope that they lean all about bringing a product to marked before their mistakes sink them. But most of all, I hope that SW recognise the loyal following on the forum before it diminishes further. As I write this on a Friday night at 9pm there is 1 user online – Me!
Last one out, switch off the light!!
Haggis
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