Why people didn't buy it

[Al3xand3r]

They don't have the means for a retail release. It would both be a very cheap game (because who would pay $50 for a game that they know costs $20 elsewhere, even if they can't buy from that place) despite the cost of a retail release, and on top of that the publisher would get a hefty share of the profits, so it could very well not be cost effective. Not to mention they can't afford to buy shelf space as so many big retail chains demand, nor can they do large scale mainstream marketing so people who use such stores can actually know the game exists at all, so all a retail release would potentially do is bring them down, not up, unless a sweet unreal opportunity comes up for them. For now, the most they could probably do is offer a limited edition they package and send out on their own, so you'd still need to pay online for that, like some other indies and I think Stardock do occasionally.

As for you and your 20 something friends, surely you can all at the very least get a debit card to make your online purchases (digital or shipped) easier and more hassle free. It has no fees and no minimum deposit, and you can only ever use as much money as you put in, no more, so there's no danger of overdoing it or getting credit issues.

As for not getting your money's worth with a digital release, eh, the game's super cheap in part thanks to that and as long as you don't buy from Steam or other DRM-ed services you can burn the game and keep it like any retail release, whether Frictional survives or not, if your problem is that "when" Steam goes down (yeah, not in our lifetime most likely) you won't have access to your purchased games. Unless the version sold directly by the Frictional store is also DRM-ed but I don't think it is. If so, disregard the last paragraph except for the first sentence.