After over a month of wrangling with Steam I got a refund.

[danskmacabre]

It took ages and lots of tickets being closed and re-opened and much debate.
But today I got $50 refunded into my steam wallet.

So like for other people it IS possible to get a refund.

Lesson learned, NEVER pre-order a game ever. That was the first and last time I'll do a pre-order.

I'll especially wait some days after release and read realistic reviews as well.
Great, time to move on, doubt you'll be seeing me on this specific forum again, although I'll still be perusing the X3 forums as I still play those..

[tuareg]

It took ages and lots of tickets being closed and re-opened and much debate.
But today I got $50 refunded into my steam wallet.

So like for other people it IS possible to get a refund.

Lesson learned, NEVER pre-order a game ever. That was the first and last time I'll do a pre-order.

I'll especially wait some days after release and read realistic reviews as well.
Great, time to move on, dount you'll be seeing me on this specific forum again, although I'll still be perusing the X3 forums as I still play those..

nah this is the "huge success" not XR
congrats

[danskmacabre]

nah this is the "huge success" not XR

Lol, indeed, how could I have got it so wrong!

congrats

Thanks, persistence pays off in the end.

[lsw1980]

Must be some sort of miracle going on but I got a refund as well. So I'm now happy as Larry about the game.

[danskmacabre]

Must be some sort of miracle going on but I got a refund as well. So I'm now happy as Larry about the game.

I guess it's got the point it where there's no denying people should get a refund. Even Steam/Valve realise that now.


And yeah, now I don't see it polluting my list of Steam games I'm happy bunnies here too...

[boy]

Lesson learned, NEVER pre-order a game ever. That was the first and last time I'll do a pre-order.

I generally agree with this, but I think an exception to this rule is okay with games that are doing open development with playable pre-release builds. By then, you can pretty much tell whether the game is for you or not. There's not zero risk there, however, since they could theoretically add something totally ridiculous to the game prior to the final build, but the chances are extremely small. To compensate for this, I only participate when the pre-release price is discounted from the final retail price. (This is why I'm backing SC, but passed on doing the same for ED, as my understanding is that the ED release price will be the same £35.)

Obviously, if Ego had done that here, day one sales (which included pre-orders) would have been way less, which is why they were so secretive.

Congrats on your refund.

[yoyolll]

Lesson learned, NEVER pre-order a game ever. That was the first and last time I'll do a pre-order.

I generally agree with this, but I think an exception to this rule is okay with games that are doing open development with playable pre-release builds. By then, you can pretty much tell whether the game is for you or not. There's not zero risk there, however, since they could theoretically add something totally ridiculous to the game prior to the final build, but the chances are extremely small. To compensate for this, I only participate when the pre-release price is discounted from the final retail price.

You also have to consider that you're pretty much paying the dev to finish the game. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for games to be "finished" when they are not finished. Towns for example, one day it was early access, next day dev says "k it's done" and stops developing the game despite the giant list of features that were supposed to be implemented for the finished game.

Everyone who bought XR was kind of tricked into taking this risk, because now we are the beta testers.

[lsw1980]

When either said games get release and still have a good reputation from pleased people after the launch, this refund is going on them

They may not be the same as what we had in the past X series (neither was Rebirth by a long shot) but there being far more open/honest and discussing the game than what's gone on here. And Elite is afterall which got me into space games long ago in the 80's. And I still have the past X games to play

Sick to death of the constant crap of misleading people into buying your product when you know it's not even close to what you're sprouting from your mouth.

[retroxify]

Interesting. How many hours did you have logged in the game?

[boy]

Lesson learned, NEVER pre-order a game ever. That was the first and last time I'll do a pre-order.

I generally agree with this, but I think an exception to this rule is okay with games that are doing open development with playable pre-release builds. By then, you can pretty much tell whether the game is for you or not. There's not zero risk there, however, since they could theoretically add something totally ridiculous to the game prior to the final build, but the chances are extremely small. To compensate for this, I only participate when the pre-release price is discounted from the final retail price.

You also have to consider that you're pretty much paying the dev to finish the game. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for games to be "finished" when they are not finished. Towns for example, one day it was early access, next day dev says "k it's done" and stops developing the game despite the giant list of features that were supposed to be implemented for the finished game.

Yeah, it's still not risk-free. I think with SC though (the only game I've ever helped crowdfund), it's a pretty safe bet, since it is Chris Roberts. If I were into fantasy MMORPGs, I'd feel the same about Lord British's Shroud of the Avatar project too. If we're talking about a couple random guys with an idea, probably not.

There's also the factor of how open the process is, and I don't mean just paying lip-service to it like Ego did with XR. Are they actually running fan surveys and changing design as a result? Are the devs and CEO answering questions directly from players? Is there a dev diary or something like it? SC, ED, Shrould of the Avatar, Project Eternity, Limit Theory, and Wasteland 2 are doing some or all of these. XR's dev process was a black box, except for some carefully doctored clips and NDA-ed beta testers which, as we later found out, were pretty much ignored.

[lsw1980]

Myself was 6 hours playtime if you can call it actual playtime.

[danskmacabre]

Interesting. How many hours did you have logged in the game?

7 hours, but a lot of that was messing about with it's various issues.

[Zothen]

Must be some sort of miracle going on but I got a refund as well. So I'm now happy as Larry about the game.

I guess it's got the point it where there's no denying people should get a refund. Even Steam/Valve realise that now.

Guess its because even Valve realized that Egosoft is pretty much completly incompetent to fix their mess even after 2 months... =/

2 {language redacted, do not abuse the swear filter - CBJ} months and not even the economy was fixed! "Huge success"... indeed!

[spankahontis]

Must be some sort of miracle going on but I got a refund as well. So I'm now happy as Larry about the game.

I guess it's got the point it where there's no denying people should get a refund. Even Steam/Valve realise that now.

Guess its because even Valve realized that Egosoft is pretty much completly incompetent to fix their mess even after 2 months... =/

2 fukking months and not even the economy was fixed! "Huge success"... indeed!

And Rome 2 is a picture of gaming health? They have a bigger team, more money, more PR and also charged too much.

Previous Total War Titles were bug ridden for much longer than X:Rebirth and got less anger than what Egosoft is getting.
Heck CA were even selling off fixes to bugs in 8.1 that weren't even fixed.

But yeah, 1st World Issues.

[yoyolll]

And Rome 2 is a picture of gaming health? They have a bigger team, more money, more PR and also charged too much.

Previous Total War Titles were bug ridden for much longer than X:Rebirth and got less anger than what Egosoft is getting.
Heck CA were even selling off fixes to bugs in 8.1 that weren't even fixed.

But yeah, 1st World Issues.

Actually Rome 2 got fixed relatively quickly, and it's been a pretty solid game for a month or two now. I mean it's absolutely no excuse for selling people an unfinished game with fake critic reviews, but they did finally make it into a good game at least. Took about 2 or 3 months.

[Nosscar]

To me any game is always a risk, will I like it, will it play ok, will it be bug ridden, even reading reviews and other opinions does not always inform me as to if I will personally like it. So I have to try a game for my self first. So any game is always a risk to me. I certainly would not personally bother fighting a month over a refund, I like it or I don't, shelve it or play it. I have lots of games in a cupboard I only used for a few hours and never again played them. Even given loads away, or sold them if no online code needed. From what I have seen most just move on to the next game.

[Captain Lemmiwinks]

To me any game is always a risk, will I like it, will it play ok, will it be bug ridden, even reading reviews and other opinions does not always inform me as to if I will personally like it. So I have to try a game for my self first. So any game is always a risk to me. I certainly would not personally bother fighting a month over a refund, I like it or I don't, shelve it or play it. I have lots of games in a cupboard I only used for a few hours and never again played them. Even given loads away, or sold them if no online code needed. From what I have seen most just move on to the next game.

hmmm

take it and move on

or

as the OP did,get a refund and buy something else

move on = dipping the pocket for more money
refund = no stress from feeling shafted,and money to spend on another game

i know which one i would choose

[lsw1980]

I don't take it and move on either, I'll do my damndest to get a refund then stay away from dev's and publishers that think it's acceptable to treat there customers in such regards.

I'll wait for sales and nab them on the price the games really deserve. Certainly not doing that with Rebirth as it's not the bug issues that make it rubbish, it's the whole way it's been designed.

[yoyolll]

Buying a ****** game is the buyers fault, but with a product that isn't a completed product or a product that doesn't work, you can't put the blame on the consumer. And if that consumer just takes it and doesn't even make a peep then he or she is letting the company walk all over their rights.

[BrownShortz]

I don't take it and move on either, I'll do my damndest to get a refund then stay away from dev's and publishers that think it's acceptable to treat there customers in such regards.

I'll wait for sales and nab them on the price the games really deserve. Certainly not doing that with Rebirth as it's not the bug issues that make it rubbish, it's the whole way it's been designed.

This is a whole different kettle of fish than getting a refund for a broken game. Is the fact that a gamer doesn't like the design choices a developer made sufficient grounds for getting a refund? I would say not. On the other hand if the customer can't even play it because of bugs and frame rate issues then that's a different matter entirely and the buyer should be refunded ASAP.

I think by and large most people feel let down by the design of the game. Then again it wasn't as if we didn't know before hand that you couldn't fly more than one ship or that you would have to have managers to run your stations, or that there was no bridge view from your Cap ships. These things were discussed pretty thoroughly prior to the release if I remember rightly.

If people were so against these design choices then my question would be why did they pre order it in the first place?