Steam refusing refunds on this game if 1 min over 2 hours exactly

[CBJ]

Enough. If the personal attacks continue, in either direction, this thread will be locked and the people responsible for getting it locked suspended from the forum.

[Gupster]

First - let me say I'm not necessarily bashing the game nor the devs by far. They've been prompt and stars above other studios in patches, etc.

I also think it is entirely rational to concede there are many players having a great time, while many players have bug issues that impact them more than others. However, there are enough issues that for me the game isn't a go, with ~4 hours on record played.

In my case, I could barely get past the tutorials. Specifically, #2 ship mode was a horror story. Spent nearly 2 hours stuck just on that one. Anyway, this isn't complaint about game thread - just PSA that I've tried ~6 times now with Steam and despite pointing out the only reason I played 4 hours was due to the sheer time it took to try out and get past the tutorials, they're sticking to their guns and say in this case, no exception to the 2 hour cut off will be made.

To repeat again, if you're having a great time with the game, kudos to you and I take nothing away from that. But it is definitely not for me as I don't play games where some basic mechanics don't work for me - unfortunately Steam is not standing behind the general intent of their refund policy - which is for legit returns when a player hasn't abused the privilege of playing it then try to 'return' it.

Like any consumer though, only way is vote with wallet, so while I'll certainly give ES another attempt down the line given their sincerity and efforts, I'm pretty much done ever buying another title on steam. I'll just suck it up and not play anything that is steam exclusive.

I find this surprising, i bought the game once to try it out and found it to be not up to my standards and refunded it through steam with 2 hours play, then, after reading in this forum that the patches had made a lot of improvements i bought it again on steam and played less than 2 hours becuase it was still very obvious that it was still not up to standard and got a second refund, i would suggest you keep asking them.

[jacozilla]

First - let me say I'm not necessarily bashing the game nor the devs by far. They've been prompt and stars above other studios in patches, etc.

I also think it is entirely rational to concede there are many players having a great time, while many players have bug issues that impact them more than others. However, there are enough issues that for me the game isn't a go, with ~4 hours on record played.

In my case, I could barely get past the tutorials. Specifically, #2 ship mode was a horror story. Spent nearly 2 hours stuck just on that one. Anyway, this isn't complaint about game thread - just PSA that I've tried ~6 times now with Steam and despite pointing out the only reason I played 4 hours was due to the sheer time it took to try out and get past the tutorials, they're sticking to their guns and say in this case, no exception to the 2 hour cut off will be made.

To repeat again, if you're having a great time with the game, kudos to you and I take nothing away from that. But it is definitely not for me as I don't play games where some basic mechanics don't work for me - unfortunately Steam is not standing behind the general intent of their refund policy - which is for legit returns when a player hasn't abused the privilege of playing it then try to 'return' it.

Like any consumer though, only way is vote with wallet, so while I'll certainly give ES another attempt down the line given their sincerity and efforts, I'm pretty much done ever buying another title on steam. I'll just suck it up and not play anything that is steam exclusive.

I find this surprising, i bought the game once to try it out and found it to be not up to my standards and refunded it through steam with 2 hours play, then, after reading in this forum that the patches had made a lot of improvements i bought it again on steam and played less than 2 hours becuase it was still very obvious that it was still not up to standard and got a second refund, i would suggest you keep asking them.

Well I've been trying - on 5th request now. Each one is open for ~1 hour at most, then closed with same answer as I got previous - any play over 2 hours = no refund. Since it was copy/paste I also asked for a supervisor to review the case, same auto answer.

Lack of game refund isn't going to change even 1 cup of coffee I decide or not decide to buy, but the principal of the issue keeps me at it. If 2 hours is always the cut off with no exception for case by case review dependent how deep the starting curve of a game is, I'd expect lot more people to be dumping and refunding games unfairly without giving it a fair chance. Leading to even more negative reviews and death spirals for many games that don't have AAA backing to weather that storm.

That plus at least Egosoft talks to their consumers, so far with Valve I haven't gotten past the auto cancel of refund request.

[Playbahnosh]

Okay, let's get one thing straight: You are not entitled to anything. The fact, that Steam has a stated refund policy is the exception, not the rule. 2 hours is more than enough to see if A, a game would run on your setup and B, to see if you want to keep playing it or not. The latter being nothing more than the good will of Steam, since they are in fact not required to refund anyone, ever. They just do it as a customer service thing.

By buying a video game, the only thing you are entitled to is playing it, nothing else. Hell, if you read the EULA of some games, you might not even be entitled to that much, but that's another can of worms. Point is, you went over the stated 2 hours of Steam's refund policy thing, right? Then what, did you expect them to change the rules just for you? If they did, then hordes entitled bra....I mean misguided people would start lining up to refund games 4-6 or even 10+ hours in, and that's not gonna happen. You can open a thousand support tickets, you can review bomb them, you can post on all the social media how much Steam sucks, your tantrum won't accomplish anything. You can also "vote with you wallet" or "boycott" or whatever, do you think a multi-million dollar company will miss your measly 50 bucks, that you want to get refunded anyway?

Look, people are entitled to their opinions, which includes you as well. But trying to start a witch-hunt on a completely unrelated forum because of your failure to abide by the rules of a platform that offers a service form their own good will, that's not gonna fly. Sure, Steam has a lot of issues, but it's still the only platform that allows you to refund any video game because you "don't like it". Try that stunt with Origin or Uplay, or any other, you gonna get laughed out of the support page.

I suggest you count your blessings and practice some self-reflection before you start a war for all the wrong reasons.

[Knightwolf]

Anyone remember when you bought games/software from physical stores.? They would not allow you to return it if had opened the box. Steam's policy doesn't look so bad.

[Kadatherion]

Actually, law guarantees the right of withdrawal: when you buy a product on Steam, you agree to relinquish it. The same goes with return policies for faulty products: problem is, while it's a fitting comparison when complaining about the state of a game at launch, by all means a badly functioning game isn't the same as a badly functioning vacuum cleaner. For the obvious reason a game isn't a physical object you'd need to personally return for it to get fixed/replaced, because many issues can not be immediately apparent and, finally, because many of such issues can be not inherent to the game itself but rather to how it interfaces with your own, specific and particular system (so, who's at "fault" in this case? The game developers? The OS developers? The cpu/gpu manifacturers?).

This is why the industry, as a standard, doesn't comply to the general rules that regulate "traditional" buy/return policies, and law itself turns a "blind eye" on it because it couldn't do otherwise. This said, it's an obvious hole in worldwide legislation, and indeed it can lead to justified complaints and - no doubts about it - to some companies abusing the system with no direct repercussions. This is why while Steam wouldn't be forced by anyone to apply their return policy, it offers that as a compromise which, indirectly, is beneficial to their sales as it's a feature that can reassure their customers: a safety net should they incur in certain issues.

Even this system is abused, on the opposite, by some, because it's not policied: one could buy a game and refund it for no real reason; this would be the same with the right of withdrawal, but with virtual products you can do that to an extent that is damaging. However, it would be impossible to policy the system on a case by case scenario: which is why they keep refusing your request. Steam can't have their customer care employees actually play each and every game for sale, so they can see if your claim is sensible (and yes, in the case of an X game it is: 2 hours is barely enough to familiarize with the control mapping and BEGIN the tutorials) or not. Hell, if they could, we'd have no issues because Egosoft would have gotten free QA by... Steam!

You have to draw a generic line, a middle ground, and can't realistically do much more than that. Certain games nowadays are 6, even only 4 hours long, in that extreme the opposite happens, the refund policy is too unbalanced *in favor* of the customer. In other games, such as this one, the 2 hours limit feels to narrow a window. In face of this, the only possible reaction is a shrug, because, really, nobody's at fault except reality.

[mr.WHO]

TL:DR but the title says all who is at fault here.
Steam refund policy is clear - if you played for over 2 hours - no refund - it's you're responsibility to track the time and include safe buffer of at least several minutes.

If they would give you the refund then next time someone will come with 2 hours 2 minute, 2 hours 3 minutes why not it's just another minute?



It's 2 hours, deal with it.

[Socratatus]

If they would give you the refund then next time someone will come with 2 hours 2 minute, 2 hours 3 minutes why not it's just another minute?

EXACTLY!

[Playbahnosh]

This is why the industry, as a standard, doesn't comply to the general rules that regulate "traditional" buy/return policies, and law itself turns a "blind eye" on it because it couldn't do otherwise.

Kadatherion, dude, I like you, but you so very wrong on this one.
Contrary to popular belief, computer software is not a product, and never was. It's an intellectual property that you are granted a licence to use upon purchase, with a contract that you agree to by installing it on your computer. Your vacuum cleaner doesn't come with a EULA, and an "I AGREE" button, does it? "next, next, next, I agree, finish", amirite?

As such, none of the typical consumer protection clauses apply to software, which includes the right to withdrawal and also any kind of warranty. That's right, software you buy is under no warranty to run on your computer, do what it is advertised to do, or to keep functioning for any amount of time, at all. The retailer and the publisher is under absolutely no obligation to refund anything, and in just about all EULAs you sign away your rights to raise official complaint about pretty much anything as the publisher is not liable if the software stops working, causes any issues, damage or loss or whatever to you or your computer. You are basically buying a ticking timebomb, blindfolded, gagged, and with your hands tied. You can literally sign away your soul if you are not careful! So, next time maybe give that word salad a once-over when you install stuff, huh?

As for Steam (or any kind of software retailer), refunds are completely dependent on them. It's absolutely not a given for a store to refund your software for any reason whatsoever. The fact, that Steam does have a returns policy, like I said, is the exception, not the rule, and they are doing it "from the kindness of their hearts", or more likely a savvy business decision to lull gamers into a false sense of security by having an "oh shit" button when their game won't work. In the long term, the sales they lose by refunds are cosmically less than the sales they gain by demonstrating good will towards their customers. Even if you go by common sense, offering a "money-back guarantee" when they don't even have to by any rule or law, is a very bad business decision. But it's also a very good PR decision and helps to put people at ease and more likely to buy stuff when they know they can just get a refund if they don't like the game. As I said, 2 hours is way more than enough to see if a game would actually run on your PC and if you'd like to play more of it. Steam is basically giving everyone a demo of all the games. No other platform does that. I'm not saying Steam is the best platform there is, no, they have a ton of issues, but at least they are doing some things right. And people trying to take advantage of their "good will" and trying to take the arm when they offer a hand just makes me headdesk...

[Kadatherion]

Kadatherion, dude, I like you, but you so very wrong on this one.
Contrary to popular belief, computer software is not a product, and never was. It's an intellectual property that you are granted a licence to use upon purchase, with a contract that you agree to by installing it on your computer. Your vacuum cleaner doesn't come with a EULA, and an "I AGREE" button, does it? "next, next, next, I agree, finish", amirite?

I'm perfectly aware, and this is HOW (not WHY) law turns a blind eye to it. This and the fact legislations around copyright and IP are still a chaotic thing in the making, so a lot of things fall into a grey area where things work because of best practice but technically not necessarily by the law's letter. Remember, they are considered IP and you do not "own" them because the law lets them do it (rightly so, of course, for obvious reasons), but technically speaking a case could very well be built demonstrating they can't be treated as "pure" IPs. From the customer's point of view, for instance, the very fact - to stay into what matters to us and not go deep into constitutions, definitions, legal technobabble and so on - they may be working or not working, they may be functioning or broken separates them from any other IP product: you can like or dislike a movie, but it will never be "broken". Unless the actual blue ray on which it is recorded is broken, and guess what? You obviously are entitled to a refund in such a case. Why doesn't this apply to videogames? Because it can't, obviously, but the law often isn't or can't yet be very explicit about that, because it's outdated and never was able to keep with the times on these matters. It lacks the tools - right now - to say that a broken game could be treated like a broken product without, in turn, implying the customer has rights of ownership, which would, yet again in turn, open a huge can of worms.

Case in point: the very fact on Steam you sign the agreement to relinquish your rights of withdrawal shows that for some things games are treated like full fledged, physical products. That signature isn't there just for giggles, it's to cover Steam's back in case someone is crazy enough - and a lot of people sometimes can be when it comes to class actions - to try and bring such things to court, where the grey area the industry lies currently in wouldn't be per se enough for Steam to be 100% sure they would always be in the clear.

But, anyway, we are offroading a lot. My post was to try and reason with the OP, to point out his feelings are understandable and not completely devoid of common sense, but that whether he could have point in particular cases such as X4, Steam could never - ever - enforce its refund policy on a case by case scenario.

[palm911]

i agree with the Playbahnosh posts

this topic is becoming less productive and more toxic, i do wish it for egosoft to close it !

i think OP point is at the table, other people point is also at the same table. what else is there to discuss? all i can see right now is the risk of it becoming more and more toxic

[StoneLegionYT]

Could you please link the bug reports you made in the appropriate sections? It be Interesting to keep an eye on them and monitor them overtime.

[LordFlinx]

i agree with the Playbahnosh posts

this topic is becoming less productive and more toxic, i do wish it for egosoft to close it !

i think OP point is at the table, other people point is also at the same table. what else is there to discuss? all i can see right now is the risk of it becoming more and more toxic

+1

[Playbahnosh]

I'm sorry dude, but you still talking nonsense. You mush together legal terms, confuse a lot of things and quite obviously you lack a lot of information on the subject. I'm a software engineer and a video game journalist for close 15 years now, I know what I'm talking about.

Case in point: the very fact on Steam you sign the agreement to relinquish your rights of withdrawal shows that for some things games are treated like full fledged, physical products.

Please link me the part of the Steam EULA where you found this. Because I never seen anything like what you talk about in any EULA, ever. Like I said, softwares, at least consumer-grade programs like video games, are not sold as products, you only purchase a licence to use said software, thereby entering into a licence agreement with the publisher, and accept any terms of use they put up by clicking "I AGREE" on the EULA. You can read all about it here.

Such as "In addition to granting rights and imposing restrictions on the use of copyrighted software, software licenses typically contain provisions which allocate liability and responsibility between the parties entering into the license agreement. In enterprise and commercial software transactions, these terms often include limitations of liability, warranties and warranty disclaimers, and indemnity if the software infringes intellectual property rights of anyone.

And "Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. By doing so, Section 117 does not apply to the end-user and the software publisher may then compel the end-user to accept all of the terms of the license agreement, many of which may be more restrictive than copyright law alone."

Also, "The ownership of digital goods, like software applications and video games, is challenged by "licensed, not sold" EULAs of digital distributors like Steam."

I don't think most people realize, but you actually do not own anything in your Steam library. Valve does. They are just sort of letting you play their games, until they decide not to. Indeed, Steam can one-sidedly decide to revoke their permission to their games, deny access to your entire library and delete your account for no reason whatsoever and you are not entitled to any compensation or legal remedy at all.

The point is, there is absolutely no "grey area" here, no one is "turning a blind eye" or "skirt around the rules". The laws governing intellectual property, software licences and digital rights management are black and white legal statutes with no uncertainly about them. The fact you don't know the laws and regulation around digital rights and software doesn't mean they are not there. This is why I said, that you should maybe read the EULA before you click next...

you can like or dislike a movie, but it will never be "broken"

That's the exact same thing as with software. Since EULAs offer software "AS IS" to the licencee, that means you accept it to be in whatever condition it is when you purchased it. And please don't confuse software or movies with the storage media they are on, that's a completely different legal sinkhole, and are treated very differently. Since the IP and the storage media are separate entities under the law, issues governing their use are also treated separately. If you purchase a faulty storage media (CD, DVD, BR, HDD, whatever), regardless of what's on it, you are entitled to service repair (where applicable) or a replacement under the warranty clause, because it is a physical product. However, the same is not true for the contents of said storage media, since it's a different legal entity and governed by laws of digital rights management.

I get what you are trying to say, and yes, as it's stated above, IP rights holders can apply stricter control over their property by basically forcing you to accept their terms if you want to use their software, which are in most cases a lot stricter than what the general law would have. And because it's their IP, they can force you or prohibit you from doing pretty much anything they want, because you are licencing their product and it's a contract between two individual parties (you, as a legal person, and the company, as a legal person) and not a general agreement governed by general law. They can make you jump on one leg, paint your car pink or give them your first-born if they properly put it into the EULA. It's on you if you want to accept their terms or not

[Kadatherion]

Please link me the part of the Steam EULA where you found this. Because I never seen anything like what you talk about in any EULA, ever.

It's not in the EULA, you click on it to confirm each and every purchase through steam:

"By clicking the button below to proceed you agree that Valve provides you immediate access to digital content as soon as you complete your purchase, without waiting the 14-day withdrawal period. Therefore, you expressly waive your right to withdraw from this purchase".

[ external image ]

Man, I'm not pulling things out of my ass. I'm perfectly aware software is treated as IP and regulated 100% under IP laws. What you don't understand of what I'm saying is that the very act of regulating software under pure IP laws can even be *against the constitution* of quite several countries (or the ruling of supreme courts and various equivalents depending on the country). A case brought to court could (and has, up to a point, some times) hold against the inconsistencies of the laws themselves.

[CBJ]

Sorry, but this has gone way, way off topic for this forum. This is a matter between players and Steam.