Steam is NOT Offering Special Exceptions For No Man's Sky Refunds

[Steven Bogos]

Steam is NOT Offering Special Exceptions For No Man's Sky Refunds

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Valve has debunked a report that Steam was offering No Man's Sky refunds regardless of play time.

A lot of disappointed fans are from reddit [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168212-No-Mans-Sky-Sony-Refund-Policy] have been claiming that Valve has been making an exception on the "two hour" rule for No Man's Sky, and was offering refunds regardless of play time. Unfortunately, Valve has now issued an official statement, debunking this report, and confirming that there is no special treatment for No Man's Sky.

"The standard Steam refund policy applies to No Man's Sky," wrote Valve on the here [http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/] for more detail on the Steam refund policy."

As for the cases in which people were able to get refunds despite playing more than two hours - it is most likely because of their direct appeals to customer service, rather than the use of the automated refund system.

No Man's Sky has brought the two hour rule under some scrutiny. Obviously, a game as expansive and slow as NMS would require more time for players to realize it didn't deliver on the promises they expected, but, if they have already sunk 10, 15, or 20 hours into the game, is it still fair for them to receive a full refund?

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/no-mans-sky-refunds/]

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[RaikuFA]

Wow, the behind the scenes of this game just keeps getting worse all the time.

 

[bluegate]

Wow, this game just keeps getting worse all the time.

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

 

[Fensfield]

I... really don't see what'd merit the exception, to be honest.

... Or how this is somehow indicative of the game being 'even worse'.

 

[RaikuFA]

Wow, this game just keeps getting worse all the time.

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

Every customer is entitled. They only want everything handed to them for free.

 

[meirol]

Hmm... I wonder how hello games is going the handle the damage control for this non-controversy

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO. I knew exactly what NMS was going to be, and I enjoy what it is without having to eat my own hype, nor did I buy every word the devs tossed my way. I do feel it was more a $40 buy than $60 but I don't regret the purchase neither do I feel it was Aliens: Colonial Marines or Spore reborn.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

It's not a bad game. I'd gladly pay $40 for it as is, and I'm still hopeful that updates will improve the game greatly over time.

You can get through the tutorial stuff in less than an hour. 2 is a fair experience with NMS IMHO. The internet is overreacting.

 

[Creator002]

if they have already sunk 10, 15, or 20 hours into the game, is it still fair for them to receive a full refund?

I think maybe not under their current policy. I can't think of any reason someone would sink 10+ hours of their life into something they aren't enjoying.

Regarding Steam's refund policy, that's total shit. I played NMS on a friend's PC for about 3 hours. In that time (with no help from my friend), I got off the planet (which took an hour in itself), shot some asteroids, found a space station and bought some plutonium off a robot. That's hardly enough experience to find out if you like the game enough to keep it.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm on team "If you've sunk more than a workday into a game you hate, please re-evaluate your time usage".

That said, I could see slow and expansive games like NMS getting an extension to, say, four hours.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

The devs lied, dude. Many times. This has nothing to do with entitlement.

 

[Battenberg]

Wow, this game just keeps getting worse all the time.

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

In a game which sold itself on this colossal universe with an endless supply of things to do I don't see how customers wanting to play for more than 2 hours to see if the game's worth its price is particularly entitled. The fact people are defending a policy which simply doesn't work for a lot of games (both large open world games like NMS and games which are short enough to be completed in under 2 hours) purely because it's better than what Steam had before, i.e. sod all, kind of blows my mind. Are so many people that beholden to Valve that they'd rather brush off their terrible customer service as "customer entitlement" instead of asking for better?

I have no stake either way in this NMS debacle (if anything I'd prefer people got burned by this to help change this ridiculous pre-order generation we have) but this incident really highlights one of Steam's biggest shortcomings and it really shows how few f's they give any more about customer satisfaction that they refuse to address it at all.

 

[Mike Richards]

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

The devs lied, dude. Many times. This has nothing to do with entitlement.

People keep saying that but they keep not saying what the lie actually was. Every last thing I saw that actually came from Hello or Sony said "Wander planets, discover things, and if you want it too this fucker will pretty much go on forever. There's some online stuff, some trading, some crafting, some fighting, but really it's about exploring. If you like that you'll probably like this."

Then everyone seemed to decide it was gonna be the best damn thing that ever was because apparently they only heard "15 quintillion planets" and stopped listening, and were subsequently annoyed when it wasn't.

It's one thing to say I didn't enjoy the game we got and quite another to say we didn't get the game we were promised. And as a person who both feels we did and thoroughly enjoys it as well, I can absolutely understand the former but the latter really just makes no sense to me.

 

[Baresark]

I used to champion their return policy, but it's really shit. If I have a choice between Steam and GOG, it's GOG all the way. They offer a 30 day money back no matter what. That two hours thing is complete shit. Two weeks is fine, but the two hours... ugh. I didn't even get off the first planet for about 3, and it was only after that I realized how shallow the game was. I have 5 hours on record... and I can't get a refund. What good is that return policy. You literally have to boot the game, then decide immediately if it's what you expected.

Edit: The whole special exception to the return policy thing... that was never true. But that is what happens when an idiot makes an article from a goddamn Reddit post. Fuckin' christ... games journalism my ass.

 

[Saelune]

Its not up to Steam to catch No Man's Sky's droppings. I'm critical of Valve and their practices, sure, but Steam didn't make the game shitty.

 

[Baresark]

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

The devs lied, dude. Many times. This has nothing to do with entitlement.

People keep saying that but they keep not saying what the lie actually was. Every last thing I saw that actually came from Hello or Sony said "Wander planets, discover things, and if you want it too this fucker will pretty much go on forever. There's some online stuff, some trading, some crafting, some fighting, but really it's about exploring. If you like that you'll probably like this."

Then everyone seemed to decide it was gonna be the best damn thing that ever was because apparently they only heard "15 quintillion planets" and stopped listening, and were subsequently annoyed when it wasn't.

It's one thing to say I didn't enjoy the game we got and quite another to say we didn't get the game we were promised. And as a person who both feels we did and thoroughly enjoys it as well, I can absolutely understand the former but the latter really just makes no sense to me.

Well, no. Sean Murray said there would be lots of things going on that simply aren't. He talked about alliances with different races and racial standing. Lie. He talked about an in game economy that would make being a trader viable. Lie. He talked about big events and space battles where you could actually fight on the side of these capitol ships to raise your standing with a race. Lie. He talked about different and interesting life appearing on every planet. Lie again. He said that when you got to the center of the universe it would be really special. Lie. He talked about a crafting system that would be vital to your survival. Lie.

He told lots of lies. The thing that a lot of people like to concentrate on is the BS multiplayer thing. I never even cared about that. I wanted a game that would give me interesting things to talk about. This one manages not to. I'm surprised by how little animal life actually exists on any planet I have been to. I'm surprised that I find the same plants on every planet but can be called something completely different. I'm surprised by how bare bones and boring my every interaction with any aliens I meet are. I'm surprised how easy it is to destroy these mighty sentinels that prevent you from doing whatever you want on a planet and easily they drop really good plans.

I enjoyed it for a few systems, then it's the same again and again and again. You are simply flying around a planet, looking for the same buildings that contain the same things, stop at the same looking "points of interest", finding the same ships again with the same captains at the same stations.

 

[RedDeadFred]

That or the behaviour of entitled customers. My guess lies with the latter.

The devs lied, dude. Many times. This has nothing to do with entitlement.

People keep saying that but they keep not saying what the lie actually was.

Here's a big list of things that the devs said would be in the game which did not happen with sources to the exact interviews Murray made the claims in:
http://www.onemanslie.info/the-original-reddit-post/
You could argue that a lot of those are fairly tiny, but the tiny things add up to creating a universe that feels alive. One of my biggest issues with the game before it came out was that I didn't think it would feel like a living universe because you'd grow to notice the simplicity of the game's systems too quickly.

While I think people should realize that devs lie and exaggerate all the time, anti-consumer practices shouldn't be excused just because lots of companies do it. I fully expected this game to be mediocre and not live up to any of its promises because it felt like Spore all over again, but I still maintained a sliver of hope because the premise was cool.

OT: If Steam were to give special exceptions for NMS, then they'd have to take a very long look at their entire catalog. NMS is far from the worst case of false advertising in gaming, it just happens to be one of the most publicized.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

*Shrug* That's what happens when the industry moves to download-only and gamers(as a whole) enthusiastically support such a move. Sometimes you'll get burned and won't even have a copy that you can sell.

 

[Naldan]

People, if you enjoy NMS, that's awesome. I'd enjoy it probably, too, if I'd buy it for $10.

But if you actually catch up on the sheer amount of interviews Sean Murray gave, and if you just followed the presentations of the game at a show with some commentary and gameplay-footage, you can't say that it's on the consumer's end to inform himself. Gee, it's more than at least an hour of promotional material.
And only in the final months they actually became murky about wether or not this or that feature is in the game or not. Before that, there sure was multiplayer. There sure were unique resources distributed through a fully fledged planetary system -simulation. Of course you could be a merchant and actually feel like one similar to the X series. Etc.

By the way, I don't even own the game and didn't even give a damn about it until this debacle. I wasn't hyped at all and am not disappointed from a buyer's perspective. But this looks like deception, especially through their shift in tone from clear and open to "maybe, maybe not, dunno"-nebulous statements and the sheer amount of content that got lost.

And there isn't even much room for debate here, you have it all on video with clear statements and often representations, also you can quote the dev Sean Murray directly for a lot of the missing features, sometimes multiple times, without a hint that this was something experimental that might not even end up in the game. And again, it's not just one feature or just multiplayer.

I'm wondering what you expect people to do. The press hyped the game, the publisher hyped the game, the dev hyped the game. It didn't come from nothing. Ok, people wait until after release. Then YouTubers get bought to further hype the game, the press shills out their score system and hundreds of white knights defend it and others have something against consumers in general.

OK, you could also do it like me and wait for a fully-fledged, uncut Let's Play. But I'm a dude with lots and lots of time on his hands. So what to do?

 

[thewatergamer]

Hahahahahaha fuck you steam and fuck you valve, after years of no refunds you finally offer a paltry refund system AT BEST I am so sick of the "Buyer Beware" argument people keep bringing up, yeah "Buyer Beware" is all fine and good until OH YEAH your dealing with a developer that LIED on multiple occasions, its called false advertising

And anyone who is seriously going to disagree with me, do me a favor, go onto youtube, and search Jimquisition: Buyers Beware and then come back and tell me "I'm wrong"