Have you ever bought a game on PC and not been able to play it?

[Icehearted]

Way back in the before times, in the long long ago, I got a copy of The Elder Scrolls Redguard with my 3Dfx Voodoo II (I think it was a II) card, but never got around to it until I later upgraded to a pair of Diamond Monster cards, and the game just refused to play.

 

[alj]

The older fallout games on steam , never could get them working correctly the colors where all messed up. Was going to get them on gog but yeah that did not work out.

 

[JayRPG]

Only 1 and I fixed it pretty easily.

It was Jade Empire, it just immediately crashed on the loading screen but found the solution by googling.

It doesn't happen often on PCs and usually there is a pretty simple solution available almost immediately to you.

I've still got an unplayable 3DS game sitting here:
Devil Survivor Overclocked (EU version), when it was localized in the EU region from NA it developed a game breaking bug whereby the summoning of a demon would freeze the game and you would be unable to continue. They did eventually release a patch for this but this game was never released in Australia, I imported it from the UK because we are both PAL, however, we have different eshops and because the game was never released here, Nintendo never put the patch on the Australian Eshop...

I ended up importing a US 3DS to play NA region games including this one so hopefully I'll never experience that type of thing again.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Sword of the Stars 2 when it came out, couldn't get past the main menu. The devs did fix it though.

 

[Antsh]

Thief: Deadly Shadows on Steam. Still haven't gotten the damn thing to work. Always a possibility with older games, but I wish Steam would do like GOG and ensure compatibility.

I just ended up downloading The Dark Mod and playing that instead.

 

[Cowabungaa]

More than once:

- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
After I started to play the framerate slowly sank to a like five per second over time. Apparently because of memory leaks or something.

- Dungeon Keeper 2
Bought it from GoG.com but I couldn't get it to work one bit. I reckon they didn't update it for Windows 7 properly.

- Thief: Deadly Shadows
Same as with DK2, but from Steam. Can't even get it booted properly, just a black screen.

- LoadOut
Okay technically I didn't buy it, but I'll count it anyway. For some reason it gives me BSoD's after about fifteen minutes of gameplay.

- Battlefield 2 and Battlefield: Vietnam
Back when I was just getting into PC gaming I thought of buying BF:V, but as I was a complete newb when it came to system requirements I failed to check them, resulting to it just not working on my computer. When I traded BF:V in for BF2 it did boot but had humongous graphical artifacts.

- Brink
Man did I anticipate that game. But the netcode was so terrible that I could not load a single online game without it having unplayable lag or disconnects. Shame really.

- World of Warcraft
When I first bought I ended up with a copy with two broken discs. Traded it in; another broken disc. The toy store (yes it was so long ago I still bought my games at toy stores) then had to order a new copy, so it was about two/three weeks before I could actually play it, the client wasn't downloadable back then or I was simply unable to.

 

[Eamar]

A couple of years ago, I bought RIFT in a Steam sale. It must have been incompatible with some fundamental part of my computer, because as soon as I downloaded it the whole system started going crazy - slowed to a crawl, randomly shutting down, that sort of stuff. It didn't even occur to me that the game could be to blame, so I looked for and tried pretty much everything else before uninstalling it out of desperation, at which point everything magically resolved itself.

If anyone can offer some sort of explanation, I'd love to hear it. I still own the game and would quite like to try it out at some point.

 

[Leemaster777]

A couple times.

I remember buying the expansion pack for the original Black and White, and while I could play it for awhile, it never saved my game. So, I always had to start from the beginning of the expansion every time I wanted to play it. Never did figure out what was wrong with it.

Then there was Freedom Force Vs The Third Reich. My computer at the time wasn't good enough to actually play it. So, I took the game to a friend's house, and played it on HIS computer. Well, the first few levels, at least. A month or so later, I got a new computer that could play it.

And, most recently, Minecraft. I bought Minecraft... and for some reason, I couldn't play it. I was never able to figure out why it wouldn't run on my PC. Eventually, I just gave up. Probably for the best, anyways. Don't really need THAT much of a time sink in my life.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Good god man all the time back when I was into PC gaming. Desperados 2, Return of the King, a couple of RPGs... fortunately I have a laptop now so I don't even try

 

[thedarkfreak]

I have three games that are unplayable for me right now, due to what I think is a bug in my graphics card. Not the driver, the card.

Torchlight 1 and 2, and Minecraft.


I have no idea why, but when I play these games, at a random time during playing it, my screen will go black, sound will cut out(usually), and the computer will completely stop responding until I force the power off.

I get no BSODs, no memory dumps to examine for problems, nothing in the event logs except for "system was improperly shut down(yeah, no shit)"


I watch both CPU and GPU temps while playing games, and nothing's overheating. I can play games like Guild Wars 2 on max settings with very little trouble, so I simply don't know what the problem is.

The problem has continued to happen across multiple different OS installs(Windows 7, Windows 8 RC, Windows 8, Windows 8.1), fresh installs each time, all drivers always at their latest versions.

I'm confuzzled.

 

[WOPR]

Yes I have.
Ones I've fixed after quite a bit of fiddling: Skyrim, New Vegas, XCOM, Magicka
Ones I still can't get working: Magicka Wizard Wars, Just Cause 2, and Strike Suit Zero (It doesn't like my video card apparently)

Oh and Nexuiz for a different reason that steam *still* owes me a refund for. When they pulled it from their market it disabled the game for playing much like Dark Spore (which I didn't buy just read about). But the game still works, it just won't run because of steam.

 

[Edl01]

The Stanley Parable. It just doesn't run, I'ver tried everything. Fortunatly I borrowed a friends laptop and played it on that, but it was a pain.

Dark Souls. My device manager is broken and can't detect any devices on my computer, and the drivers on my Xbox360 pad don't work properly for Dark Souls because the button mapping is all wrong. I tried to get help to fix the device manager and I've tried every solution other than wiping my hard drive and putting it back to factory settings. It's a shame because before the Error happened I had just gotten to O&S on my no estus flask run, and getting to that point again on another version of the game is way mroe trouble than it's worth!
Don't worry though, I just bought it again on Xbox, I love Dark Souls to much to let such a small thing get between us.

 

[KB13]

For me it was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I get past the tutorial and met Vao and Zaalbar then crash trying to walk through a door to get to the next part of the game, before Disney bought and killed Lucas Arts, I had been trying to find a solution for this problem, never did find out what was wrong, and still haven't. I've been told this is one of the better Star Wars games, so i'm peeved that this one DOAed me.

Gotta say though my favorite PC game that did work for me was Beyond Good & Evil. Engaging story-line, a female heroine that isn't tits and tush, and the side quests aren't fetching or escorting.

 

[Rariow]

When I bought Risen I was using a really old rig that couldn't handle it, running it at something terrible like 2 or 3 FPS even with all the options at minimum. Luckily, I'd already ordered the components to upgrade, and was able to run it perfectly at max options a week later.

I bought a faulty copy of the Hobbit game that came out in all the way back in 2003-ish which crashed after the first level. Gave it back, they gave me one that did work, and boy was I glad: It is a real unknown gem.

I don't know whether it was the game's fault or it just happened to happen when I started playing it, but my GPU (funnily enough, the same one that saved me in the Risen incident) started overheating badly with Far Cry 3, which made me unwilling to play it for the next four or five months.

There were some shenanigans going on with Windows XP service packs when I tried to play Arkham City that meant the game wouldn't launch or play or anything else. By pure coincidence I happened to decide to download three or four year's worth of updates whilst still having the install, and it worked upon my token attempt before going to uninstall. It sat there for a good month, though, since I'm the laziest bastard when it comes to uninstalling stuff.

The biggest example, however, was probably BioShock 2, which I've tried playing on at least four different machines, and hasn't started on a single one. BioShock 1 and Infinite work fine, and I haven't heard of anyone having much trouble with BioShock 2, but for some reason I haven't ever made it to the start screen of that game. I hear I'm not missing much, but it's more a matter of pride at this point.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I found Saints Row 2 to be unplayable, badly optimised for a keyboard and a mouse, and the graphics where not as good as 3 or 4.

 

[Ieyke]

300ish games and maybe 3 times I know of where that happened.

Iron Grip:Warlords was simply a weird little indie game that was janky and didn't work right for me.

RAGE was too much for my old PC to handle. Works fine on my current PC.

I just forgot the 3rd one...

Oh. Battlefield 2142. Because EA is a piece of shit and totally ruined my ability to run/play one of the coolest FPSs ever made.
My entire group of friends frequently goes "You know what I miss? BF2142."
None of us can get it to run. It just got glitchier and glitchier as time went on and EA just never bothered fixing it. Eventually it just stopped working. Assholes.

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

I have three games that are unplayable for me right now, due to what I think is a bug in my graphics card. Not the driver, the card.

Torchlight 1 and 2, and Minecraft.


I have no idea why, but when I play these games, at a random time during playing it, my screen will go black, sound will cut out(usually), and the computer will completely stop responding until I force the power off.

I get no BSODs, no memory dumps to examine for problems, nothing in the event logs except for "system was improperly shut down(yeah, no shit)"


I watch both CPU and GPU temps while playing games, and nothing's overheating. I can play games like Guild Wars 2 on max settings with very little trouble, so I simply don't know what the problem is.

The problem has continued to happen across multiple different OS installs(Windows 7, Windows 8 RC, Windows 8, Windows 8.1), fresh installs each time, all drivers always at their latest versions.

I'm confuzzled.

I was going to suggest checking temps with Hardware Monitor... but if it's not that then there's probably something wrong with the game installation.

How is your memory utilization? How much ram and what components are you using?

If you have a desktop, try removing the GPU and driving display off the CPU integrated graphic (minecraft at least). This will tell you for sure if it's a problem with the GPU or something else.

If this happens on other programs (similar lockup/black screen) it could be a sign of a failing HDD.

As always PC Gaming Wiki [http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Home] has lots of answers for nearly every game.

 

[nyysjan]

Few times.
Usually because the DRM is broken.
Either DRM servers have been taken offline (or the whole service has gone belly up), the "code" is already used, or completely wrong format to the one program is asking.

Sometimes i can pirate the whole thing of the web, other times i have just said fuck it and returned it to store.
Mostly happens with older games.

 

[SweetShark]

Yep, only one time, but for an entirely different reason:

When I was younger I went with my school in a trip on Italy. We found Videogame store and I found very cheap a very good game with the name "Far Cry" [yep, I am old]. I bought it and when I at last put the dvd to install the game I realised something terrible......

It had only Italian for language selection.

At first I said F*CK, I wasted my money and I can't play the game!!!
NOPE!!! I will italled and I will play it!!!!

I somehow manage to intalled the game and I started playing the game...........only to stop playing because I heared the hero of the story talking Italian.............
I started checking in the options to change SOMETHING desperate in English.....but nothing ............fffffFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF********************************************************************************CKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that why I took my lesson why shopping Videogames in other Countries is sometimes bad.....[exception Amazon and Steam]

 

[Mersadeon]

More than once - and often, it is my own stupidity.

I bought Payday 2. I thought "well, the first one ran perfectly on my laptop! This one doesn't look much more graphically intesive. It should work out fine." It didn't.

On Steam Sales I sometimes buy games that I KNOW don't run on my laptop, but they are so cheap that I want to have them for the day that I get a tower again.

Dungeon Keeper 2, unfortunately enough. Not because it's too hardcore for my laptop, but because the initial GOG release was crappy and didn't work on a number of PC's.

And it took ages until I could play Starbound.