Rust Dev Thinks Limiting Steam Releases is "Insane"

[Fdzzaigl]

He is not entitled to anything from me, right? I don't know if you're an expert on EU law, but if I (an EU citizen in an EU member state) order a pizza on just-eat.dk (restaurants sign up and sell food of already questionable quality there and Just-Eat takes a 10% cut), and I am not satisfied with my meal and want a 100% refund, I'm entitled to it? And who should reimburse me. The pizzeria or Just-Eat? The pizza is right here, untouched and in the original packaging.

It's not that I want to defend bad business practice or that fastfood and digital PC game licenses are ecxactly the same. But they are similar in the sense that they are worthless once sold and that Steam and Just-Eat just provides the platform and takes their cut. In my experience Steam is cheaper than Just-Eat as well.

Yes of course everybody's rights should be protected, but you can't sell PC software like you sell PC hardware. It has to be under different terms or future computers will have to be cartridge based (for access speed) and you can buy and resell your software cartridge and everything exists in finite amounts. That is just not a view I want to support. It's gonna suck. And the EU is wrong in this case if it is indeed as you say.

He's not entitled from anything from you, nor was he saying he was. It was a manner of speech, chill.

I'm not sure where all these analogies with food are coming from, because they're different things altogether, but ok I'll bite. If you order a pizza caprese via that site (which I don't know btw, but there are different ones here) and a pizza caprese is delivered to your home in time, but you don't like the taste. Then no you can't ask for a refund.
Why not?
Because when you ordered the pizza caprese from the site, you were only agreeing to a service within certain limits. The seller agreed to deliver the pizza to your home within time X, it would be a pizza type Y from producer Z. If the site fulfilled all those requirements, then they adequately took care of their part of the agreement, there's nothing about your personal preference in there, except that the specified food must be delivered in a timely fashion.

But if your pizza you ordered from that site was delivered stone cold, half eaten, a day later, or it wasn't a caprese at all. Would you then have the right to refuse payment? Damn right you would.

That's the whole deal with some games on Steam: they promise this and that service and even go out of their way to paint a completely false picture of what their game actually is. Then when people buy it and want their money back they're regarded as the only responsible party. Sorry no way, that's not how it works.

About the EU part: this is where you need to stop comparing with food. Food is a different kind of goods or service in itself legally (it degrades etc.).

What the EU does is to provide consumer protection through various legislation. Companies on the other hand try to hide behind various "Terms of Use" and "EULA's". In the end, the only thing that counts is the law.
And under that law, you have the right to cancel your purchase within 7 working days and receive a refund within 30 days.

 

[Hateren47]

And if we go by functionality, Saints Row 2 should be removed from Steam because it won't run if your PC has more than 1 monitor connected and as such is one of the only games I have had technical issues with.

And I agree with you. Steam is a shop and they decide what goes where on the store. I just don't see a problem with that in it's current state.

Incidentally, a problem that could have been resolved with a better refund policy. GOG has a better refund policy than Steam, but they're not selling single-license games, so for a better comparison I'm just going to point to Origin. I may hate everything about Origin and EA on a gut level, but they at least have a reasonable return/refund policy.

I don't think I'm entitled to a refund. I own a license to play a game through Steam on any computer I wish to and it will likely work in most cases as long as the computer meets the minimum specifications. I could be a little pissed that it wasn't (and still isn't) mentioned on the store page, but eh... I also don't play EA games any more. The games that goes through EA come out on the other side looking all pretty on the surface and hollow and heartless on the inside. IMO.

It could also have been prevented by the original, unfiltered tagging system (had it existed at the time). "Bad Port" used to be an actual tag, and a useful one, until Valve culled it. It's absurd that Valve can quality control tags, but refuses to do so with its own inventory. I'm not asking for much, just a base level of assurance that things will function, or that I can return them. Again, they're losing to EA at this point. EA.

Is this controversial? I'm not sure i understand. Even if Steam could scan you hardware and configurations and emulate your computer running the game you're planning to buy and verify that it runs before it allows you to press the final purchase button, some things that doesn't work right would still slip through (like my SR2). And EA is definitely still playing catch-up to Steam if you ask me and they have to cater to the demands from the people they want to steal from Steam. Steam doesn't have to steal customers so they don't have to cater to their users in the same way. I don't believe for a second EA actually wants to give refunds. Also the 2 services are only comparable in that they sell games on-line and have friends lists. I think. Haven't opened Origin in a while. But I do know I find it worse than Uplay.

I thank you for the link, and I will likely use it, but think about this: Why couldn't Valve just do this itself? Maybe I am entitled, but I'm asking for the most basic of things: Some interface changes and a refund policy more in line with the real world. Valve has no shortage of money and talent, and it would be nice to see them applied to Steam every once in a while rather than just getting things to the point of usability and walking away.

It's actually a very nice plug-in and you're welcome. What interface options do you think Steam needs and is there stuff that has to go? Either way I'm sure Steam will evolve with it's needs and users demand but you can't ecxactly blame Valve for rushing things.

Additional note: You seem to have taken my "you" in the previous post as a personal demand, but it's just a general term for someone that is not the speaker. In this case, Valve/Steam. I'm not holding you, personally, responsible for what I believe to be shortcomings of a major corporation.

I only took it personal because you were actually making demands and directing them to me. I knew you didn't mean it like that but it was a nice segue into presenting EnhancedSteam to you so I rolled with it

 

[Hateren47]

He is not entitled to anything from me, right? I don't know if you're an expert on EU law, but if I (an EU citizen in an EU member state) order a pizza on just-eat.dk (restaurants sign up and sell food of already questionable quality there and Just-Eat takes a 10% cut), and I am not satisfied with my meal and want a 100% refund, I'm entitled to it? And who should reimburse me. The pizzeria or Just-Eat? The pizza is right here, untouched and in the original packaging.

It's not that I want to defend bad business practice or that fastfood and digital PC game licenses are ecxactly the same. But they are similar in the sense that they are worthless once sold and that Steam and Just-Eat just provides the platform and takes their cut. In my experience Steam is cheaper than Just-Eat as well.

Yes of course everybody's rights should be protected, but you can't sell PC software like you sell PC hardware. It has to be under different terms or future computers will have to be cartridge based (for access speed) and you can buy and resell your software cartridge and everything exists in finite amounts. That is just not a view I want to support. It's gonna suck. And the EU is wrong in this case if it is indeed as you say.

He's not entitled from anything from you, nor was he saying he was. It was a manner of speech, chill.

I know.

I'm not sure where all these analogies with food are coming from, because they're different things altogether, but ok I'll bite (my note: HAH!). If you order a pizza caprese via that site (which I don't know btw, but there are different ones here) and a pizza caprese is delivered to your home in time, but you don't like the taste. Then no you can't ask for a refund.
Why not?
Because when you ordered the pizza caprese from the site, you were only agreeing to a service within certain limits. The seller agreed to deliver the pizza to your home within time X, it would be a pizza type Y from producer Z. If the site fulfilled all those requirements, then they adequately took care of their part of the agreement, there's nothing about your personal preference in there, except that the food must be delivered in a timely fashion.

But if you pizza you ordered from that site was delivered stone cold, half eaten, a day later, or it wasn't a caprese at all. Would you then have the right to refuse payment? Damn right you would.

The pizza is fine I just don't want it any more. Who reimburses me on the others behalf? Just-Eat or Mohammed "Pepe" Marzouk? from Pepe's Pizza? I'm sure the EU has a rule for this and it is ill thought out.

That's the whole deal with some games on Steam: they promise this and that service and even go out of their way to paint a completely false picture of what their game actually is. Then when people buy it and want their money back they're regarded as the only responsible party. Sorry no way, that's not how it works.

About the EU part: this is where you need to stop comparing with food. Food is a different kind of goods or service in itself legally (it degrades etc.).

And that is what I'm saying single user licenses do as well. Yes you can always make more but nothing is free. Not even bits.

What the EU does is to provide consumer protection through various legislation. Companies on the other hand try to hide behind various "Terms of Use" and "EULA's". In the end, the only thing that counts is the law.
And under that law, you have the right to cancel your purchase within 7 working days and receive a refund within 30 days.

Unless it's a pizza... But definitely if it's software. I'm quite sure the EU or any high-level politician anywhere, for that matter, can't define software without putting down a committee and spending half a million euros. Not sure why I shouldn't question the law in this case. But that's an entirely different matter.

Any who, I'm heading out so this is the last reply from me in a few hours. Don't want to leave you hanging

 

[StriderShinryu]

As others have posted, the issue isn't with the number of games that appear on Steam, the issue is with the curation of those titles. There is no reason why Early Access titles should be lumped together with new complete releases. There is no reason for bargain bin re-releases of 10 year old games to be lumped in with actual new releases. There is no reason for a store interface used by millions of people to be as user-unfriendly to use and browse as Steam is.

Also, given the level of success that Rust has had, I don't know that I would take their opinion seriously on this. Let us hear instead from the developers who have suffered because of Steam instead of those who won the lottery on it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Apparently Mr. Newman is unfamiliar with his history because market over saturation is exactly what caused the great crash of the '83.

What a foolish sentiment. Remember the crash in 87. While it's not likely to happen again don't underestimate the situation. It's very bad to overwhelm the consumer with choice and expect them to do all the work. There very much is such a thing as too much choice just as mush as there is too little. It's important to find that sweet spot.

Back then there was barely any internet or a way to know if the game was good, now you have the metacritic score right there on the page, a list of basic features (not the description, the part where it says "Singleplayer, Playable with Controller, Leaderboards, etc...) and Steam reviews, add to that a search on Google and you will know exactly what you are buying.

Mashed is a crappy game from 2004 that I used to love playing on the Xbox, just now it got released on Steam, metascore doesnt even have any review for it but now I can have it on Steam, a lot of people probably dont care but they can just not buy that game if they arent interested. Do we really need someone there to tell us if a certain game is good enough to be on Steam? Certain professional reviewers gave Resident Evil 6 a 2/10 and Alpha Protocol a 1/10, imagine if those guys were in control of what games are and arent on Steam.

And if its because a game is broken, well, a lot of people dont mind playing through a broken game untill there is a unnoficial fix, see games like STALKER, Fallout 3, and Rage.

You really think having access you all that info really makes a difference? Having access to all the info in the world isn't going to change the fact that wading through all the shit to find the good stuff is a bloody chore. Besides I'm not suggesting that professional reviewers get to decide what gets to go on Steam based on subjective opinion. I'm suggesting that Steam have some minimum requirements that a game needs to have before it's eligible to be on Steam. You know, to prevent shit like Earth 2066 and the War Z from happening.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Yeah but you ever notice that in most cereals the size of the flakes or what not on the box is someone 'enhanced' not to mention the ration of marshmallow bits and the size of the marshmallow bits. They use misleading tricks all the time. Now to be fair steam will step in where the publisher has blatantly misrepresented their product and they will refund the purchase. If a game shows itself as an FPS in the material but then turns out to be aside scroller that's misleading. That's misrepresentation and that will get youa refund. If the game is patently unplayable when *they* test it on their systems well then. They will give you a refund.

The thing about bugs is that while many consumers maybe affected by glitch (A) there are more than a few who never encounter it so it then boils down to whatever hardware or software on your system which the devs have no control over. SO in short; steam does provide consumer protection as much as it can but remember they are limited in a sense to what is presented to them for all we know the copy that was presented to steam for evaluation and the copy made available for download could be entirely different.

Besides most of the complaints about bad games come from the Early Access set which I really don't understand. Every early access game has a big ass disclaimer top of the page just under the name of the game in a big blue box that says, it's Early Access.
Steam does what they can to fight for the consumer but the consumer has to take the first step and report these things, also be aware enough to recognize when a game is falsely advertised. COnsumer also needs to remember that there isno 'instant money back'. The mediation is not there to fix 'buyer's remorse'.

I agree that the consumer needs to be vocal and conscious about their decisions too.

But I feel like Steam still has a serious ways to go before I'd lean on them to support my rights. Putting plainly that there are no refunds until they decide to offer them for nonfunctional releases is a serious problem imo. In my experience they also try to weasel out of refunds or compensation as much as they can until the public outrage gets too big.

Take the game I mentioned earlier, Sword of the Stars 2. A turn-based 4x game without too much publicity going for it, but it had some good previews out beforehand, together with several promises made by the devs.
When the game launched, the main menu wouldn't even display properly for most people. Aka: the game was literally unplayable for many. After a hotfix for that, the game would invariably crash after turn 30. It took several months before the game became playable.

Personally I did not ask for a refund, as I knew the developers were the kind who would fix their mess. To their credit, they also did so and offered some free bonus content afterward.
However, I fully respected those who asked for a refund. Yet Steam refused to give in to their demands. I'm unsure if they did so later anyway, but in those few first days only the guys who really fought for it got their refunds.

In general, having to rely on the whims of the retailer to respond to outrage or not is not a good situation for consumers. They need a policy that is balanced more towards the users in my opinion. Then the bad releases will also be less likely to pass for long anyhow, or Steam will start screening themselves because they'll actually suffer from letting too many of them go.

It'll be positive for Steam to take good care of their customers, even those who suffer from bugs that no one else suffers from.

 

[Vivi22]

for starters they need to stop releasing "Early Access" games and only put up finished works.

If the game is clearly marked as early access then customers should know what they're getting into. There is no problem there.

While it might involve some subjectivity, a big part of the problem is a lot of the stuff is *obvious* in being rapidly produced shovelware

If a game being rapidly produced shovelware is "obvious" then customers have nothing to worry about if they use their brains and do a modest amount of homework before spending their money.

Among other things I personally feel they should also disallow anything produced with say RPG maker

To the moon was made with RPG Maker and it was great. Why don't we also disallow games made using the source engine? Or Unity and freely available art assets? This is just silly.

What Steam needs is exactly what they've said their heading towards: community curation of the markeplace. Valve will never be able to police the large number of Steam games as well as the community can. And saying they shouldn't limit releases but should exercise more quality control is a suggestion that doesn't even make sense. If you want them to go through and approve every single submission and make sure they meet some quality control standards then you will be limiting releases. And if they did suddenly demand people meet those standards, all it would take is for another company to go for digital distribution with no standards and customers will jump ship to the platform with more releases and developers will support the one that doesn't make them spend time and money they may not have jumping through hoops.

Community policing of the market place is the only solution that makes sense and has a chance of working, and it's remarkable to me that no one seems to realize this. Except Valve apparently.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

The pizza is fine I just don't want it any more. Who reimburses me on the others behalf? Just-Eat or Mohammed "Pepe" Marzouk? from Pepe's Pizza? I'm sure the EU has a rule for this and it is ill thought out.

No, I don't think they've got a rule that reimburses you the other half. Despite the "ridiculous at first sight" nature of many EU rules, there are usually serious reasons behind them.

Unless it's a pizza... But definitely if it's software. I'm quite sure the EU or any high-level politician anywhere, for that matter, can't define software without putting down a committee and spending half a million euros. Not sure why I shouldn't question the law in this case. But that's an entirely different matter.

Any who, I'm heading out so this is the last reply from me in a few hours. Don't want to leave you hanging

You can question the law. But please note that the intention of the law was to bring many of these digital services and goods in line with the existing laws on face-to-face deliveries and goods (for many of which you also have the right to cancel the contract after delivery, something which existed in national law even before the EU).

Digital was in a big empty vacuum before. With the digital retailers being able to hide behind laws (or the lack thereof) in other countries outside the EU. Or simply count on the fact that almost no customers were going to undertake further steps to defend their own rights, because it would cost them more money anyhow.

You can either trust these big firms to self-regulate and hope they defend your rights because it would be bad for them to lose you (which becomes less and less likely as they grow bigger), or you can have legislation which protects you from some bad practices.

Making those laws does cost money (1% of the member states BNP yearly, not including a few tax incomes and other contributions), but in this case you're also getting something back. In fact, as an individual you can even file direct complaints to the European Commission.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Right...because indie developers often have a large marketing budget to "help their works stand apart from the crowd". In fact, the very definition of a "good developer" to me is someone who doesn't use their money for marketing, but instead uses it to better their game. So if anything, the shitty developers would have more marketing dollars to cloud the picture (since they obviously aren't putting as much effort into their games), while the good developers would continue to get lost in the shuffle.

that didnt stop Rust, Minecraft, Terraria and DayZ from becoming huge successes

i agree with Garry, Steam doesnt need to limit the number of releases, but they need to roganize and curate this store better so people can find games they might like more easily

becuase really, what does it matter if steam sells shitty games if they are just hidden in a corner somewhere, plus then theres the fact that some people like different stuff, even when this stuff isnt of the highest quality, i think goat simulator and surgeon simulator showed us that


games that are outright scams tough, that garbage must always be pulled out of the store, steam has no room for dishonest devs

 

[SamTheNewb]

Well. lets see, the Steam front page consists of a Major, curated slider of games, sales, A minor curated list of games by platform, a selection of games with 'updates', and finally, a list of top sellers. I'm fine with that. If you click any tabs that degrade your front page experience, then well, you probably shouldn't click that tab. At least Valve booted the New Releases tab from being default. That is certainly a major improvement.

 

[Rawbeard]

I like quality.

 

[xGrimReaperzZ]

Love Gmod, but of course garry would prefer it if Valve doesn't do quality control, because games like Rust wouldn't have been released if quality control existed in Steam and i have to say that no, a large number of games is not a good thing at all, since it'd make it impossible to find the good indie games that don't have marketing budgets. (You know, unlike Newman's games as it seems)

Need good examples? the appstore and the playstore Xbox live indie store are full of utter crap that it's hard to find the better games made by serious developers, we don't want Valve to limit the number of games they release, we want them to see if you can go past the main menu without crashing and see if the games work.

The fact that i had to install an app that filters the steam-page to be able to see actual new releases proves how awful the situation is, when you enter a gamestop, you don't see Mario Bros in the newly released shelves, again, all retailers curate and quality check their products and if we're to go fully digital, we should do the same if not better, since you know, it's actually much easier.

 

[Therumancer]

for starters they need to stop releasing "Early Access" games and only put up finished works.

If the game is clearly marked as early access then customers should know what they're getting into. There is no problem there.

While it might involve some subjectivity, a big part of the problem is a lot of the stuff is *obvious* in being rapidly produced shovelware

If a game being rapidly produced shovelware is "obvious" then customers have nothing to worry about if they use their brains and do a modest amount of homework before spending their money.

Among other things I personally feel they should also disallow anything produced with say RPG maker

To the moon was made with RPG Maker and it was great. Why don't we also disallow games made using the source engine? Or Unity and freely available art assets? This is just silly.

What Steam needs is exactly what they've said their heading towards: community curation of the markeplace. Valve will never be able to police the large number of Steam games as well as the community can. And saying they shouldn't limit releases but should exercise more quality control is a suggestion that doesn't even make sense. If you want them to go through and approve every single submission and make sure they meet some quality control standards then you will be limiting releases. And if they did suddenly demand people meet those standards, all it would take is for another company to go for digital distribution with no standards and customers will jump ship to the platform with more releases and developers will support the one that doesn't make them spend time and money they may not have jumping through hoops.

Community policing of the market place is the only solution that makes sense and has a chance of working, and it's remarkable to me that no one seems to realize this. Except Valve apparently.

I think there is a problem inherent in the very idea of someone asking money for an incomplete product that might be finished at a later date, whether they label it or not.

Furthermore, part of the problem with the garbage flooding STEAM is that you need to sift through it, even when it's obvious the bottom line is that you need to look at it to find out what it is, and can potentially look at dozens of pieces of shovelware before you find a decent game. Lack of quality control has lead to a lot of clutter choking STEAM.

Also, I'll be blunt in saying that I'm not a big fan of people selling home-brew creations using things like SOURCE either, for similar reasons to why I have issues with RPG Maker. That said, I can see why STEAM supports their own engine this way. To me selling things made with RPG maker or Source for the most part is similar to someone selling things they made with say the toolbox in Elder Scrolls.

That's just my opinion though, your more than welcome to disagree. Personally I am hoping STEAM does a lot of pruning and develops a better vetting and quality control process for what they allow in their marketplace.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think steam's doing a perfectly good job, just so long as they remove and refund blatant false advertising.

But...They don't. Except in high profile cases. Their standard policy is no refunds, even for games that don't work or don't live up to their advertisement. People had to pitch a fit to get refunds on games like DayZ.

 

[iniudan]

Right...because indie developers often have a large marketing budget to "help their works stand apart from the crowd". In fact, the very definition of a "good developer" to me is someone who doesn't use their money for marketing, but instead uses it to better their game. So if anything, the shitty developers would have more marketing dollars to cloud the picture (since they obviously aren't putting as much effort into their games), while the good developers would continue to get lost in the shuffle.

Marketing doesn't mean you have to spend a whole lot, you can give away copy of your game to reviewer, LPer and streamer, maybe even give them a few extra copy as prize for their viewer/reader. You could also organize co-commentary or interview with them.

 

[Cecilo]

Yeah but you ever notice that in most cereals the size of the flakes or what not on the box is someone 'enhanced' not to mention the ration of marshmallow bits and the size of the marshmallow bits. They use misleading tricks all the time. Now to be fair steam will step in where the publisher has blatantly misrepresented their product and they will refund the purchase. If a game shows itself as an FPS in the material but then turns out to be aside scroller that's misleading. That's misrepresentation and that will get youa refund. If the game is patently unplayable when *they* test it on their systems well then. They will give you a refund.

The thing about bugs is that while many consumers maybe affected by glitch (A) there are more than a few who never encounter it so it then boils down to whatever hardware or software on your system which the devs have no control over. SO in short; steam does provide consumer protection as much as it can but remember they are limited in a sense to what is presented to them for all we know the copy that was presented to steam for evaluation and the copy made available for download could be entirely different.

Besides most of the complaints about bad games come from the Early Access set which I really don't understand. Every early access game has a big ass disclaimer top of the page just under the name of the game in a big blue box that says, it's Early Access.
Steam does what they can to fight for the consumer but the consumer has to take the first step and report these things, also be aware enough to recognize when a game is falsely advertised. COnsumer also needs to remember that there isno 'instant money back'. The mediation is not there to fix 'buyer's remorse'.

I agree that the consumer needs to be vocal and conscious about their decisions too.

But I feel like Steam still has a serious ways to go before I'd lean on them to support my rights. Putting plainly that there are no refunds until they decide to offer them for nonfunctional releases is a serious problem imo. In my experience they also try to weasel out of refunds or compensation as much as they can until the public outrage gets too big.

Take the game I mentioned earlier, Sword of the Stars 2. A turn-based 4x game without too much publicity going for it, but it had some good previews out beforehand, together with several promises made by the devs.
When the game launched, the main menu wouldn't even display properly for most people. Aka: the game was literally unplayable for many. After a hotfix for that, the game would invariably crash after turn 30. It took several months before the game became playable.

Personally I did not ask for a refund, as I knew the developers were the kind who would fix their mess. To their credit, they also did so and offered some free bonus content afterward.
However, I fully respected those who asked for a refund. Yet Steam refused to give in to their demands. I'm unsure if they did so later anyway, but in those few first days only the guys who really fought for it got their refunds.

In general, having to rely on the whims of the retailer to respond to outrage or not is not a good situation for consumers. They need a policy that is balanced more towards the users in my opinion. Then the bad releases will also be less likely to pass for long anyhow, or Steam will start screening themselves because they'll actually suffer from letting too many of them go.

It'll be positive for Steam to take good care of their customers, even those who suffer from bugs that no one else suffers from.

To be fair. Since Kerberos has gone it's own way, they were regularly patching the game, and still were willing to patch the game until Paradox told them no more patches for whatever reason, even if Kerberos made them on their own time and with their own money. And no Steam never did give a refund. However Kerberos or Paradox, had a system where if you asked them for a refund, they would do it, had to put in a ticket on the forums I think.

The game now by the way, is much more playable, works with multiplayer, AI is much improved, slow-down is...down.

 

[Hateren47]

The pizza is fine I just don't want it any more. Who reimburses me on the others behalf? Just-Eat or Mohammed "Pepe" Marzouk? from Pepe's Pizza? I'm sure the EU has a rule for this and it is ill thought out.

No, I don't think they've got a rule that reimburses you the other half. Despite the "ridiculous at first sight" nature of many EU rules, there are usually serious reasons behind them.

I paid them both. Pepe got 90% and Just-Eat took 10% for advertising, gathering customers, hosting the service, etc.. So I'm guessing if I want my money back, I can call up Just-Eat and they will have to reimburse me.If they were selling video games made by Pepe, that is... I payed in cash because Pepe's Pizza is just down the road and he could swing by with his USB anyway. So now Just-Eat will have to have Pepe reimburse them so they can reimburse me. It's still ridiculous upon closer inspection.

Unless it's a pizza... But definitely if it's software. I'm quite sure the EU or any high-level politician anywhere, for that matter, can't define software without putting down a committee and spending half a million euros. Not sure why I shouldn't question the law in this case. But that's an entirely different matter.

Any who, I'm heading out so this is the last reply from me in a few hours. Don't want to leave you hanging

You can question the law. But please note that the intention of the law was to bring many of these digital services and goods in line with the existing laws on face-to-face deliveries and goods (for many of which you also have the right to cancel the contract after delivery, something which existed in national law even before the EU).

Yes and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When it's so obvious that potatoes sold by the truckload at the farm have different rules than potatoes that have been cut into sticks and frozen and sold in bags weighing a pound in the supermarket. That again have different rules from the same frozen potatoes sold fried in a carton sleeve out of a window. I don't see why Portal 2 (still potato) that in the actual real world, that we all live in, doesn't even physically exist, can't have rules that are actually well thought out instead solely focusing on consumer rights. And yes there are TV shows dedicated to stupid laws from around the world. Still doesn't make selling software as you sell hardware a good idea.

Digital was in a big empty vacuum before. With the digital retailers being able to hide behind laws (or the lack thereof) in other countries outside the EU. Or simply count on the fact that almost no customers were going to undertake further steps to defend their own rights, because it would cost them more money anyhow.

You can either trust these big firms to self-regulate and hope they defend your rights because it would be bad for them to lose you (which becomes less and less likely as they grow bigger), or you can have legislation which protects you from some bad practices.

I actually prefer the digital Wild West, where the market has to regulate it self. Specially a market like digital games where there are no ones lives at stake and a lot of the content is user generated and the worst that can happen is that a fool and an insignificant amount of his money will travel in opposite directions.

Making those laws does cost money (1% of the member states BNP yearly, not including a few tax incomes and other contributions), but in this case you're also getting something back. In fact, as an individual you can even file direct complaints to the European Commission.

I'm not sure how much 1% of the BNP of the EU member states are in real money. Probably quite a bit. But if one of the things worth mentioning about it is that I have the right to complain about it, I'd rather be with out it.

 

[Rariow]

Ideally, this would be the optimal solution. Let everything through, and the market'll sort everything out. But that's been proven to not work. Hard. It's been mentioned before in this thread, but remember the industry crash in the 80's? The one that didn't permanently kill the industry through a pure miracle? It's precisely this attitude that caused that.

Even if this works, the way Steam is right now is incompatible with this idea. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a game legendary for hitting store shelves in a very obviously incomplete state. In the age of retail, the one game that made it through quality control in that state has become an inside joke for the gaming community. In the age of Steam's open door policy, there's games coming out on the service that are even less finished than Big Rigs. For crying out loud, the developer of Towns publicly announced that he wasn't going to bother finishing the game he was selling for money to people, and already had selling been for upwards of a year, and Valve didn't give the slightest shit about it.

Besides, you have to realize, sure, game stores stock stuff like Barbie Horse Adventures. But you think if I walk into my local game store I'm going to see that on the big shelves right in front of the exit? No, it's going to be at the back, between Garbage Truck Simulator and Prison Tycoon under a sign that says "two for the price of one". These stores DO ensure the best, biggest games are easier to find. If I open Steam right now, I'll find a snooker game, Amputea, a joke game from a couple years ago claiming to have been released yesterday, and a bunch of other assorted crap listed under the "new release" section. Hey, remember that big, quality AAA title that came out a few days ago? Watch_Dogs? That's not even on there anymore. I can bet if I walked into a game store I wouldn't be able to get away from being reminded of its existence.

And, finally, I recently got done playing Revengeance. I'm unlikely to ever want to play that again, as fun as it was, so I traded it back in at my local store, and was able to buy a different game for cheaper. I can't do it with Steam. Similarly, when I first bought Arkham City on Steam, I was unable to play it. In a normal store, no problem, I'd get a refund, if they didn't let me I'd trade it in, and no one would have lost that much. On Steam, I was stuck with the thing until I got a new PC a couple years later. This was alright before, because anything I could buy from Steam was guaranteed to be a worthwhile purchase to someone. Maybe not me in particular, and I wouldn't enjoy the game, but games on Steam pretty much always would provide a huge amount of enjoyment to some demographic. Now that that's no longer the case, Steam has to behave like a normal store. The way it is now, the only real benefit are the deep-discount sales and the ability to be a lazy fuck and get games without leaving home. That's just not good enough when I'm being sold Air Control and Guise of the Wolf. You can have either crappy customer service or crappy products. Once you have both, you're no longer worthwhile.

 

[Karadalis]

He is not entitled to anything from me, right? I don't know if you're an expert on EU law, but if I (an EU citizen in an EU member state) order a pizza on just-eat.dk (restaurants sign up and sell food of already questionable quality there and Just-Eat takes a 10% cut), and I am not satisfied with my meal and want a 100% refund, I'm entitled to it? And who should reimburse me. The pizzeria or Just-Eat? The pizza is right here, untouched and in the original packaging.

Okay first... where do you get the idea he wants anything from you? He wants a money back guarantee from steam and not from you. So why do you keep talking about him wanting anything from you?

Also your example is lacking in crucial information that makes it rather useless.

But to give you an idea how things are actually handled in germany atleast:

Is the pizza simply not to your taste or they used a spice you dont like? Tough luck.. youre not getting your money back. (Wich would be buying a game and you say you dont like its gameplay... yeah thats indeed not steams problem... should have looked the game up before)

However: Is the pizza not the one you ordered? Is the pizza made with rotten ingredients? Are there bugs crawling over it? Is there mold on the toppings? Have you gotten a case of food poisening after consuming said pizza? Then you bet youre entitled to getting your money back. (and damages in the last case)

And it should exactly be the same with software bought on/offline. Software doesnt run? Doesnt have the advertised features? False advertisement? Causes your PC to crash?

All these are legitimate reasons for getting your money back in any other industry in the world.. yet for some reason you say that software should not adhere to the same laws and standards as every other industry in the world... because... you say so...

As for who has to reimburse you:

Allways the people who took your money. It is not and should not be the customers problem how the website and the delivery service or steam and the devs deal with each other. Internet service/Steam takes your money, they are the ones that have to give it back after they sold you a faulty buggy product that doesnt work or was falsely advertisedon their service.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Ideally, this would be the optimal solution. Let everything through, and the market'll sort everything out. But that's been proven to not work. Hard. It's been mentioned before in this thread, but remember the industry crash in the 80's? The one that didn't permanently kill the industry through a pure miracle? It's precisely this attitude that caused that.

Even if this works, the way Steam is right now is incompatible with this idea. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a game legendary for hitting store shelves in a very obviously incomplete state. In the age of retail, the one game that made it through quality control in that state has become an inside joke for the gaming community. In the age of Steam's open door policy, there's games coming out on the service that are even less finished than Big Rigs. For crying out loud, the developer of Towns publicly announced that he wasn't going to bother finishing the game he was selling for money to people, and already had selling been for upwards of a year, and Valve didn't give the slightest shit about it.

Besides, you have to realize, sure, game stores stock stuff like Barbie Horse Adventures. But you think if I walk into my local game store I'm going to see that on the big shelves right in front of the exit? No, it's going to be at the back, between Garbage Truck Simulator and Prison Tycoon under a sign that says "two for the price of one". These stores DO ensure the best, biggest games are easier to find. If I open Steam right now, I'll find a snooker game, Amputea, a joke game from a couple years ago claiming to have been released yesterday, and a bunch of other assorted crap listed under the "new release" section. Hey, remember that big, quality AAA title that came out a few days ago? Watch_Dogs? That's not even on there anymore. I can bet if I walked into a game store I wouldn't be able to get away from being reminded of its existence.

And, finally, I recently got done playing Revengeance. I'm unlikely to ever want to play that again, as fun as it was, so I traded it back in at my local store, and was able to buy a different game for cheaper. I can't do it with Steam. Similarly, when I first bought Arkham City on Steam, I was unable to play it. In a normal store, no problem, I'd get a refund, if they didn't let me I'd trade it in, and no one would have lost that much. On Steam, I was stuck with the thing until I got a new PC a couple years later. This was alright before, because anything I could buy from Steam was guaranteed to be a worthwhile purchase to someone. Maybe not me in particular, and I wouldn't enjoy the game, but games on Steam pretty much always would provide a huge amount of enjoyment to some demographic. Now that that's no longer the case, Steam has to behave like a normal store. The way it is now, the only real benefit are the deep-discount sales and the ability to be a lazy fuck and get games without leaving home. That's just not good enough when I'm being sold Air Control and Guise of the Wolf. You can have either crappy customer service or crappy products. Once you have both, you're no longer worthwhile.

people should stop comparing steam to the 80s crash, the situation was completely different, for instance the customers didnt have a way to know if a product was good or not, in the age we live in, that isnt the case, theres youtube, metacritic, forums and even steam has now included user reviews

steams sells more games than any store could ever hope to do, they have more games, therefore they hame more gems and of course, more garbage