So apparently Steam was selling a game that was clearly dead.

[TallanKhan]

I have mixed feelings about this issue. Yes absolutley if Steam have been selling a multiplayer only game that now can't be played because the necessary infastructure to support it no longer exisits then that is an outright deplorable thing to do. However, to jump on my usual soapbox here, to my mind, final responsibility rests with the consumer and unless Steam have actually misled customers by outright saying it can still be played, then for me it is a case of "they should have checked before they brought it". After all, you are purchasing online, it isn't like your stood in a store deciding whether to contact, you can just open a new tab and google this stuff.

I am no fan of Steam, and the only decent thing to do, if you are going to sell effectivley defunct software, is at least lebel it accordingly, however, the people who brought it without checkings are the ones most at fault here.

 

[gigastar]

I don't understand why people are saying that users should be checking that games that are currently available for sale are still actually playable.

Not thats its hard to check. You dont even need to Google it. You just need to check the Steam forum relevant to that game, a direct link for which is on the store page for released games.

And if youre too lazy to do that, then the tags will likely reveal a wealth of information (not in this case, but in future cases).

 

[Rednog]

The funny thing about all this is that it seems know one knows anything behind the history of this game.
To all the people saying that Steam isn't responsible and people should do their research...the game launched without any working servers and it never actually worked correctly. In fact the devs came out with a "Reloaded" version because the previous one was un-salvageable. So basically this game launched and was sold on steam as an unplayable game from Jun 2012 - Nov 2012. Finally they relaunched in 2012...and then a few short months later the devs dropped it completely.
People were complaining from Day 1, the fact that Steam let these guys come back, rerelease, and continue to sell after putting a defunct game on steam is akin to the War Z nonsense.

Sadly I doubt most people will get this far down the thread to read this. I also would contest that if Steam puts a game in a daily deal it really should at least take a cursory glance at the title. I know I've seen Fray up there at least once or twice.

 

[Mersadeon]

Wow, company tries to swindle customers. Big shock

Unlike some i'm not someone who falls over to praise steam. I think the service is better than some, but to try and cast the service as saintly or benevolent is fucking stupid. Their in it to make money like anyone else. The whole caring about customers thing is PR bollocks and nothing more. Why do they put unfinished games up at full price? Why are day one releases almost as expensive as physical copies if not more so?

Because they can. Because consumers let them because they want to believe one of the money men out there actually gives a shit about them.

Steam is not your friend, Sony is not your friend, microsoft is not your friend. Treat them as businesses you buy from and nothing more.

Ok, while I agree on your overall statement of "Valve is a business, Steam is a way to generate revenue", you seem to not understand some of the things that happen on it.
Valve doesn't make the prices. An unfinished game at full price is the developer, not Valve. The one thing actually falling into Valve's realm of responsibility (which they haven't kept up with) is that unfinished games have to go under the Early Access system instead of the normal one.

Day one releases are expensive because... well, it's complicated, but Valve doesn't have anything to do with it. See, it's like this - if Publishers allowed developers to allow Steam to sell games at less than full price at launch, not only would they probably go bankrupt pretty soon since with most games a big chunk of the overall profit comes from the first week of sales, most importantly, it would piss the brick-and-mortar shops off. That doesn't sound like much, but even now normal retail is a gigantic factor. If you piss those guys off, you will bleed money for it.

And you are pretty darn wrong about every business on earth treating all of their customers as badly as they can get away with. Not every big business is a soul sucking money generator. But I doubt you would ever see that through the thick coating of cynicism visible in this post.

EDIT: Maybe I should also talk about the thing at hand. You know. Like I'm supposed to. Because even though I "defend" Valve in this post, this is pretty much unacceptable, and Valve has slacked off significantly when it came to this kind of thing. Just reminding everyone of the Dino Horde debacle and other ways to game the system.

 

[rofltehcat]

Stuff like this will become more common as Steam progresses further towards a more open and neutral platform. However, they should still refund the game without too many questions asked and I'd expect a request to have much higher chances now that it seems to be removed from the store, at least for recent buyers.

However, it seems that Steam will also introduce better reporting functions for stuff like that. One can only hope that they'll actually read the reports and react to them once that system is online. Chances are it'll just be flooded by idiots and the system will be clogged for the cases that actually need it.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I would like to say that a consumer should do some research on the things they purchase. Are you telling me that they couldn't have found out the servers were dead through a cursory Google search? There are even threads on that game's community page ON STEAM saying that they game is dead. SO instead of blasting Steam so much, who are still culpable btw, let's not forget that consumers are responsible for the purchases they make. The refund thing is shitty but honestly, people don't deserve a refund for being stupid.

Luckily being smart or stupid has nothing to do with whether a person deserves a refund on a product that doesn't function as advertised.

 

[fezgod]

First, if you're buying a game that has a 27% metascore, you deserve to have that money taken from you.

In any case, I don't see why people are trying to make it seem like Valve was deliberately trying to screw with their customers. There are two simple explanations for why this game was still on Steam:

1. The fact that it was unplayable was overlooked by Valve - not surprising due to the thousands of games that are sold on Steam.
2. Valve, in an attempt to gain a quick buck, deliberately kept this game on sale despite knowing that literally the instant people bought it they knew they were being scammed.

Now, since Valve probably makes millions of dollars just on TF2 hats, we can surmise that they weren't deliberately screwing with the 3 or so people who actually bought this piece of shit. Most likely it was an oversight. Valve, knowing that a company's reputation is a valuable commodity, will probably refund whoever bought it.

 

[gigastar]

I don't understand why people are saying that users should be checking that games that are currently available for sale are still actually playable.

Not thats its hard to check. You dont even need to Google it. You just need to check the Steam forum relevant to that game, a direct link for which is on the store page for released games.

And if youre too lazy to do that, then the tags will likely reveal a wealth of information (not in this case, but in future cases).

Not the point at all. You simply should not have to check that an item being sold fulfils its purpose - regardless of how easy such checking is. To suggest otherwise is the most absurd anti-consumer nonsense.

Fact of the matter is, you do need to check. And if you consciously made the decision to buy a non-functioning game only to find that its non-functional afterwards, then youre not blameless for this.

Doing the research prevents situations like this, and there wouldnt be anything like this going on if people just took 5 minutes of their time to look it up instead of just throwing away their money.

Yes, in a perfect world, there would be no need to research it. But we have this shitty one instead, so make do with what you got.

 

[J Tyran]

Contrary to popular belief Valve doesn't dictate the prices, the publishers do.

Explain to me how, using that logic, I can buy launch games cheaper on Amazon and GMG than I can on Steam. The entire publishers set the price schtick is a load of garbage and we all know it. Publishers set the base price, but anyone can put that price at whatever the hell they want with few, if any, repercussions.

I cannot clam GMG do this but in Amazon's case they can sell books, movies and games for the price they do because they set the prices. Not just to the customers either, they tell publishers "we will only X amount of £?$ per item" they also employ every tax dodge under the sun. They do this to keep their prices attractive.

 

[TallanKhan]

unless Steam have actually misled customers by outright saying it can still be played, then for me it is a case of "they should have checked before they brought it".

Are you suggesting that unless a company explicitly states that the products they sell work, then they are under no obligation to make sure they do, and should only be restricted by exactly what they've said? So all the companies in the UK caught in the horse-meat saga weren't actually at fault, because they didn't say there wasn't horse meat in their food? Sorry, but that's crackers (which may or may not be edible, since we don't specify on the packaging).

No i am not suggesting that at all. What Steam are selling is the software, not the service you use the software with. A better comparison would be if a retail chain started stocking Betamax players. They aren't under any obligation to check whether their customers can access the movies they would watch in Betamax format, what they are selling is the device and as long as it functions they have discharged their legal requirements. In the same way Steam are selling the software, they are under no obligation to ensure the server that the software connects to is still running as long as the software itself functions. It is even still technically possible to play the game without the servers as I understand it can also be played over LAN.

As i said in my initial post, I don't approve, and I think the decent thing would have been to notify the customer of the nature of the functionality they could expect to enjoy. However, the majority of the blame sits with the consumer.

 

[spartandude]

If the game is still being advertised as having certain features but those features cannot be used, in this case multiplayer, then you can claim false advertisement or that its faulty. In some countries this will get you a refund (such as EU countries). I also advise you look up the specific law to quote at them and then cannot deny that.

However i do always recommend that when purchasing older multiplayer games that you research whether its alive before hand so you can avoid the hassle.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

while that is certainly awful i think its just a matter of steam becoming too big for its own good, and the staff at valve are having problems keeping it up nice and tidy

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

If someone is buying an older game on Steam (or anywhere really), it is that customers job to see if there is still an active multi-player audience if that's what you are interested in. I've seen the question come up on Steam forum threads many times. The same thing happens with old console multi-player games as well. So do your research before buying a game for its multi-player.

I would like to say that a consumer should do some research on the things they purchase. Are you telling me that they couldn't have found out the servers were dead through a cursory Google search? There are even threads on that game's community page ON STEAM saying that they game is dead. SO instead of blasting Steam so much, who are still culpable btw, let's not forget that consumers are responsible for the purchases they make. The refund thing is shitty but honestly, people don't deserve a refund for being stupid.

As has been said, the consumer absolutely shouldn't have to research whether a sold multiplayer-only game still has servers to make it get past the start screen. If there was a sliver of single-player action, then perhaps, but to say it's your own fault for not making sure a game isn't 100% dead is an incredibly anti-consumer attitude.

There are some things a customer should take it upon themselves to look out for, but outright illegal practices from one of the biggest and most highly-regarded companies in the world absolutely shouldn't be one of them.

Is it actually steam's job to see if all the servers are up for all the games they are selling?
This is not a rhetorical question, I'm actually curious. I don't think it is. I mean, you can still do LAN, right?

If not, it's still disgusting that the developers couldn't even give a heads-up to Valve. It's hard to have any sympathy for them even if their studio had to shut down after a few months, since they're apparently okay with continuing to trick people into buying their non-game.

And from what I understand, you can't even get past the title screen without signing into a long-dead server.

You remember when Valve said they want you to do their job for them? Let me rephrase that, remember when Valve said they want Steam to be more community driven? This is part of it. Buyer beware and all that. They're not going to tell you everything, whether intentional or by misinformation.

Everyone seems to be jumping on the 'Valve needs to do more QA' bandwagon, and while I certainly think it's a good idea, nobody seems to realize exactly what that would entail. Valve aren't currently doing it, which means they'd have to make a new department and hire people and buy new equipment just for playtesting games, they'd have to have a bunch of people all playing the same game because that's how error analysis works, and all that adds up to increased costs for Valve that they'd like shift to the consumer.
I don't particularly mind the system where consumers try the product and then spread by word of mouth if its any good, but if they want to continue that model, they definitely need a refund system so customers can return broken games.

I refuse to believe that Valve never noticed that a game they were selling was completely unplayable for over 1.5 years. And even then, as I said why couldn't the developers say anything when they couldn't pay for the servers?

And even if it's really not Valve's responsibility to notice this kind of crap, they've had a plethora of people complaining and asking for their money back, all of which were refused on the first try, so it's not like they haven't had tons of people pointing it out to them.

I don't understand why people are saying that users should be checking that games that are currently available for sale are still actually playable.

Not thats its hard to check. You dont even need to Google it. You just need to check the Steam forum relevant to that game, a direct link for which is on the store page for released games.

And if youre too lazy to do that, then the tags will likely reveal a wealth of information (not in this case, but in future cases).

Not the point at all. You simply should not have to check that an item being sold fulfils its purpose - regardless of how easy such checking is. To suggest otherwise is the most absurd anti-consumer nonsense.

Fact of the matter is, you do need to check. And if you consciously made the decision to buy a non-functioning game only to find that its non-functional afterwards, then youre not blameless for this.

Doing the research prevents situations like this, and there wouldnt be anything like this going on if people just took 5 minutes of their time to look it up instead of just throwing away their money.

Yes, in a perfect world, there would be no need to research it. But we have this shitty one instead, so make do with what you got.

It really is shocking that you would attribute a customer not taking the time to see if a game is actually playable to 'laziness'.

Even in this shitty world, selling something that doesn't work, regardless of how much information the customer has to find out this fact, is downright illegal.

First, if you're buying a game that has a 27% metascore, you deserve to have that money taken from you.

In any case, I don't see why people are trying to make it seem like Valve was deliberately trying to screw with their customers. There are two simple explanations for why this game was still on Steam:

1. The fact that it was unplayable was overlooked by Valve - not surprising due to the thousands of games that are sold on Steam.
2. Valve, in an attempt to gain a quick buck, deliberately kept this game on sale despite knowing that literally the instant people bought it they knew they were being scammed.

Now, since Valve probably makes millions of dollars just on TF2 hats, we can surmise that they weren't deliberately screwing with the 3 or so people who actually bought this piece of shit. Most likely it was an oversight. Valve, knowing that a company's reputation is a valuable commodity, will probably refund whoever bought it.

Except as has been explained, there's been no shortage of people contacting support so it's not like they didn't notice when it's being screamed at them, and they DIDN'T give out refunds, except for some of those who kept demanding one.

 

[teebeeohh]

Valve needs QA.
i know that as a whole valve is a company that believes the solution to everything lies in the right piece of software instead of just hiring people to do things. at this point they just need to hire people to curate their store, at least until the gabemastergamechecksystem is working.
and proabably not for most people here but rather for random steam user 42, who installed the thing because it was needed for a game he picked up because he liked the boxart and who got his mind blown by the concept of DD.

 

[Madman123456]

This seems to be easy; call up a lawyer.
When buying a product you generally assume that the product is functioning. It isn't and people should get their money back.

 

[TallanKhan]

No i am not suggesting that at all. What Steam are selling is the software, not the service you use the software with. A better comparison would be if a retail chain started stocking Betamax players. They aren't under any obligation to check whether their customers can access the movies they would watch in Betamax format, what they are selling is the device and as long as it functions they have discharged their legal requirements. In the same way Steam are selling the software, they are under no obligation to ensure the server that the software connects to is still running as long as the software itself functions. It is even still technically possible to play the game without the servers as I understand it can also be played over LAN.

As i said in my initial post, I don't approve, and I think the decent thing would have been to notify the customer of the nature of the functionality they could expect to enjoy. However, the majority of the blame sits with the consumer.

So, I can get hold of old Betamax tapes (were they tapes?). Can I get hold of the old servers to play this game, or are they more tightly tied to this specific game than individual Betamax tapes (?) are to the Betamax player?

I can, for instance, source my tapes from a variety of suppliers and can watch a variety of those tapes. Where can I source my server? I should also point out the massive difference between a relatively well-known and no longer used technology that everyone knows is out of date and a modern multiplayer game that one would assume in playable on account of it being available for sale at the present time.

I'm not going to pursue this further, because I like to avoid being rude and we're clearly on different sides of a fence. I feel Valve have been negligent rather than dishonest, I just don't understand why people would defend a business practice that is so clearly wrong.

So you don't like the Betamax comparison, what about selling an analogue TV in a territory where they no longer broadcast an analogue TV signal?

But thank you for making my point for me when you point out the key difference that "everyone knows" Betamax is out of date. Yes they do, which is why no one would buy one. But the ignorance of the consumer cannot be held up as a failing of the seller. The information that the Fray servers are no longer operational is a matter of record and easily accessible.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not on Steam's side here. I think this whole incident is symptomatic of bigger issues with Steam, both in terms of it's customer service and it's quality control procedures and I very much hope the outcome will be that people think twice about what they buy from Steam in the future. However, what i take issue with is the fact that two often, poor practice on the part of a business is used to completely absolve consumers of their failure to consume responsibly. It is high time consumers discarded this victim complex and accepted that their purchasing decisions are what drive the evolution of business practice, not the other way around.

 

[Fsyco]

Everyone seems to be jumping on the 'Valve needs to do more QA' bandwagon, and while I certainly think it's a good idea, nobody seems to realize exactly what that would entail. Valve aren't currently doing it, which means they'd have to make a new department and hire people and buy new equipment just for playtesting games, they'd have to have a bunch of people all playing the same game because that's how error analysis works, and all that adds up to increased costs for Valve that they'd like shift to the consumer.
I don't particularly mind the system where consumers try the product and then spread by word of mouth if its any good, but if they want to continue that model, they definitely need a refund system so customers can return broken games.

I refuse to believe that Valve never noticed that a game they were selling was completely unplayable for over 1.5 years. And even then, as I said why couldn't the developers say anything when they couldn't pay for the servers?

And even if it's really not Valve's responsibility to notice this kind of crap, they've had a plethora of people complaining and asking for their money back, all of which were refused on the first try, so it's not like they haven't had tons of people pointing it out to them.

They also get a lot of complaints about other games, and some of them might not be legitimate. Fray, for example, didn't appear to sell all that well, so the 'plethora' of people complaining about it are probably outnumbered by other complaints about other games. So it's not like they're just sitting around in their offices twiddling their thumbs and staring at the wall, hoping that Fray would sell well.
Also, the developers probably didn't say anything because they're dishonest and wanted their money back on the investment, the same reason that any dev ships a broken game. And that kind of underlies the problem with a refund system: people are dishonest and will try to game the system. Not saying that everyone would, but its a big enough concern for Valve to not want to do it. Personally, I think they should, since that seems to work out well enough for GoG.

 

[TallanKhan]

But thank you for making my point for me when you point out the key difference that "everyone knows" Betamax is out of date. Yes they do, which is why no one would buy one. But the ignorance of the consumer cannot be held up as a failing of the seller. The information that the Fray servers are no longer operational is a matter of record and easily accessible.

I don't really feel I have made your point. You seem to feel that ANY lack of knowledge on the part of the consumer makes the consumer liable for mis-selling practices, despite the fact that the seller exists more wholly in that field of work/knowledge and, simply put, either should know better or is deliberately ripping people off (as a Betamax or analogue TV seller would be). My all means, blame yourself every time you get ripped off, even defend those who do it to you. I just don't understand why you would.

For a brief example, because I am tired: you purchase cavity wall insulation because you want to be warm in December. The seller says 'This is brilliant stuff, you'll be sitting in your pants in the middle of winter'. Two years later, all your paint and wallpaper has peeled off and there's mould everywhere, because you breached the damp-proof course of your house with insulation and the water from outside is working its ways inside (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you've proved my point, but still don't deserve a shitty damp house). Now, you, as the average homeowner, did not know that would happen, but in your know-all scenario, your damp house, which is a real shit to fix, is on your own head, because you weren't smarter than a con-man.

If valve slapped a big banner across this game that said something to the effect of 'This game is completely unplayable' and slapped a bunch of warnings into the purchasing process, that would be fine. They did not.

Well first of all if I intended to purchase cavity wall insulation I would investigate how/what i needed to purchase before i did so. But in your example the con-man is actively mis-representing the product which is the difference. Steam have made no claims about the status of the servers, had they said that anyone downloading this game would be able to connect to the servers then they would have mis-sold the product, but they didn't. The purchaser is making an assumption rather than the seller lying about the product. Plus, as previously detailed, the title is not completely unplayable, should you chose to go to the trouble of setting up a LAN game you can still do so.

 

[J.McMillen]

As has been said, the consumer absolutely shouldn't have to research whether a sold multiplayer-only game still has servers to make it get past the start screen. If there was a sliver of single-player action, then perhaps, but to say it's your own fault for not making sure a game isn't 100% dead is an incredibly anti-consumer attitude.

There are some things a customer should take it upon themselves to look out for, but outright illegal practices from one of the biggest and most highly-regarded companies in the world absolutely shouldn't be one of them.

Actually, making sure there is still an online community is something the customer should be on the look out for. In some cases a game may have player run servers that are up, but nobody is ever playing. So while it is possible to play online, there's nobody out there to play with. Most of the time a simple look at the forums will usually reveal a post (or twelve) about the game being dead.

And it's up to the publisher to keep Steam up to date on the status of their game. Heck, I've seen defunct MMO's still being sold in stores after the game was shut down because the publisher never recalled unsold copies. Odds are that Steam wasn't told about the servers being shut down so they didn't know to pull the game from the store.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

As has been said, the consumer absolutely shouldn't have to research whether a sold multiplayer-only game still has servers to make it get past the start screen. If there was a sliver of single-player action, then perhaps, but to say it's your own fault for not making sure a game isn't 100% dead is an incredibly anti-consumer attitude.

There are some things a customer should take it upon themselves to look out for, but outright illegal practices from one of the biggest and most highly-regarded companies in the world absolutely shouldn't be one of them.

Actually, making sure there is still an online community is something the customer should be on the look out for. In some cases a game may have player run servers that are up, but nobody is ever playing. So while it is possible to play online, there's nobody out there to play with. Most of the time a simple look at the forums will usually reveal a post (or twelve) about the game being dead.

And it's up to the publisher to keep Steam up to date on the status of their game. Heck, I've seen defunct MMO's still being sold in stores after the game was shut down because the publisher never recalled unsold copies. Odds are that Steam wasn't told about the servers being shut down so they didn't know to pull the game from the store.

How is some games having ghost-town servers relevant? If the servers are dead so that the game isn't even playable, who's fault is it that there's no community? If your game is labled as multiplayer-only and you're incapable of delivering on that multiplayer, that's daylight robbery. I'm sorry, but that takes the whole "consumer responsibility" attitude WAY too fucking far.

As for your second point, that just leaves the responsibility on the developer, and even then it's not like there haven't been a plethora of people contacting Steam Support, so I refuse to accept they didn't know or never thought "Gee, practically every ticket we got about this game was about it being dead, maybe we should check that out".

Everyone seems to be jumping on the 'Valve needs to do more QA' bandwagon, and while I certainly think it's a good idea, nobody seems to realize exactly what that would entail. Valve aren't currently doing it, which means they'd have to make a new department and hire people and buy new equipment just for playtesting games, they'd have to have a bunch of people all playing the same game because that's how error analysis works, and all that adds up to increased costs for Valve that they'd like shift to the consumer.
I don't particularly mind the system where consumers try the product and then spread by word of mouth if its any good, but if they want to continue that model, they definitely need a refund system so customers can return broken games.

I refuse to believe that Valve never noticed that a game they were selling was completely unplayable for over 1.5 years. And even then, as I said why couldn't the developers say anything when they couldn't pay for the servers?

And even if it's really not Valve's responsibility to notice this kind of crap, they've had a plethora of people complaining and asking for their money back, all of which were refused on the first try, so it's not like they haven't had tons of people pointing it out to them.

They also get a lot of complaints about other games, and some of them might not be legitimate. Fray, for example, didn't appear to sell all that well, so the 'plethora' of people complaining about it are probably outnumbered by other complaints about other games. So it's not like they're just sitting around in their offices twiddling their thumbs and staring at the wall, hoping that Fray would sell well.
Also, the developers probably didn't say anything because they're dishonest and wanted their money back on the investment, the same reason that any dev ships a broken game. And that kind of underlies the problem with a refund system: people are dishonest and will try to game the system. Not saying that everyone would, but its a big enough concern for Valve to not want to do it. Personally, I think they should, since that seems to work out well enough for GoG.

Well, I'd like to think that when the only tickets you get on a game are "this game is dead", you'd notice, regardless of how many other thousands you'd have to deal with.

As for your second point, unfortunately I can see your point. Seeing as outright broken games are being sold and even excused on a regular basis, it's not surprising Valve doesn't particularly want to deal with people wanting their money back.