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

[Cether]

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."

http://www.onemanslie.info/the-original-reddit-post/

A compilation and sources of things said to be in the game by the lead designer that are either A) not in the game or B) extremely over exaggerated and unrepresentative of what's actually there. It's like someone let Peter Molyneux make a trailer for Alien Colonial Marines.

I haven't purchased No Mans Sky, nor do I plan to it's just not my type of game. But saying the devs didn't give a lot of unfulfilled promises is demonstrabley untrue.

 

[MHR]

You play a game you hate and want a refund for for like 70 hours, it's your own damn fault. You don't get a refund, slowpoke. People that want refunds after playing for so long aren't remotely entitled to them.

But that's just to shame the consumer in the equation. Steam has its own problems. It's their job to curate this mess.

Though people will probably still be able to get refunds. Steam had to put out that announcement to save face and stop confusion. People will probably still get manual refunds if their grievances are layed out properly and they say the right things. Unless Valve has specifically instructed customer support agents to stop all payments in this regard.

 

[Comic Sans]

Eh, hard to have sympathy for people wanting refunds. The refund policy is for getting money back on games that don't work properly due to your specs being too low or bad programming. If the game isn't what you wanted, then you should have waited to see reviews before jumping on the hype wagon. With digital copies it's not like it will sell out, you can wait and see. Playing a game for 20+ hours and THEN deciding you want your money back seems disingenuous. Buyer beware, do your research before you buy

 

[Arnoxthe1]

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.

Watch this video. Half of which is devoted to pointing out all the BS in all the pre-release information of the game.

 

[Pyrian]

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.

That's, um, that's a rather short workday, I would say. XD

 

[Strazdas]

Then valve should tell that to their support staff as well, because people have been successfully refunding the game by opening a support ticket for the game being unsatisfactory and claiming the game did not match promotional material (which is true, the trailer on steam shows things that dont exist in the game).

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

Would blatant false advertisement do it for you?

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

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.

Elders Scrolls Online game updated counted hours as hours played. This meant that people with slower internet had 4+ hours on their timer before they could even launch the game. There were multiple occasions where games kept crashing and counting hours after crashing so people who gave up and went away for the night found themselves with 12+ hours counted in the morning instead of being able to refund. The timer thing is absolutely shit limitation that should not exist (and legally cannot exist, but fuck gamers right).

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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

 

[Saelune]

Then valve should tell that to their support staff as well, because people have been successfully refunding the game by opening a support ticket for the game being unsatisfactory and claiming the game did not match promotional material (which is true, the trailer on steam shows things that dont exist in the game).

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

Would blatant false advertisement do it for you?

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

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.

Elders Scrolls Online game updated counted hours as hours played. This meant that people with slower internet had 4+ hours on their timer before they could even launch the game. There were multiple occasions where games kept crashing and counting hours after crashing so people who gave up and went away for the night found themselves with 12+ hours counted in the morning instead of being able to refund. The timer thing is absolutely shit limitation that should not exist (and legally cannot exist, but fuck gamers right).

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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

 

[Strazdas]

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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

And you would. The way it works is if you refund the game on steam, the money does not come out of Steams pocket, it comes out of the publishers.developers. Steam only eats the transaction fees if that.

 

[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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

And you would. The way it works is if you refund the game on steam, the money does not come out of Steams pocket, it comes out of the publishers.developers. Steam only eats the transaction fees if that.

Maybe. I wont pretend to know the nuts and bolts of it all. I still think some people are just venting a bit too hard on Steam for NMS's developer's faults.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

I can't tell you the amount of things promised by a dev that didn't make it into the final game. However, there's a difference between a dev talking about a game in interviews and advertisement.
World of Warcraft is notorious for promising features or content that never makes it into the game, and no explanation is given why said content isn't ever released. Promises and advertising are not the same thing.

 

[Strazdas]

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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

And you would. The way it works is if you refund the game on steam, the money does not come out of Steams pocket, it comes out of the publishers.developers. Steam only eats the transaction fees if that.

Maybe. I wont pretend to know the nuts and bolts of it all. I still think some people are just venting a bit too hard on Steam for NMS's developer's faults.

Yes, some are. but that does not mean all developer faults stop existing. it still lied and falsely advertised.

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

I can't tell you the amount of things promised by a dev that didn't make it into the final game. However, there's a difference between a dev talking about a game in interviews and advertisement.
World of Warcraft is notorious for promising features or content that never makes it into the game, and no explanation is given why said content isn't ever released. Promises and advertising are not the same thing.

Do you consider a game trailer on Steam to be an advertisement? because it shows things that dont exist in the game (as in, it lies).

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

I can't tell you the amount of things promised by a dev that didn't make it into the final game. However, there's a difference between a dev talking about a game in interviews and advertisement.
World of Warcraft is notorious for promising features or content that never makes it into the game, and no explanation is given why said content isn't ever released. Promises and advertising are not the same thing.

Do you consider a game trailer on Steam to be an advertisement? because it shows things that dont exist in the game (as in, it lies).

Not really. I looked at this from a point of view, a POV most people should have taken, that an unproven basically indie dev made grand promises above their ability to deliver and people bought it hook, line, and sinker. Fault lies with the dev for being arrogant idiots, but nothing criminal, fault also lies with every person buying into the hype and hubris.
If you see those trailers as advertising, fine. I see them as tech demos not necessarily the final product, as anyone should look at an unreleased game.
As I said, there was massive promotional material for almost every expansion for WoW claiming features and content never released in the final product. If we're to hold a small team civilly responsible for false advertisement shouldn't we hold every company that releases a game without features "advertised" to the same regard?
The only game I can think of that absolutely failed to deliver on a grand enough scale as to be considered blatantly false advertising is Aliens: Colonial Marines. NMS is still fairly well the game promised, but just not as grand as believed to be by many. And yes, many things are missing but realistically speaking the game couldn't possibly live up to those expectations. I do honestly blame gamers as much as devs because its become a culture of hype that allows these devs to arrogantly state expectations beyond ability.
I do not feel sorry for anyone, nor do I think there's any special circumstances here that warrant anything but "buyer beware" in this situation. I'm not taking up for Hello Games, just saying that gamers need to wise the fuck up or they'll keep getting taken for a ride on the back of promises undelivered. Same way I feel most folks are idiots for believing politicians can deliver 1/3 of their campaign promises.
Stop buying the bullshit, the bullshit might actually stop.

 

[Strazdas]

Not really. I looked at this from a point of view, a POV most people should have taken, that an unproven basically indie dev made grand promises above their ability to deliver and people bought it hook, line, and sinker. Fault lies with the dev for being arrogant idiots, but nothing criminal, fault also lies with every person buying into the hype and hubris.
If you see those trailers as advertising, fine. I see them as tech demos not necessarily the final product, as anyone should look at an unreleased game.
As I said, there was massive promotional material for almost every expansion for WoW claiming features and content never released in the final product. If we're to hold a small team civilly responsible for false advertisement shouldn't we hold every company that releases a game without features "advertised" to the same regard?
The only game I can think of that absolutely failed to deliver on a grand enough scale as to be considered blatantly false advertising is Aliens: Colonial Marines. NMS is still fairly well the game promised, but just not as grand as believed to be by many. And yes, many things are missing but realistically speaking the game couldn't possibly live up to those expectations. I do honestly blame gamers as much as devs because its become a culture of hype that allows these devs to arrogantly state expectations beyond ability.
I do not feel sorry for anyone, nor do I think there's any special circumstances here that warrant anything but "buyer beware" in this situation. I'm not taking up for Hello Games, just saying that gamers need to wise the fuck up or they'll keep getting taken for a ride on the back of promises undelivered. Same way I feel most folks are idiots for believing politicians can deliver 1/3 of their campaign promises.
Stop buying the bullshit, the bullshit might actually stop.

Most peoples POV is they saw a new game on steam, looked at the trailer and some reviews and decided to buy or not. Fans is a minority audience.

And yes, due to false advertisement the fault is criminal. Had they not lied in their advertisement i would agree with you.

Yes, we should hold Blizzard responsible for this as well, but blizzard is one of the untouchable in the fan eyes and has a legal army that not only can let them get away with it but flat out goes after other people illegally on a regular basis.

Nah, NMS promotional material compared to release is pretty similar situation to Colonial Marines. The two are compared for a reason. ANd yes, the game Could and should have live up to those expectations. these expextations were not large. have you seen that reddit post documenting the lies? We already have games doing all of these, its not some groundbreking technology need or anything like that.

Buyer beware is an excuse for defending shitty publishers/developers. No, the gamers dont need to wise the fuck up, gamers need to sue the shit out of those companies. This shit would not fly in any other industry.

 

[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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

And you would. The way it works is if you refund the game on steam, the money does not come out of Steams pocket, it comes out of the publishers.developers. Steam only eats the transaction fees if that.

Maybe. I wont pretend to know the nuts and bolts of it all. I still think some people are just venting a bit too hard on Steam for NMS's developer's faults.

Yes, some are. but that does not mean all developer faults stop existing. it still lied and falsely advertised.

When you're a victim of both your own hype and an overzealous developer, you kinda get what you deserve IMO.

when you are a victim of false advertisement normally you get to sue the company for a hefty sum. but no, in videogames that just means your at fault because fuck consumer rights, ye?

I can't tell you the amount of things promised by a dev that didn't make it into the final game. However, there's a difference between a dev talking about a game in interviews and advertisement.
World of Warcraft is notorious for promising features or content that never makes it into the game, and no explanation is given why said content isn't ever released. Promises and advertising are not the same thing.

Do you consider a game trailer on Steam to be an advertisement? because it shows things that dont exist in the game (as in, it lies).

Yeah, but you make it seem like Valve knew that. Again, I don't know the nuts and bolts of it, but I cant imagine they told Valve "Hehehe, its all bs, but don't tell anyone".

 

[wulfy42]

Many of you are missing the point here. The game isn't just not what some people want. The game isn't just missing stuff that was promised. The game constantly crashes for many, and sometimes corrupts the save as well. Often these crashes don't start till you warp the first time, and that is one of the times that are mostly likely to cause your save game to corrupt.

Now you can easily play 10-20 hours in your first system, and the game isn't horrible at that point especially if your not crashing. It's worth a good $20 just for that I'd say. In my case I put in 30 hours before it crashed even once, and that one crash corrupted my save.

You can backup your saves, even on the Ps4, but you have to know in advance that you need to do that. This problems have not yet been fixed with all the patches, and the game is just plain unplayable for some.

I'm not sure if the save game corruptions happen on the PC as well (I had it on my ps4), but if it does, people should certainly be entitled to a refund even after playing more then 2 hours (heck even after 20 if they can't freaking warp without having their save game destroyed). Nobody is going to want to redo 20 hours of this game. I returned my copy for a full refund after playing 30 hours because I was not going to restart from scratch. I'll get it again if it gets fixed (and on the PC this time....after it's fixed only), but I won't pay for a game that doesn't work and should not have been released like this.

I really enjoyed the game, and I would have been ok paying $15-20 for what I played. I'm not ok with paying $60 for it, and it has nothing to do with not getting what was promised. It has to do with being sold a broken product and actually, finally, being able to return broken video games instead of just having to eat the cost (E.T, FFX-2, Superman 64 etc etc).

Games should NOT be released like this. They should have done enough QC and testing to find these problems and held off releasing it till it was done. It's not ok, and they should have to give refunds to everyone in my opinion.

 

[Strazdas]

Yeah, but you make it seem like Valve knew that. Again, I don't know the nuts and bolts of it, but I cant imagine they told Valve "Hehehe, its all bs, but don't tell anyone".

It does not matter if valve knew that. It is their legal responsibility to ensure products are as they are advertised when they sell it. If i buy a table that is advertised to have 4 legs and it turns out to only have 3 legs, ill go back to the shop and return the table with no questions asked. It does not matter that the shop didnt knew the manufacturer decided to skip a leg to save money, they still have a responsibility to sell products as advertised. The store will take it upon with manufacturer about it sometimes even going into legal battles as the situation demands. There is this thing called consumer laws and companies, even valve, have to follow them.

 

[weirdee]

*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.

Seeing as you could, at best, only get an exchange for a physical copy after opening it from most of the larger retailers (that flimsy plastic wrap is apparently worth a lot), even if you had the opportunity to resell the game, what happens if the game is a flaming pile of trash? Who's buying that? I'm not going to pretend that things were all roses in the past. It's just advocating for another form of capitalist control.

 

[Magmarock]

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.

No but its up to steam to provide a customers legal right to a refund for a product that was not as advertised.

I care more to punish the developers than the retailers.

And you would. The way it works is if you refund the game on steam, the money does not come out of Steams pocket, it comes out of the publishers.developers. Steam only eats the transaction fees if that.

Maybe. I wont pretend to know the nuts and bolts of it all. I still think some people are just venting a bit too hard on Steam for NMS's developer's faults.

I'll admit that there was a bit of deceit behind thee scenes. No where near as much as people are blowing out and I think bigger games have gotten away with worse. However it is Steams responsibility to ensure quality not the developers. According to consumer rights laws that is.

 

[Yopaz]

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.

Well, sure it is quite bad, but over here it's actually quite great. I don't know of any actual store that sells physical copies of games that allow returns once the seal is broken (in cases where they keep the discs in drawers) or open the plastic (in cases where the games are actually sealed). The only acceptable return for as long as I have been playing games is if the game is literally broken. And with GameStop they won't even give you returns if it is broken when you get it. It's bad compared to GOG, but I'd be hard pressed to find physical stores that offer anything better. This is probably cultural though.

 

[Strawb]

I don't understand this official comment. I used the automated refund system and got a full refund, despite it being over three weeks since purchase, and I had three hours of playtime. Evidently, there are some exceptions.