Steam's refund policy

[ddfarren]

This is less of a discussion than a comment. I recently purchased FSX and am very dissatified with it and requested a refund. Steam's refund policy is within 14 days or 2 house playing time.
The 14 day refund period is OK. That gives you 2 weeks to decide whether or not you are satisfied with the game. However, the 2 hour playing time stipulation is outrageous. It takes nearly 2 hours to set FSX and familiarize yourself with the controls. 2 hours is just not enough time, 10 hours would be more reasonable.
Steam's disapproval of my request for a refund indicates they are more interested in profit margin than they are in customer satisfaction.
I will remain a member of Steam as I have other games I have to access through them, but I will never pruchase another game through them.

[KatanaDV20]

Because its such an old title theres gazillions of free 3rd party content for it out there. From planes to scenery. It does need some tweaking to get it going but once done it runs well.


If you tell us what you are unhappy with perhaps we can advise you.

[TextRich]

I think the 2-hour policy is more than fair. It prevents speedrunners from finishing an entire game in one sitting for free. Like KatanaDV20 said, there is a learning curve but as long as you are interested in aviation it is worth the money.

[ddfarren]

I am an ex-pilot with multiple ratings so, yes, I am interested in aviation. However, I am not satified with Steam's return policy and am not a speed runner so why punish me for the actions of others.
My view remains the same. I will remain a member, but only because I have other games I continue to play on Steam. No further purchases will be forthcoming. Cheers.

[keenrw]

Its not just FSX but its all games on steam with the two hour game time ,its just a little unfortunte that FSX may take some time to set up right which can push it close to or over the two hour limit ... were as games like Call of duty etc you can do a few levels and see how it runs . its just one of them things im afraid .

[[57th] AngryHatter]

Originally posted by ddfarren:

I am an ex-pilot with multiple ratings so, yes, I am interested in aviation. However, I am not satified with Steam's return policy and am not a speed runner so why punish me for the actions of others.
My view remains the same. I will remain a member, but only because I have other games I continue to play on Steam. No further purchases will be forthcoming. Cheers.

Steam cares.
What tickets do you hold?

[Rogen]

Actually Valve (Steam's owners) never had a refund policy (the policy was no refunds) and there never was any ability to be able to refund.

It wasn't till Australia's ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) took Valve to court and won, that a refund policy was put in place. Good on Australia to give the bully Valve a bloody nose and bring them to heal.

https://store.steampowered.com/consumer_rights_notice/

So there may be whining about the time limit but it's much better than it was previously and in fact FSX-SE is practicaly the cheapest whole of the world flight sim you can buy anyway, plus if on special it's a steal.

Probably best if it's chalked up to experience and learn to have a great time in the sim anyway.

Then you can think about spending money on upgrades ;-) or perhaps also aquiring P3D which is what FSX-SE could have been had Microsoft contined with development, see short vid below.

Regardless I think Steam is a reasonable platform for games distribution, lots of good games available, I'm revisiting Skyrim-SE (on Steam) atm, to which I've added ~170 mods, cannot really add any more as I've reached the limit of fps v good game play, (same applies to FSX-SE), plus also picked up the Dead Island Zombie game series for just a few dollars during a special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT1QR1XISSA

Cheers

[3 Wire]

Originally posted by ddfarren:

This is less of a discussion than a comment. I recently purchased FSX and am very dissatified with it and requested a refund.

I will remain a member of Steam as I have other games I have to access through them, but I will never pruchase another game through them.

FSX SE isn't the only flight simulation available, there is P3D v4, as Rogen suggested, and also Xplane. My recommendation would be P3D v4, but some people like Xplane. P3D has a 60 day refund policy. To the best of my knowledge Xplane does not offer refunds.

It's certainly your choice whether or not to buy any other steam games, and depending on what it is you want to do there are usually options out there that don't require steam to play.

[Erazer]

Originally posted by ddfarren:

This is less of a discussion than a comment. I recently purchased FSX and am very dissatified with it and requested a refund. Steam's refund policy is within 14 days or 2 hours playing time.

The 14 day refund period is OK. That gives you 2 weeks to decide whether or not you are satisfied with the game. However, the 2 hour playing time stipulation is outrageous. It takes nearly 2 hours to set FSX and familiarize yourself with the controls. 2 hours is just not enough time, 10 hours would be more reasonable.

Steam's disapproval of my request for a refund indicates they are more interested in profit margin than they are in customer satisfaction.

I will remain a member of Steam as I have other games I have to access through them, but I will never purchase another game through them.

As you have been a professional pilot I quite understand your disappointment, but would be interested in you giving us your specific reasons for your dissatisfaction with FSX rather than with the Steam refund policy as there - are - those here who are able to improve your experience of FSX.

I totally agree with your point about the Steam refund policy. 30 days would be very much better, as well as being seen to be fair trading policy, especially where professional ex-pilots are concerned, who simply wish to re-enact their flying days.

However FSX is useable, if rather amateur.

Is it anything to do with your computer specification not being sufficiently powerful?

I suggest that you carefully examine as many P3D videos on YouTube before you decide to give P3D a try. Take good note of the system requirements before you purchase though.

FSX is a 32 bit program whereas P3D is 64 bit and requires a 64 bit operating system.

X-Plane is also 64 bit, but I didn't like the flight dynamics and regard it as a work in progress which still requires a lot of development.

I use Steam FSX with a Windows 7 64-bit operating system.

[3 Wire]

Originally posted by Pegasus:

....would be interested in you giving us your specific reasons for your dissatisfaction with FSX.....

Me too, and compared to what, if anything..??