Установить Steam
войти
|
язык
简体中文 (упрощенный китайский)
繁體中文 (традиционный китайский)
日本語 (японский)
한국어 (корейский)
ไทย (тайский)
Български (болгарский)
Čeština (чешский)
Dansk (датский)
Deutsch (немецкий)
English (английский)
Español - España (испанский)
Español - Latinoamérica (латиноам. испанский)
Ελληνικά (греческий)
Français (французский)
Italiano (итальянский)
Bahasa Indonesia (индонезийский)
Magyar (венгерский)
Nederlands (нидерландский)
Norsk (норвежский)
Polski (польский)
Português (португальский)
Português-Brasil (бразильский португальский)
Română (румынский)
Suomi (финский)
Svenska (шведский)
Türkçe (турецкий)
Tiếng Việt (вьетнамский)
Українська (украинский)
Сообщить о проблеме с переводом
Правила обсуждений
Пожаловаться
They do consider these things. But at the end of the day, they have a job to do. They will grant refunds beyond the period if good reason is given, for example there being a game breaking bug that stalls progress or something like that. Feeels are the last thing that should be considered in these matters.
And lets be honest. after you've seen the same sob story for the 60th time that day you're gonna get a littkle tired of it.
Go into a book or magazine store ans see if that same trick works m8.. Also in physical retail its a bit different since they themselves can either send the item back to the manufacturer for a refund, or they can just pop it back on the shelf for someone else to buy.
These two scenarios do not exist for digital purchases of entertainment products.
So you basically want a hierarchy of customers based on their spending. Well for starters thats by definition unfair. and two, how are you so sure they don't already do this m8 and you just haven't spent enough to clear 'trash tier'?
Because those things are actually quite ineffectient and just lead to a miserable experience for everyone iinvolved.
You do realize STeam actually has one of if not the most generous refund policies right?
M'dude. You knew what the policy was. YOu went over the limit . It's no one else's fault for not bending the rules for you.
outrage threads.
Nobody takes responsibility for their own actions, its always the fault of someone else.
Thanks for the questions. I did my research. The original Master of Magic (of which I too being a 30-plus year gamer and fan of the series) can run in a DosBox with less than 16 Megabytes of memory. The Recommended specs for the remake are 100x that.
Now for those of you who may not know any better a 100 times increase in memory spec is not too reasonable from a programming and optimization standpoint. Not only have I been a gamer since Atari was a thing, I work in IT. This game's resource requirements are outlandish.
I don't want to get too into the technical side of things because I doubt many here will care, but take a look at the previews of the game if you're wondering. It is mostly static images, a few animations, basically no real cinematic or major rendering jobs for the GPU. This still very heavily taxes the CPU/GPU/RAM on two systems tested so far - It is not a very polished product.
Now coming from where I do in this I am sympathetic up to a point. It's a brand new take on an epic classic (I played for many years and love. Actually still do, in DosBox, and it's no added cost to me after all these years. It runs perfectly on most calculators, early model Android products, and even a thermostat or two (I'm exaggerating only slightly. Many DOS games ran with less than 1MB memory requirements. MoM may be one. I forget since it has so long ago no longer become an issue!) They didn't have to make a remake, and it is ambitious almost to the point of foolhardiness. I GIVE EM PROPS FOR THAT!!!
I could deal with the onerous specs (need an elite gaming rig to run a 4X remake? Looks to be a red-herring! Spec inflation is there to cover poor optimization!) IF it didn't crash repeatedly on the Steam Deck. The Deck has 16GBs, an NVMe, and so on. It meets or exceeds the specs. It crashed 3x in 2 hours. These were the deciding hours for my choice to ask for a Store Credit refund. Bonus: It depleted the battery completely in that time with fan running hard the whole time.
Here's a tidbit that may or may not be interesting: Traditionally the way game testing works is, especially in beta area is, you put it on the machine it was designed for. It works? Great. Put it on a machine a little below or out of spec. Still works? FANTASTIC. This is something that was done before the modern era of End User Unpaid Beta Testing. BETTER YET: YOU PAY TO BETA TEST IT!
So yea I am a little grumpy that I paid $40 for a product that doesn't work well a little below spec (Same machine can run Subnautica, Deep Rock Galactic, Civ 5, but no, Master of Magic, a game 3-10x as old as this as originally released and just remade, will not reliably run on a 4GB/2GB VRAM machine. Again, don't flame me... it runs those other much more intense and resource-hungry games just fine actually.) It also doesn't run well at or above spec!
Will it work great on a vanilla PC (not the Steam Deck I dropped a little under a grand for?) Maybe it will, but then again if I wanted to sit in front of my computer all day... I'll be honest with you. I would expect to see something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ook3GqkmL8 on the screen. And that's really interesting because I just discovered there is a multiplayer rework of the original or there was at one point. I stick with the original normally. It runs fine on a phone Android DosBox with an Bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
So in sum: Did I do my research? Yes. Do I own the spec requirements for the game as it stands? Yep. Did I play the original? Too much probably. Do I still? Yep. Do I know what I'm talking about? Yes I do.
Do kids and unwitting adults who may or may not have just got here defend an industry practice that is not-best -> e.g. Let's foist an unfinished product on masses of people who pay for the privilege of testing it and reporting its faults in real-time for a continued development cycle that not only continues past release date but practically, as a rule nowadays, may extend indefinitely into the future? Yep that's a thing too! Does them no big favor though imo.
Basically I have qualms about the model (which remains controversial) of doing business and writing code and this game is not the worst offender by far [Note: Generalities introduced gently knock the Master of Magic remake. It has issues, I wanted the refund, I accept I cannot get it, but that leads me to discuss the larger issues involved.] I also want to point out that just because the modern customer base has come to expect a certain level of service (poorer, more defacto [i.e. conditions placed on access, use, usability, modifiability] imo) from tech companies does not mean that it how it was, will be, or ought to be.
Steam may be the best of a pretty stinky lot. I give them a lot of credit. I also give them cash. I can learn to not though too if that's how they want it. I do hope in the end MuHa/Slitherine make this late-Beta, not-too-shabby product a winner.
Is it worth $40 to me right now where I can't take it with me on the Deck and the 30 year original happily travels with me on my phone anywhere, any time? No, not really. Am I satisfied with a product requiring 100x the memory of the original and crashing on my handheld? Not remotely.
Should Steam do better for me on this? I think so. I just bought a Quest 2. I was planning on getting a raft of VR titles on Steam but I've got to think twice now about where I'm going to keep my licensed games activated. Is 2 hours going to be a good test for VR games? No testing allowed, as someone said? "No demos!" "Do your research" OK guy. How are you going to research a VR game? Look at a spec sheet?
The fact is playtime is required to determine the quality of products. 2 hours is not remotely enough in an age where easy access to downloadable content incentivizes output over Quality Control. I believe I will refer to this as the 'Fast Lemons' model of distribution. So far, really so good here. Community feedback, solid Review systems and all that have made this ecosystem, however improbably, work pretty well on Steam. One of the things that made it work better however was flexible enforcement of the Refund Policy.
That is what prompted me, alongside reasonable conjectures and questions posed to me to write this essay today. Thanks to the OP for raising this legitimate topic of concern.
The last retail-store software return policy I remember finding out was Gamestop's a long time ago. And that was "if the plastic is open, no returns."
Because a digital code isn't the same as a physical disc - once someone's redeemed that code, it's dead. Someone else buys that 'used' copy of a game, tries to use the code, and it fails.
The thing is that just because you consider something to be "reasonable", that doesn't mean it actually is. Or that a company has to give you a refund for it. "Reasonable" is a subjective term.
SOOO many things wrong with this.
1. No retail stores allow return of opened PHYSICAL games, let alone return of used digital games
2, Steams refund policy is pretty similar to if not better then most other stores that deal with digital games. Only GoG has a remotely better one AFAIK
3. Your mad because you didn't get special treatment after going over clearly defined refund terms
4. Your horrible experience is the result of you not following the rules and expecting special treatment and then getting mad that you didn't get your wishes granted
Now here is Useful Information:
Steam has an Offline mode. To my knowledge, playtime is not counted there. Possibly even towards refunds. Guess what I learned on account of this experience? Apart from thinking twice about buying bigger-ticket games here? Use that Offline mode to ensure it not only starts but isn't going to crash all over on you once you are 30+ minutes in. That happens once or twice, you have a game with a huge long load time (like my unoptimized, slow, crashy game example above) and presto, 2 hours of technical playtime (more like: Late-Beta software playTEST time) and no refund possible. That SUCKS.
Some people in here may be big fans of following rules, but when the rules suck, you can call them out. And OP did that and I think they're right to.
PS Yea GOG has the best refund policy around. I am on GOG too. I am a big fan of GOG's. I'm planning on mirroring my library I bought here there. Because tbh I trust GOG over Steam, and this experience drives that home a little bit more. I think some of the 40+ dollar purchases I wanted to give to Steam (better UI and platform, honestly, more friends here, etc) may just go to GOG now. That's great value in itself, but there is no Social platform like Steam is in part who is too big to fail. This space is only getting more competitive.
And what all the commenters miss too comparing Steam to Brick 'n Motars is that with a physical copy of the game, you can resell it. That purchase retains durable, transferable, useful value beneficial to the owner (and indeed, licensee, but as the law in the US at least has made clear, resale is LEGIT.) We have no such option here. I can't list for sale, or even re-gift or donate my lemon purchases (tho very few and far between, basically almost none here out of ~500 games on account rn.) How is that a good deal compared to Traditional Retail? Gamestop will at least give you SOMETHING for a used cartridge. Ebay etc too. Can donate it.
So yeah being all hardcore about rules-following and Fault Finding are not really getting to the point of what OP was complaining about. I see OP's point, I feel where they're coming from and even though Steam certainly remains quite good, they certainly cannot do no wrong and I feel these types of situations could be handled better.
Now here is Useful Information:
And others don't agree. Both is fine.
Except that also retail PC games nowadays are tied to Steam, Origin, Ubisoft Connect, Epic, etc. Have been for quite some years now. You can't resell those, as the activation code has been used. Which is what people are talking about.
You missed that.
I can also see where OP is coming from, doesn't mean that I agree with them. There is plenty of things wrong with Steam, but the refund policy isn't one of them.
Yeah I'm not suggesting they should exactly, just that I liked the more liberal refund policy for everybody actually.
True! I have been a loyal Steamer for so long I forgot that that was a factor at the retail counter. I still have my NES cartridges and I would never think to try to sell them. Of course if I wanted to I certainly could.
What you missed is 'the rules' didn't always allow that and then through a number of things changed to ensure that places like Gamestop can even offer an aftermarket for physical cartridges. Companies used to want to prevent that. Now it seems we have two strikes against resales: Shrinkwrap policies and Activation policies.
The Shrinkwrap barrier can be overcome. In the case of Windows, you must sell your activation code with a piece of physical computer hardware. And it's legal.
This reminds me of the days before Number Portability in phones. It used to be that the phone companies would never let you keep your phone number since the law allowed them to claim ownership over the numbers. It seems to me that in the future, given the gaming market has overtaken phone companies and Hollywood, some reforms and clarifications of the law are due. One of those may be Licensed Product Portability.
The Supreme Court already put in perspective that Walled Gardens for products aka App Stores (like Apple's) are no longer something that you can operate with impunity to exclude some competitor's products, for example. I think the logical next step would be License Portability. If you want to host a large-scale, public-facing digital product licensing and distribution system, it may follow you should be able and required to let users take their licensed products with them to a similar one, or offer some consolation if the users prefer to take them offline.
I hope you will be as big a fan and defender of The Rules when they change to allow that, too. I know I will.