horrible customer experience

[lmtzombiekiller]

as you have read in other threads steam customer support seems to hold the line on if you play a game longer than 2 hours then you cannot get a refund. doesn't matter if you had it 1 day or 14, the policy states clearly if you play a game longer than 2 hours you cant get a refund, nor can you get credit. below are my issues with this trash.

customer service- its the ability to review a customers experience and make the best judgment for the better of the company and the customer. not saying Steam should refund all claims but they should at least review each one. is the customer habitual? is their request within some reason? and the number 1 rule of customer service is it right? how would you feel if you were in their shoes? .....

the answer! steam doesn't care about their millions of customers instead a bot or a person without any power reads the request vs. the policy and if you are over 2 hours of game play or 14 days past the purchase date, copy....paste the unfortunate no answer! congratulations steam you really can save a ton of money by reducing the customer service department to 0 humans.

retail me please- lets say a good amount of their customer base has the ability to shop at a Walmart, or Best buy, or Game Stop, ect. check their return policy... does it say any unreasonable statement like if you play the game more than 2 hours... no ... it doesn't. however not only will most of these places refund your money within 14 days but even if you don't have a receipt, they can provide a store credit, and you want to know how they can do this? with real people who have the power to weigh what is the best decision.

the customer is not always right- i couldn't agree more. but when you can see how many purchases and the amount of money they spend and will likely spend more, it may be best to find the grey in the black and white of your policy.

the reason i have resorted to bashing Steam and sharing my experience- why not list a customer support number?

for this sole reason i will try everything i can to avoid further purchases from steam. you do not have a monopoly, i can find other ways to play games. its just sad that something so simple as this can lose so much integrity for your company.

[fluxtorrent]

TLDR Entitled brat was entitled

[invision2212]

Buy a game at GameStop and open it, then try to return it 2 hours later and see what they tell you

[Mr. Smiles]

Did you try a manual refund? Or did you just stop when the automatic refund declined your request?

I've seen people with stupid amounts of playtime get refunds long after 2 weeks of purchase, even after being chastised by users for using the refund system to attempt to demo games.

It's not a guarantee, but a manual refunds will guarantee a real person at least looks at your case.

[Heckin' computer]

Escrito originalmente por lmtzombiekiller:

as you have read in other threads steam customer support seems to hold the line on if you play a game longer than 2 hours then you cannot get a refund. doesn't matter if you had it 1 day or 14, the policy states clearly if you play a game longer than 2 hours you cant get a refund, nor can you get credit. below are my issues with this trash.

customer service- its the ability to review a customers experience and make the best judgment for the better of the company and the customer. not saying Steam should refund all claims but they should at least review each one. is the customer habitual? is their request within some reason? and the number 1 rule of customer service is it right? how would you feel if you were in their shoes? .....

the answer! steam doesn't care about their millions of customers instead a bot or a person without any power reads the request vs. the policy and if you are over 2 hours of game play or 14 days past the purchase date, copy....paste the unfortunate no answer! congratulations steam you really can save a ton of money by reducing the customer service department to 0 humans.

retail me please- lets say a good amount of their customer base has the ability to shop at a Walmart, or Best buy, or Game Stop, ect. check their return policy... does it say any unreasonable statement like if you play the game more than 2 hours... no ... it doesn't. however not only will most of these places refund your money within 14 days but even if you don't have a receipt, they can provide a store credit, and you want to know how they can do this? with real people who have the power to weigh what is the best decision.

the customer is not always right- i couldn't agree more. but when you can see how many purchases and the amount of money they spend and will likely spend more, it may be best to find the grey in the black and white of your policy.

the reason i have resorted to bashing Steam and sharing my experience- why not list a customer support number?

for this sole reason i will try everything i can to avoid further purchases from steam. you do not have a monopoly, i can find other ways to play games. its just sad that something so simple as this can lose so much integrity for your company.

I recently had a similar poor experience. I too purchased a game recently that I had an issue with. It is the new Master of Magic remake. It has bugs and performance issues. I only was able to playtest it throughly this weekend, closer to the 30 day mark (I bought it on the 14th Dec.)

I was refused a refund on account of it being 'played' for 8 hours. In between 2 of those were idle while I let it run and attended to other business. Of the remaining 6 I spent 4 trying to get it to work on a system that was below-spec. It requires 16gb and 2gb VRAM. This worked imperfectly but not too bad to reject out of hand. It was below their spec, I can accept glitchy performance (the spec is way too high and the game is poorly optimized, but we'll get to that) in that circumstance. This isn't uncommon for new games either per user experience.

The last 2 hours were spent on the top-tier Steam Deck (which I bought in the first round I might add.) It crashed 3 times. Locked up once. Rebooted the Deck twice. Finally, due to battery exhaustion at around the 2 hour mark, it shut off. This Deck meets or exceeds their spec requirements. This is unacceptable from a number of different standpoints.

At this point under 30 days and with under 10 hours of playtime (this is a bare minimum for realistic testing of a beta, or new release software. Established games and well-written code may not need this, but being this is a new release which I happen to be subscribed to the beta channel on, it is quite reasonable imo) I sought a refund. It has a number of defects, but I can attribute those to, perhaps, it being a new release and the first machine being below-spec.

If your game runs like trash on the best handheld PC (it is a perfectly credible DTR in my opinion) around, your game has core issues. Not just bugs, not just glitches. It needs some rather intensive reworking imo. Fan ran at 100% the entire game for example - this is not an FPS. There are big optimization deficits in this game.

I believe being it crashed on both Windows and Steam Deck platforms and I was not able to complete a game on either (Windows crashed repeatedly too and VERY long load-time on initial load) that it is reasonable for me to seek and receive a refund. It doesn't help that the game lacks certain aspects of the package a reasonable person would believe to be included, like the intro cinematic and modern touches like configurable keymaps (nope!)

Modern gaming is evolving and part of the reason that people come to Steam is they expect something different from Best Buy, Gamestop and the rest of the retailers. We don't have to deal with shrink-wrap policies. We're Steamers. I thought we had it better than that here. It seems I may have been mistaken in that.

I am not new to gaming or retail policies. Steam has in the past been flexible in refunds for games I genuinely didn't want, couldn't use, or otherwise had issues with. I am a big fan of Valve's work in general. I own the best Deck, the Steam Link (early adopter there too,) and around 500 games here, with more anticipated to buy in the future. That may be something I'm going to have to rethink however. I don't take physical delivery of the game here. I also apparently cannot get reasonable customer service in the form of a refund for a game that isn't working and I no longer want (after a very limited period of testing before New Years and only wrapping up today.)

I have defended Valve from detractors claiming it is 'getting too big' and 'no better than [competitors.] I have reason to think there may be more merit to their arguments now than I did before. MoM is only $40. I had one other game, a $60 value that I could not get refunded before too. I accepted that that was my mistake in getting due to lack of research, time since purchase etc. However that's now $100 down the drain cumulatively. At least with physical delivery of the goods you can resell it. You don't even get a physical receipt here.

I don't drop $100 overall, have little to show for it, and think nothing of it. So here it what I resolved to do: I cleared approximately $500 worth of Wishlisted items off from my list. Steam will keep my $40 today for a game I deem unplayable - and I was asking for a Store Credit! - and lose my future investment in these titles. I will seek to acquire them elsewhere.

I feel less confident in this platform when rules this unrealistic and out-of-date are enforced here. Games are getting longer and more content-filled. New games may have different characteristics than ones that have been long released and are only entered into Steam's ecosystem after the fact.

So I hope Valve will keep in mind its enthusiastic userbase may not be as encouraged to stay if they won't treat their customers as valued participants in its ecosystem and respond to them accordingly.

[eram]

i had 3.6 hours in a game and got a refund. you submit a manual ticket

[fluxtorrent]

It's the same or better refund policy than ANY other store. Funny how it's always the same kids who made their own mistake but then want someone else to pay for it

[Mad Scientist]

Escrito originalmente por eram:

i had 3.6 hours in a game and got a refund. you submit a manual ticket

Short and to the point. That's all OP had to do was ask how to try getting it approved by a person. Instead of a huge wall of text.

"I have a question about this purchase" is a great option.

[Heckin' computer]

Escrito originalmente por eram:

i had 3.6 hours in a game and got a refund. you submit a manual ticket

Instructions not understood. There aren't any. Aside, I have brought my concerns to an agent and a chat took place. They reaffirmed the decision and I have accepted it.

Escrito originalmente por fluxtorrent:

It's the same or better refund policy than ANY other store. Funny how it's always the same kids who made their own mistake but then want someone else to pay for it

I've been playing and enjoying video games for a long time. It is not only kids who can reasonably expect some flexibility where a retail store-type scenario is involved. On the contrary. If adults feel you've beat them out of their lunch-money, it tends to bode less well for everybody involved.

The OP has a point, and Steam will remain the best of the lot so long as it continues to act the part.

[IFIYGD]

Escrito originalmente por Heckin' computer:

Escrito originalmente por eram:

i had 3.6 hours in a game and got a refund. you submit a manual ticket

Instructions not understood. There aren't any. Aside, I have brought my concerns to an agent and a chat took place. They reaffirmed the decision and I have accepted it.

If you use the Search function, and search "manual refund"- there are 138 pages of threads with those keywords in them, *most* of which have the same instructions on how to apply for a manual refund.
The info isn't hidden- you do actually have to do a 10 second search to find it, and read the instructions that have been repeated over and over and over and over on these forums for years.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/search/?gidforum=882958665520871138&include_deleted=1&q=manual+refund

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Steam much like Blizzard refuse to have them because their not going to give a corporate number out that while on the outside would help, would just then fall into abuse, trolling and screams from angry dumb people.

Hell Blizzard had a call center for World of Warcraft from the launch up till midway Lich King, and it was closed because over 70% of calls a day were people who were angry that Timmy was unable to refund money he stole from his mummy, were outright brandied trolls wasting supports time and seeking attention or simply were not even related to things Blizzard support were capable of helping with.

In their words
"Why would we keep a call center open with paid workers staffed there when it wont even be used for what it was meant for? You waste not only your time, but also our time in humoring the idea of keeping a support center open when we can better use that location for other things then listening to people waste our time for hours with a problem that didnt even exist."

[THE LORD]

Next time do research before buying any games. Steam is not a platform for you to demo games. My account is 13 years old and I've only refunded stardew valley because this game totally suck balls.

Caveat emptor.

[Heckin' computer]

Escrito originalmente por IFIYGD:

Escrito originalmente por Heckin' computer:

Instructions not understood. There aren't any. Aside, I have brought my concerns to an agent and a chat took place. They reaffirmed the decision and I have accepted it.

If you use the Search function, and search "manual refund"- there are 138 pages of threads with those keywords in them, *most* of which have the same instructions on how to apply for a manual refund.
The info isn't hidden- you do actually have to do a 10 second search to find it, and read the instructions that have been repeated over and over and over and over on these forums for years.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/search/?gidforum=882958665520871138&include_deleted=1&q=manual+refund

With that time and in that same space you could have simply provided the information for those who need it.

Credit to RawWwRrr who contributed this in another thread:

Go back to your purchase and instead of choosing refund, choose "I have a question about my purchase". Explain nicely and calmly in the following screen describe why you are asking for an exception to the refund rules knowing full well that Steam is well within their right to deny you. Let them know you're fine with the funds going straight to your wallet because you're most likely just going to use them on Steam again anyway. Send it off, cross your fingers, and possibly you'll luck out and get the refund that you want. Realize that if they still say "no", that's it.

Thanks to them for their contribution.

PS I agree with above poster about Stardew.

[Thermal Lance]

2 hours is more than enough to know if the game runs. Which is the important part. When it comes to actually playing the game well, depending of the type of games that is also enough to know if you will be satisfied with it. [Even thought the refund policy IS NOT to demo games. You are expected to do your research...]

How long would you think it would take you? 2 hours sounds reasonable enough to me.

[Crazy Tiger]

So OP is over both parameters of the refund policy, makes a false comparison to retail and has wronf expectations of the result their claim has. But it's supports fault, right.

As has been said, try a manual ticket. If they still say "no", that's final. After all, you are outside the policy.

[Heckin' computer]

Escrito originalmente por Thermal Lance:

2 hours is more than enough to know if the game runs. Which is the important part. When it comes to actually playing the game well, depending of the type of games that is also enough to know if you will be satisfied with it. [Even thought the refund policy IS NOT to demo games. You are expected to do your research...]

How long would you think it would take you? 2 hours sounds reasonable enough to me.

Crashes, uncompletability, feature failures may not appear immediately. Also multiple platforms are more often being used now. With its foray into the hardware arena (Link, now Deck) I contend Valve should take a greater interest in the effective multiplatform playability of games hosted on its system.

2 hours works for test of if it starts or not. If that's the standard, that's about it. If that is the area of concern Steam will limit its purview to, it is understandable.

People being dissatisfied with being stuck with a lemon product as they perceive it, that's up to Valve how they wish to handle.

[Edit: Please note that as of 2/13/2023 Master of Magic 2022 has fixed these issues for me. It also seems less reports of this are being posted for several weeks. Therefore I ultimately am happy with my purchase, but I remain unconvinced that this is reflective of the general trend. I've waited years or forever for fixes without them coming. MuHa has proven an exception here. Thanks to MuHa.]