No Man's Sky Thread

[king3pj]

It looks like this story was false. Please revisit link for updated story.

In other news that appears to NOT be false, apparently Steam is now issuing unconditional refunds for the game, regardless of play time. Pretty bold move. Curious if GOG will follow suit.

http://archive.is/Ce42l

I'm skeptical that this will work but I just tried it anyways. I played 16 hours so there were definitely things I liked about the game. I hadn't gone back to it in quite a while now though. If my refund goes though successfully I will buy it again when it is on sale.

 

[king3pj]

It looks like this story was false. Please revisit link for updated story.

In other news that appears to NOT be false, apparently Steam is now issuing unconditional refunds for the game, regardless of play time. Pretty bold move. Curious if GOG will follow suit.

http://archive.is/Ce42l

I'm skeptical that this will work but I just tried it anyways. I played 16 hours so there were definitely things I liked about the game. I hadn't gone back to it in quite a while now though. If my refund goes though successfully I will buy it again when it is on sale.

It looks like this is also false, or at least it's not a blanket policy like the poster on Reddit made it out to be. I already got my email from Steam denying my request because I had played over 2 hours and it wasn't I. The first 14 days after purchase.

I had a feeling Steam wouldn't do this. This isn't like Arkham Knight's case where the publisher decided to offer everyone a refund because the game was broken. It seemed like a weird move for Steam to go against their refund policy and authorize refunds that could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe even in the millions without the publisher giving approval.

 

[yourbeliefs]

It looks like this is also false, or at least it's not a blanket policy like the poster on Reddit made it out to be. I already got my email from Steam denying my request because I had played over 2 hours and it wasn't I. The first 14 days after purchase.

I had a feeling Steam wouldn't do this. This isn't like Arkham Knight's case where the publisher decided to offer everyone a refund because the game was broken. It seemed like a weird move for Steam to go against their refund policy and authorize refunds that could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe even in the millions without the publisher giving approval.

You can't do it through the regular refund system. You need to open up a separate support ticket.

http://www.pcinvasion.com/no-mans-sky-steam-refunds-support

 

[king3pj]

You can't do it through the regular refund system. You need to open up a separate support ticket.

http://www.pcinvasion.com/no-mans-sky-steam-refunds-support

Eh, I don't dislike the game so I think I'll just keep it. If it was the normal, simple refund process I would have done it but I don't want to write a negative review and then deal with customer service.

 

[meStevo]

Got a refund today, using the normal process.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[king3pj]

Got a refund today, using the normal process.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Guess it must be determined by who reads your refund request. Mine was denied with the reasons stated that my playtime was too long and it wasn't in the first 14 days.

 

[lakebum431]

Looks like it is more than just Steam:
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/no-man...refund-players-no-matter-how-long-game-552797

 

[king3pj]

Steam has now added a box to the top of the NMS store page with the following text.

The standard Steam refund policy applies to No Man's Sky. There are no special exemptions available. Click here for more detail on the Steam refund policy.

From what I'm reading it sounds like Steam never officially decided to change their refund policy for the game. It sounds like every refund request is reviewed by someone and they can make exceptions to the normal refund policy if the person requesting it has a good enough reason for asking for it outside of the normal refund window.

Apparently a Twitch streamer was one of the people who had this exception made for him. Because he got a refund outside of the normal window people decided that this meant Steam had made a special policy for this game. This lead to very long threads in the Steam forums and a big thread on Reddit. With many people mentioning those threads in their refund request it seems that a lot of other people were able to get the person reviewing their request to make an exception.

I can't find anything anywhere with Steam officially saying that the refund policy would be adjusted for this game the way it was with Arkham Knight. They made a very public statement on the Arkham Knight store page and the Steam forums in that situation. This is part of the reason I was skeptical about this from the beginning.

It looks like there have been enough requests now that Steam felt the need to make a public statement saying the normal refund policy has not been adjusted. I guess people like meStevo can consider themselves lucky that they were able to get their refund processed before Steam took a hard stance on this.

 

[meStevo]

I probably got in before the deluge of requests from all the press.

 

[yourbeliefs]

What this really shows is that return policies based on playtime really don't work. You can run into issues like NMS where 2 hours really is NOT a good representative of the overall experience. Hell there's likely to be people who have wasted at least half that time trying to get the damn game to run properly.

It's really getting annoying that digital items are viewed differently from regular goods, where we have to beg and plead for these companies to give us refunds when we're not satisfied with the final product. Returns are standard on nearly every product out there but for some reason digital items fall into this stupid category of caveat emptor, but in cases like NMS, where the advertised product is clearly not what was delivered, said company needs to be held accountable.

What's more annoying and frustrating is the COMPLETE silence from Hello Games and Sony during all this. All we've gotten are patch notes and the statement that yeah, we're probably going to make you pay for DLC. If said DLC is going to put back in the features that they advertised, like actual factions and true space battles and all that other stuff, then they're basically getting into Bait and Switch Territory. But to go from talking too much before release to not talking enough after release is just infuriating, and honestly I think Sony should do the right thing and just offer unconditional refunds to everyone that bought the game, because what they delivered is completely NOT what they advertised. What they delivered was the Early Access version of what they advertised.

 

[king3pj]

What this really shows is that return policies based on playtime really don't work. You can run into issues like NMS where 2 hours really is NOT a good representative of the overall experience. Hell there's likely to be people who have wasted at least half that time trying to get the damn game to run properly.

It's really getting annoying that digital items are viewed differently from regular goods, where we have to beg and plead for these companies to give us refunds when we're not satisfied with the final product. Returns are standard on nearly every product out there but for some reason digital items fall into this stupid category of caveat emptor, but in cases like NMS, where the advertised product is clearly not what was delivered, said company needs to be held accountable.

I actually think the standard Steam refund policy is probably just about the most consumer friendly way they can handle video game refunds without being unfair to developers and publishers. If they let you play as long as you want in the same 14 day window people would just beat games in the first two weeks and get a refund. Even with the 2 hour limit people game the system on shorter indie games that can be beaten in less than 2 hours. I remember hearing the developer of Cibele on a podcast talking about how disheartening it was to see how high the Steam refund numbers were on her game even from people who had completed it because it takes less than 2 hours.

Two hours is enough time to see how a game runs on your hardware. You say that some people probably wasted half that time trying to get the game to run properly and this is true. In my eyes that would be a great indication that you should probably ask for a refund before going over the 2 hour limit though. If a game doesn't work on your hardware you will be able to figure this out in the first 2 hours of playtime in most situations. You can always buy it again later if they patch out the problems so there isn't really any reason to keep messing with it for more than 2 hours if it doesn't work on your PC.

As far as I know video games, movies, and CDs have always had different return policies than other goods. They have since I have been old enough to buy them at least. I remember returning PS1 games when I was a kid because the disc didn't work. The refund policy at major stores like Target and Walmart was that if the game was opened you could only exchange it for a different copy of the exact same game. You couldn't get your money back and you couldn't exchange it for a different game. The reasoning is simple. If the normal 30 or 90 day refund polices worked on games you could play every game you want for free. Just go buy Gears 4 or whatever game you want, beat it in the first 30 days, take it back to the store and get your money back.

 

[yourbeliefs]

My point is that blanket return policies aren't always good. 2 hours is NOT sufficient time to decide whether or not NMS is worth your money. Hell for the vast majority of AAA game releases nowadays where the tutorials are in every early mission that isn't a good amount of time. Conversely, a 2 hour return policy on a very short game like The Beginner's Guide or A Bird Story can lead to rampant abuse of the system.

Return policies should instead be based on criteria, such as some of the following:

Is the game you're playing representative of what was/is being advertised for it?

NMS is NOT the game they've been hyping up for the past years, and there's a LONG digital trail of evidence to support that.

Is the game you're playing not buggy as crap?

Assassin's Creed: Unity was broken for MONTHS. I'd argue you should have more than 14 days to return a game like that, where it was so broken that a whole new genre of memes were created for it. I also feel the same way about the Master Chief Collection.

(Related to the last point) are the developers releasing fixes/patches in a timely manner?

Remember how long it took to get patches for Arkham Knight? Longer than 14 days with the exception of the first one.

Also, if your game is taken off of Steam, there should be a no-questions-asked return policy

 

[king3pj]

I can see reasoning for allowing people more than 14 days if they haven't played the game, or played very little of it but my point with the patches taking longer than 14 days is that you shouldn't wait for patches that may or may not ever come. If a game is as broken as AC Unity or Arkham Knight you definitely know it within the first 2 hours. Instead of hoping patches come along just return it before you break the 14 day or 2 hour limit. If it gets patched later like Arkham Knight you can always buy it again and probably a lot cheaper than you did the first time. If it doesn't get fixed like AC Unity just put your refund towards a different game and forget that AC Unity exists. There is no reason to sit around and wait for patches on Steam.

In No Man's Sky's case people knew what the game was without having to play more than two hours. The running joke about NMS is that there might be hundreds of hours worth of planets to explore but you see everything the game has to offer in the first half hour.

I don't completely agree with that but I did know what I was getting well before my 2 hours were up. Just about everything someone could want to return the game for (poor performance, buggy, no multiplayer, visuals don't match hype trailers, etc) are things you can figure out in less than 2 hours of gameplay. Hell you probably didn't even need to play the game to figure that out. The Steam reviews and Steam forums were flooded with complaints within minutes of the game launching.

 

[Derwin0]

 

[yourbeliefs]

Destiny took a few barbs at NMS

http://fraghero.com/shots-fired-bungie-just-took-a-jab-at-no-mans-sky/

 

[yourbeliefs]

Here's the No Man's Sky Twitter activity for the year. Notice a significant drop off at a significant time..

 

[yourbeliefs]

A modder with 3 weeks and no first hand experience with No Man's Sky, remade No Man's Sky in Doom 2.

 

[king3pj]

Hello Games put out a patch for No Man's Sky with quite a few bug fixes/improvements. You can read the patch notes here.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/350542683188088685/

Maybe I'll jump back in and continue my quest to the center of the galaxy soon. Right now I'm putting a lot of time into Forza Horizon 3 and I'd like to play a couple semi-spooky games in the month of October like I do every year for Halloween so it might be a while.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I say you wait until they start patching in some of those features they "promised" during development.

 

[king3pj]

I say you wait until they start patching in some of those features they "promised" during development.

I am probably going to wait for more updates just because I have plenty of other games that I feel are more worthy of my time right now. I'm not too hung up about what they talked about before release though.

The main thing that people say was promised during development that isn't there is multiplayer. I never got the impression from what was shown that this was a multiplayer sandbox game like some of these people wanted/expected but the developers definitely did hint that there would be more interaction with other players than there actually is.

Either way multiplayer No Man's Sky is just not something I care about. I do like plenty of multiplayer games but the multiplayer sandbox genre that people thought No Man's Sky would fall into has just never interested me.

The promise that I want to see fulfilled is planets and animals that look even a little bit like what was shown in the trailer for this game that is still featured as the first thing you see on the store page on Steam. I don't see that ever happening since it would probably require that they rebuild the entire game.