Steam refunds?
- Thread starter thedoc46
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I wouldnt say never, this happened to me with lost journey which i bought to keep me busy whilst i was waiting for my internet connection when i moved into my new flat.
It required a 64bit patch, as i didnt have the internet, this product was faulty.
I went crazy in the store and the manager eventually gave me an exchange etc.
Abit annoying really, they can't prove it has anything to do with your system speccs..
Soldato
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Didn't the package come with a DosBox emulator preconfigured, or is it just x-com games? Sorry, I am not familiar with all of the retro bundles currently on Steam and what they include as standard. However, it will be quite a feat if a game that is over a decade old ran without considerable emulation or compatibility tweaking in a modern environment, to be honest.
As for refunds, general policy is that the customer must ensure compatibility with their system specification before making a purchase, which is why system requirements are a permanent feature on all packaging or official pages for the products. In high street stores, it is now a part of protocol to ask explicitly if you have done so for any PC game you purchase. This was introduced to prevent returns on the basis of it won't run on x-y-z, or poor performance due to hardware incompatibility, which arguably is not the fault with the product.
Still, it is up to individual store managers to interpret any returns policy and most will err on the side of, "a customer is (almost)always right," in the UK at least.
I suspect this applies to online sales teams as well, but to a lesser extent. No harm in trying to get your money back, is there?
As for refunds, general policy is that the customer must ensure compatibility with their system specification before making a purchase, which is why system requirements are a permanent feature on all packaging or official pages for the products. In high street stores, it is now a part of protocol to ask explicitly if you have done so for any PC game you purchase. This was introduced to prevent returns on the basis of it won't run on x-y-z, or poor performance due to hardware incompatibility, which arguably is not the fault with the product.
Still, it is up to individual store managers to interpret any returns policy and most will err on the side of, "a customer is (almost)always right," in the UK at least.
I suspect this applies to online sales teams as well, but to a lesser extent. No harm in trying to get your money back, is there?
Well it really depends why it doesn't work.
If it doesn't work because it's not compatible with his OS then he stands no chance of getting a refund since it's something you should check when you buy games. It's especially important now since old games don't like Vista / 7 and new games increasingly don't like XP. If it doesn't work because of a fault with the game then he can get a refund even on steam.
Unfortunately it's almost certainly the first example.
If it doesn't work because it's not compatible with his OS then he stands no chance of getting a refund since it's something you should check when you buy games. It's especially important now since old games don't like Vista / 7 and new games increasingly don't like XP. If it doesn't work because of a fault with the game then he can get a refund even on steam.
Unfortunately it's almost certainly the first example.
Soldato
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OP can still argue the case of unclear statement of system requirements or lack of particular information in said statement pertaining to his problem. I think it is the only way to go about it in his case.
Yup. If we let stuff like this ride, PCs will never have a good rep as a gaming platform.
If a game only works on 2004 hardware, it shouldn't be sold in 2010 with no warnings.
I was recently burned like this myself. First with Anachronox, which cannot be played past a certain point on modern(ish) hardware, then with Theif 1 & 2, which flat out can't be played on modern nV cards at all.
For all of those who are saying you should check compatibility. Yes you are correct. HOWEVER, i did in this instance and people confirmed that it would work..
The problem, which incidently is now fixed, was due to the Steam Overlay.. Once disabled i managed to fix the problems that were being caused.
So, in a nutshell, they are selling a faulty product. I'm competent enough to find a fix. Plenty of people are not. It's certainly not an obvious one, and Steam are actively selling product that is incompatible with their own client software? WTF?
A percentage of people will buy this package and never be able to play it.
The problem, which incidently is now fixed, was due to the Steam Overlay.. Once disabled i managed to fix the problems that were being caused.
So, in a nutshell, they are selling a faulty product. I'm competent enough to find a fix. Plenty of people are not. It's certainly not an obvious one, and Steam are actively selling product that is incompatible with their own client software? WTF?
A percentage of people will buy this package and never be able to play it.
Steam actually puts on the store if a game wont work with newer hardware. Fine example of this is red faction 1 and 2 which couldnt work on all nvidia cards which are 8000 series or above lol. Theres an FPS lock on the old quake games now to keep the game engine running at normal speed and crossfire is well known for breaking legacy game support so disable it
If I'm honest, now that I have it working, i probably will refuse the refund if they offer it to me. But even so, it is annoying that I had to spend a couple of hrs finding this fix, which is pretty bad if you look at what caused it.
I know part and parcel of owning a PC is playing around sometimes to get things working. But I'd expect a little better testing, and if that's not going to be the case then a refund policy to compensate the very very bad testing that actually took place here.
Not a *********'s chance in hell
Oh and it's not Steam's problem, it's the publisher's. Steam is just the content delivery system.
why? they give a list of system requirements just like retail if you're too spasticated to understand that it's your own fault really.
So if i buy a game that's built for a completely different os to the one i use i should expect it to work?
Mac owners will rejoice!
So if i buy a game that's built for a completely different os to the one i use i should expect it to work?
Mac owners will rejoice!
Now you're just being silly
People don't expect interoperability between OSX, Linux and Windows.
People do, however, normally expect backwards compatibility with different versions of 32-bit Windows (and DirectX, OpenGL). And normally Windows is fine with this.
Normally it's gfx cards and their drivers that cause all the issues, by chopping and changing what is and isn't supported from one version to the next.
If it's released on Steam, then yes you should expect it to work. They should write new executables that work with the newer OS if the old ones aren't up to it
Soldato
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Or at the very least have warnings on the game page stating known incompatibilities.
To the OP, perhaps take a look on the Quake sub-forum of the Steam forums as I can guarantee you aren't the only person to suffer from these problems and you're most likely to find a fix there or on other Quake specific forums.
I doubt you will get a refund, it sucks I know but it seems to be the general dealings with PC gamers these days and has been for a while. Tried to get a refund for Splinter Cell Double Agent in the past due to it being a buggy mess and hence unplayable but the shop and UBIsoft couldn't care less once they had my money.
Just having a quick peruse of the Steam forums and this may be of interest to you TheDoc46
Edit: Nevermind, you have it working
. I fail at reading threads.
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That can't be Steams responsiblity?
Steam are selling you a product, It's the developers that should ensure the game works.