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Comment by teh_klev | Hacker News Reader

> I had a few hours registered to a game I could never get to work beyond a few turns but since I "played" it I was not entitled to a refund.

Cough, ahem, No Man's Sky...

According to Steam I'd played around 40 hours, but in reality most likely <10 hours active and stupidly left the game idling a couple of nights which racked up the hours.

I tried to get a refund from Steam and was refused, I then tried a charge back from PayPal and Steam stepped in and more or less told me that if I continue down this road I'll be locked out of all my games.

A few lessons learned:

1. Don't pre-purchase games

2. Wait a couple of weeks for real gamer reviews

3. Avoid Steam/digital distributions for higher value games.

This has certainly soured me from buying anything costing more than a few quid on Steam.

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>> 1. Don't pre-purchase games

>> 2. Wait a couple of weeks for real gamer reviews

I know it's hard to do if everyone you know's playing the latest hotness, but if you can wait a few months, you can usually get the game heavily discounted in one of Steam's (or Humble, Green Man or other Steam key sellers) quarterly sales.

I used to buy my games on release date at or near full price, but these days I try very hard to wait as long as I can for them to get heavily discounted. When you pay much less than full price, the sting is lessened if you chalk up too many hours to get a refund.

Yeah, this is the same with me. The last game I bought at full price was watch_dogs, and I felt ripped off that most of the season pass content was the same copy and paste missions as the rest of the game, with only one proper DLC.

Last month I bought Dishonored 2 for £10 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for £8, roughly six months after release (when they were £60).

> but if you can wait a few months & > playing the latest hotness

To be honest NMS is the only game I've paid for prior to the release date, and even then I only paid for it a week beforehand.

I'm not a huge gamer (with the exception of dipping into Eve Online no and then). But NMS was hugely attractive to me, less so from the gamer/press hype, but from all the things Sean had talked about and demo'd.

That'll learn me.

According to Steam I'd played around 40 hours, but in reality most likely <10 hours active and stupidly left the game idling a couple of nights which racked up the hours.

THIS. I posted my own comment, but I also suffered from the same crash/hang refund issue. The game was so unplayable I gave up, and shut down my Steam link. Unbeknownst to me, it was still running and therefore Steam refused my refund, and didn't reply to my follow up.

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