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Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

>>Lets say you buy a game on the Steam store .... >>Somehow, I just can't imagine doing business with them anymore.

"Let's say"? Is this a hypothetical? If this didn't actually happen then what's the issue?

I went through this. Spent a total of two weeks trying to get the game to work -- even went it and bought new hardware. I went out of my way to show record bench marking results. It's not my card, it's not my power supply, it's the buggy game.

2weeks of being jerked around by steam, doing every. Single. One. Of their suggestion AND logging that I did them. No result. The end result could be boiled down to "sucks for you. We don't give refund."

In the end, I ate the $60. I wasn't going to risk my entire game library over one game.

I must say though, the events certainly "raised my consciousness" to the fact that owning digital things is in a really crappy place right now. What other company do we allow the right to reach into our house and pull back things that we have rightfully purchased? It's really quite absurd.

I believe they won't delete your game library, however, they will lock you out of future purchases.

Do they keep you from creating a second account for purchasing and gifting what you buy?

> What other company do we allow the right to reach into our house and pull back things that we have rightfully purchased?

Amazon with Kindle books.

That's true. And also why I don't buy from them anymore. I'm doing the best I can to vote with my wallet. Which means pretty much the only place I purchase ebooks from anymore is OReilly, as they give plain old, drm free pdfs.

Why would they give you old PDFs? :)

Jokes aside, I had no idea that OReilly gave PDFs with their books. I thought that was only something that much smaller publishers did.

dont you agree when you buy a game, that there wont a refund?

I'm sure it's in their Terms of Service. The question that needs answered though is who is liable for non working software? It seems remarkably anti-consumer that every software purchase should be a risk.

If I meet the minimum requirements, if I can show bench marks, "prove" system stability, and run every other game in my library with the exception of this specific game, who is liable? Is it my fault that their game doesn't run on my system? That's an honest question, cause I don't know. I know that as a developer, if something I've written doesn't run on a computer that I consider it a fault in my software. Or, can at least recognize that an external force (i.e. a Bit Locker or something) will prevent that software from ever running due to permission issues, at which point a refund would be in order. I just can't wrap my head around not being viable for a broken product.

"The question that needs answered though is who is liable for non working software?"

Valve are. As a matter of law, any seller is responsible for selling a working product. If Valve claim otherwise, they're lying, and probably breaking the law in doing so.

Its been ages, but does a brick and mortar take back games that arent shrinkwrapped anymore?

Generally not. I work in retail and we're not really supposed to take PC games back, though this is often fudged.

Console games we'll take back if our disk tester says they're faulty.

I'm having a hard time believing you since nowhere you tell us the name of the game.

It's not a purchase, it's a rental with the entire rent paid up front. You know it's a rental because you enter into a continuing contract with them, which causes the games to be returned when either party breaks the contract. You have to map your mental model to view it that way, and put a matching value on things. It's why i only 'buy' games on steam when they're steeply discounted because that's the only time they're fairly priced.

Anyway, at some point this is going to get regulated, especially in the EU. They won't be allowed to use terms like 'purchase' and 'buy' without a specific legal consequence (like the right of resale). Until then we can only hope they get onerous enough to get on the radar of lawmakers.

They won't be allowed to use terms like 'purchase' and 'buy' without a specific legal consequence (like the right of resale).

I really like this idea. Make sure that words that if you want to claim to 'sell' something, you actually have to fulfill criteria that guarantee buyers' rights. It makes a lot of sense and would eliminate a lot of bullshit in digital distribution.

I've heard of this actually happening. I think it is to prevent people from buying games, playing them, then trying to file a chargeback so they play the game for free.

I guess the fine line from Valve is, there isn't really any way to differentiate people legitimately having problems vs. people trying to scam the system, so their default policy is if you file a chargeback your account is going to be suspended.

So, why don't they just have a policy that you have 24 hours to get a refund, like the original Android Market policy? Sure, I suppose if you are really dedicated you could play through a game in those 24 hours and get a refund to play for free, but that's a marginal enough case that it's probably not worth worrying about.

Or they could just limit the number of refunds you can get, to say 1 out of 10 games that you buy, and no more than one per month.

Or they could just refund you any time you want. Yeah, sure, a few people will scam them that way, but it's not like they have a huge per-unit cost for delivering the games to you. If it'll make users like the above more happy and more willing to buy from Steam, it's probably worth it in the long run.

Sure, I suppose if you are really dedicated you could play through a game in those 24 hours and get a refund to play for free, but that's a marginal enough case that it's probably not worth worrying about.

I think your underestimating the number of gamers who would pull all-nighters to play through a game as fast as possible in order to play games for free. Heck, plenty of people already do that without the ability to get a refund once they are finished.

Hell, if I was still in college I would seriously consider doing it as a broke student.

Allowing for refunds within 24 hours is effectively a free 24 game rental for any game in the library.

This kind of thing has happened to several people. Steam used to disable your access to all your games if you did a charge back, so things have got a little better.

Happened to me with Rome Total War II.

Most recent case when big release flopped and guys behind it were apologising that I can remember is X: Rebirth from few weeks ago. Many people asked for refund but nobody got it.

That's not true. I was one of the idiots who bought it on release day but I eventually got a (Steam credit) refund after a lot of back and forth. And there were several other people on the Egosoft forums who got a refund as well.

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