I have major regret for buying this game. Games like this should have a 20 hour refund window instead of 2. It took me 2 hours to realize it wasn’t possible to get the game to not run like garbage.
Well if the companies refuse to give you a demo to try, maybe you should pirate it to try and then purchase it.
Another option is becoming a patient gamer and just waiting for the game to get better (if it does) a year or two down the line and then buy it at a discount.
In the last few years there aren’t many games I didnt regret buying early.
I’d rather buy it than spend hours and hours downloading and failing to unpack it for unknown reasons.
But I’m not going to spend more than like 10 minutes trying to make it work. If it takes longer than that, it’s just a shit game that doesn’t deserve my money. Too many other perfectly good games to spend my time playing to fuck around with all of that.
I’ve heard that, but once I tried to refund a game at 3 hours and got nothing but an automated response (denial) everytime I requested a refund.
In this specific case it was actually a game I played 2 hours of during a free weekend approximately 4 years before buying it, played one hour after buying it to see if it had gotten better, decided it hadn’t and refunded it. But Steam counts free weekend playtime towards the refund window…
If there’s any actual way to ensure a human reviews it, that’d be neat. 100% it was automatically denied by some code just checking my playtime and seeing it was past two hours.
I know when you’re fighting with Google support as an app store developer, including images in correspondence can get a human to look at it as they can’t properly scan that for automation purposes.
Maybe a url in a claim would be the same for steam? Not sure if you can include images.
7 hours of cities skylines before I have up on trying to get a subway to align in what’s supposed to be a relaxing game. My fault that most of that time was afk, I suppose. Steam refused to refund.
I once got a refund after 5 hours. I opened the game, left it running at the main menu, then went to make lunch and completely forgot about it. Wasted probably about 3.5 hours in the menu. When I asked for a refund, I didn’t even explain that I’d left it open in the main menu; I just pointed out why I didn’t like it and why I wanted a refund. The game in question was Mount and Blade, store country was Germany, and I submitted the refund request on the same day I bought it.
The more recent installment, Bannerlord, had caught my attention, but a lot of people were saying it was unfinished and that devs weren’t updating the game to deliver things that were promised and instead were making minor hotfixes that even broke the mods attempting to address the game’s inadequacies. A lot of the complaints compared it to the first installment in the series and were recommending trying it out, especially since it had had a thriving mod scene and was more fleshed-out over all. I tried it out, but it just felt too dated for my taste; couldn’t get into it.
Maybe I would’ve gotten into it had I given it more time. I just felt pressured to quickly make a decision on whether to refund it after I had wasted more than 3 hours of my “trial” sitting in the main menu.
Perhaps Steam’s policy should be 2 hours or 10% of expected playtime as set by the devs, whichever is greater, perhaps with a max of 10 hours. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
I have major regret for buying this game. Games like this should have a 20 hour refund window instead of 2. It took me 2 hours to realize it wasn’t possible to get the game to not run like garbage.
Well if the companies refuse to give you a demo to try, maybe you should pirate it to try and then purchase it.
Another option is becoming a patient gamer and just waiting for the game to get better (if it does) a year or two down the line and then buy it at a discount.
In the last few years there aren’t many games I didnt regret buying early.
I usually do pirate and then buy (if worthy) but surely a major Bethesda release would be worth 80 bucks, right?
Right?
riiiiiight
Wrong. They proved that they could no longer be trusted after the release of Fallout 76.
That was a gigantic flaming red flag that I ignored
I’d rather buy it than spend hours and hours downloading and failing to unpack it for unknown reasons.
But I’m not going to spend more than like 10 minutes trying to make it work. If it takes longer than that, it’s just a shit game that doesn’t deserve my money. Too many other perfectly good games to spend my time playing to fuck around with all of that.
Only consolation is that it might be good in 5 years… :(
Steams 2 hour window is not a hard line. I’ve refunded games after spending hours trouble shooting
The two weeks thing I think is the hard limit, but 2 hours most definitely isn’t.
I’ve had them refund on longer than two weeks but it was because I had 0 play time in it.
I’ve heard that, but once I tried to refund a game at 3 hours and got nothing but an automated response (denial) everytime I requested a refund.
In this specific case it was actually a game I played 2 hours of during a free weekend approximately 4 years before buying it, played one hour after buying it to see if it had gotten better, decided it hadn’t and refunded it. But Steam counts free weekend playtime towards the refund window…
If there’s any actual way to ensure a human reviews it, that’d be neat. 100% it was automatically denied by some code just checking my playtime and seeing it was past two hours.
I know when you’re fighting with Google support as an app store developer, including images in correspondence can get a human to look at it as they can’t properly scan that for automation purposes.
Maybe a url in a claim would be the same for steam? Not sure if you can include images.
I emailed Gabe directly when I had an edge case like that. He forwarded it and it got resolved.
You have understood a very important fact about life.
Always eat your dessert first, and always complain at the top.
7 hours of cities skylines before I have up on trying to get a subway to align in what’s supposed to be a relaxing game. My fault that most of that time was afk, I suppose. Steam refused to refund.
Even 2 weeks isn’t the hard limit, at least in Australia.
I finished Doom Eternal at launch and put about 20-30 hours into it, but got it refunded when Bethesda added Denuvo to it 3 weeks post launch
Ngl I’m honestly happy with the trade off of being able to refund games when publishers try to pull shit vs being able to buy a Steam Deck
I think Valve are much more open to late refunds when developers do something unpopular to a game, such as this
I once got a refund after 5 hours. I opened the game, left it running at the main menu, then went to make lunch and completely forgot about it. Wasted probably about 3.5 hours in the menu. When I asked for a refund, I didn’t even explain that I’d left it open in the main menu; I just pointed out why I didn’t like it and why I wanted a refund. The game in question was Mount and Blade, store country was Germany, and I submitted the refund request on the same day I bought it.
What didn’t you like about it?
The more recent installment, Bannerlord, had caught my attention, but a lot of people were saying it was unfinished and that devs weren’t updating the game to deliver things that were promised and instead were making minor hotfixes that even broke the mods attempting to address the game’s inadequacies. A lot of the complaints compared it to the first installment in the series and were recommending trying it out, especially since it had had a thriving mod scene and was more fleshed-out over all. I tried it out, but it just felt too dated for my taste; couldn’t get into it.
Maybe I would’ve gotten into it had I given it more time. I just felt pressured to quickly make a decision on whether to refund it after I had wasted more than 3 hours of my “trial” sitting in the main menu.
Yeah I recently got Bannerlord and just feel it’s meh, definitely not feeling the hype
Oof, original M&B is pretty rough… Should’ve tried with Warband first.
I’m at 5hr and was denied. Really didn’t think Bethesda could make such a wreck… Or at least would try harder post fo76.
I did try for a refund at 20 hours but no luck
Perhaps Steam’s policy should be 2 hours or 10% of expected playtime as set by the devs, whichever is greater, perhaps with a max of 10 hours. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
For real i have a 5800x3d and 4080 it shouldn’t be running the way it is
So, what have we learnt for the next big release?
Pirate before I buy
A bit late now but it’s on Game Pass. You said it took two hours to realise your computer couldn’t run it well, so that was enough I guess?
Same thing happened to me for X4 foundations. Took me a good 30-40 hours to understand what a waste of time it was.
Literally zero enjoyment and it sits on my library laughing at me.