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[coopolon]

Do you find it acceptable that stores don't allow you to return an item if you've opened it? They can't re-sell it, so refunding you your item costs them money they can't make back.

Valve doesn't like charge-backs because the hassle of doing so costs them money they can't make back.

The only difference is that the store is losing money due to having paid for the item from the supplier, while Valve is losing money to fees.

The vast majority of items in the US can be returned within a certain amount of time even if opened with a full refund. But there are exceptions, most of which make sense. And almost all the exceptions are due to people abusing the generous return policies. You can no longer return movies, games, cd's because people used it as free rentals. And a lot of stores have started having slightly stricter policies on returning certain items like TVs, computers, etc. because they eat such a loss if they get returned, so now they have restocking fees, etc. (Most of the time you can still return them though and get most of your money back.)

But I guarantee if you buy a computer, a fridge, a microwave, and a TV from Best Buy and return the TV, they're not going to go to your house and forcibly remove every other item, not give you your money back, and point you to their TOS when you complain. That's something only Valve does.

 

[Raiden]

It is possible, but i like steam, i wish PC-gaming was 100% like steam or battle.net, just 1 organisation for all your games, and which you can have a friendslist on, and achievements like they start doing as well, and all that other crap.

 

[Stallion Free]

But I guarantee if you buy a computer, a fridge, a microwave, and a TV from Best Buy and return the TV, they're not going to go to your house and forcibly remove every other item, not give you your money back, and point you to their TOS when you complain. That's something only Valve does.

Please, enlighten us. When has Valve wiped someones account out when someone asked for a refund?

 

[The Technomancer]

It is possible, but i like steam, i wish PC-gaming was 100% like steam or battle.net, just 1 organisation for all your games, and which you can have a friendslist on, and achievements like they start doing as well, and all that other crap.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like everyone would love Steam if:
a.)you could run your games without the Steam interface
b.)You could easily burn DVD backups that would run without Steam

 

[Dr. Light]

But there are exceptions, most of which make sense. And almost all the exceptions are due to people abusing the generous return policies. You can no longer return movies, games, cd's because people used it as free rentals.

I'm sad to say I used to do that, back in the days before I had a job. I single handedly killed EB/Gamestop's once-generous return policy (return any game for full refund within 14 days, yeah really).

 

[Stallion Free]

I'm sad to say I used to do that, back in the days before I had a job. I single handedly killed EB/Gamestop's once-generous return policy (return any game for full refund within 14 days, yeah really).

I think EB/GS realized they were doing free 2 week rentals for cheap people like you and wanted to make an actual profit.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

The vast majority of items in the US can be returned within a certain amount of time even if opened with a full refund. But there are exceptions, most of which make sense. And almost all the exceptions are due to people abusing the generous return policies. You can no longer return movies, games, cd's because people used it as free rentals. And a lot of stores have started having slightly stricter policies on returning certain items like TVs, computers, etc. because they eat such a loss if they get returned, so now they have restocking fees, etc. (Most of the time you can still return them though and get most of your money back.)

But I guarantee if you buy a computer, a fridge, a microwave, and a TV from Best Buy and return the TV, they're not going to go to your house and forcibly remove every other item, not give you your money back, and point you to their TOS when you complain. That's something only Valve does.

Yeah it's totally cool and understandable that stores don't allow you to return used games. But wtf Valve does the exact same thing! Damn them!

 

[Ledsen]

All the DD services, except D2D, do this.

Many of the things people are saying Steam does that they love- it isn't exclusive to Steam at all.

They aren't but they're always there, no matter the game. I'll never have to wonder "if" or search for information online. If it's on Steam, I click "buy", and I know all of Steam's features are there when I need them. Extremely convenient, easy, one-stop-shop. That's why I love it so much.

 

[WanderingWind]

Yeah it's totally cool and understandable that stores don't allow you to return used games. But wtf Valve does the exact same thing! Damn them!

Hey, hey, hey. He was talking about refrigerators and TVs. Who the hell is talking about video games? Huh?

Stay on topic, please.

 

[Pikelet]

Steam hasn't used just 15mb of ram for years. I had to upgrade my machine because that bloated mess was chugging my machine.

You can't add features and expect the footprint to remain the same. I'm currently on 100mb just for having friends list and a chat window open.

mine is on 27mb right now and my pc has been on all day. I have even reinstalled oblivion and have a chat window open.

Even if it did ever get to 100mb on my machine, who really cares since getting 2 or 4gb of ram is less than the cost of Fallout New Vegas. That is not including the ram you already have nor is it taking into consideration the massive benefits outside of running steam that it gives.

If your machine is chugging because you are running steam, there is also a very limited amount of games on steam you could play anyway.


I am not saying you are wrong for being annoyed if your story is indeed the case, but you must realize that it is quite the fringe case.

 

[SenorDingDong]

Oops. Wrong thread, meant to post in the New Vegas thread. Disregard.

 

[coopolon]

Yeah it's totally cool and understandable that stores don't allow you to return used games. But wtf Valve does the exact same thing! Damn them!

I don't think Valve should be expected to allow you to return games (except in the cases where games are literally broken, but in this area they actually have a better track record than do the B&M retailers.) I don't think Valve should be allowed to take away every game you've ever bought from them because you dispute one transaction. Good on you I guess if you think that's a good policy though.

Edit: Just to be clear, I don't think consumers doing illegitimate chargebacks is okay, it's not. If people are doing charge backs when they shouldn't be, they should be prosecuted for fraud. Valve has various options to combat that, and I don't think saying "We disagree with you doing a chargeback, so we're taking away every game you've ever bought that is completely unrelated to this incident to punish you." Somehow every other business manages to survive in a market place where charge backs are reasonably common place, why is Valve any different?

 

[Stallion Free]

I don't think Valve should be allowed to take away every game you've ever bought from them because you dispute one transaction. Good on you I guess if you think that's a good policy though.

I asked you to give us one case where this happen before and you ignored it. I have never heard of Valve locking your account because you requested a refund.

 

[coopolon]

I asked you to give us one case where this happen before and you ignored it. I have never heard of Valve locking your account because you requested a refund.

Charge backs and refunds are different things. I was only talking about refunds because I said, "this policy is unacceptable" and someone tried to make it seem more acceptable by comparing it to common refund policies, and I was trying to explain why I see them as different.

I do not think Valve should be held to higher refund policies then we do any other store that sells software. And like I said before, they actually have better refund policies then most software sellers because they have in the past refunded broken games and other mistakes.

 

[1-D_FTW]

I asked you to give us one case where this happen before and you ignored it. I have never heard of Valve locking your account because you requested a refund.

I'm not sure dispute = asking for refund. I think it's doing a chargeback.

And I can understand why Valve does it. Whenever you start having a long list of rules and exceptions for anything, it turns into a clusterfuck of whining and my case is special. Setting a simple rule and working back from there is the most effective course. Chargebacks = account getting locked. Have people pleaded their case and gotten their account back? Yes. But the jist is simple: don't do chargebacks! This is not supposed to be your first course of action.

 

[Stallion Free]

Charge backs and refunds are different things. I was only talking about refunds because I said, "this policy is unacceptable" and someone tried to make it seem more acceptable by comparing it to common refund policies, and I was trying to explain why I see them as different.

I do not think Valve should be held to higher refund policies then we do any other store that sells software. And like I said before, they actually have better refund policies then most software sellers because they have in the past refunded broken games and other mistakes.

You kept wording shit like people who ask for refunds get their accounts locked.

Charge back is not how you go about getting a refund. Dumbfucks who do that to get a refund instead of actually submitting a ticket to Valve shouldn't be surprised when their accounts get locked.

 

[coopolon]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=397474

That thread is when I really started to get worried about Valve's chargeback policy. Was it all Valve's fault in that situation? No, PayPal sucks too and is probably more to blame. But it's completely unacceptable to me that Valve locked him out completely because the payment for one game was under dispute. He paid hard earned money for all the other games.

 

[Stallion Free]

That thread is when I really started to get worried about Valve's chargeback policy. Was it all Valve's fault in that situation? No, PayPal sucks too and is probably more to blame. But it's completely unacceptable to me that Valve locked him out completely because the payment for one game was under dispute. He paid hard earned money for all the other games.

It was so so long as you don't use the piece of shit, you shouldn't worry about it.

 

[Gully State]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=397474

That thread is when I really started to get worried about Valve's chargeback policy. Was it all Valve's fault in that situation? No, PayPal sucks too and is probably more to blame. But it's completely unacceptable to me that Valve locked him out completely because the payment for one game was under dispute. He paid hard earned money for all the other games.

Sounds more like a Paypal issue to me.

 

[water_wendi]

exactly; correct me if i'm wrong, but in this weird hypothetical where steam tanks tomorrow, how would this affect my ability to launch steam & play my games entirely offline?

When GOG was down i was amazed at the amount of people that use DD as storage. People had tons of GOG games they paid for but either did not have them installed or backed up so they could not play. This isnt a weird hypothetical. It just happened a month ago.

 

[InfiniteNine]

You might be interested in this then. Stardock's rolling out a new program next year, where on DD purchases of their games, once per year they'll let you order a disc that is the updated version of the game, DRM/activation free, which you can order.

You'd get the benefits of both DD and physical ownership (though you'd have to pay for the disc+ shipping). Elemental and GalCiv II are going to get this.

That's actually pretty nice, I'm glad someone is doing something like this.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

When GOG was down i was amazed at the amount of people that use DD as storage.

Well, it's not really shocking when that is one of the big benefits of digital distribution. It's one of the primary benefits in exchange for not getting ownership of a piece of physical media.

 

[SturokBGD]

When GOG was down i was amazed at the amount of people that use DD as storage. People had tons of GOG games they paid for but either did not have them installed or backed up so they could not play. This isnt a weird hypothetical. It just happened a month ago.

Not all that shocking, it's one of the major benefits of DD.

I own TBs worth of games on DD services, I just don't have the hard drive space for them all, and I buy them so frequently it's a pain in the ass to back them all up as I buy them.

The other thing with Steam is that with some more modern games (Valve games for sure!), you end up getting behind on updates very quickly. With something like GOG that has no DRM or client or anything, you could end up with an older build of a game backed up and not ever realise it.

 

[Sober]

I would buy more games on Steam if I didn't have a stupid bandwidth cap, so I really don't see the super hassle some of you point out in buying a retail copy (as long as it's about the same price as on Steam, plus I commute anyway so I pick games up most of the time on the way home) and installing it, then just adding a shortcut to launch it from Steam. I love the overlay because it tells me the time and has a browser I can launch plus the friends list. I mean, some games I don't launch with Steam simply because I can play it windowed without care (e.g. WoW, popcap games).

Really, you could live without Steam if you avoid Steamworks games and everything, but even the overlay and community features are such a great convenience, I dunno why you wouldn't.

 

[arstal]

That's actually pretty nice, I'm glad someone is doing something like this.

The only bad part is that only Stardock developed (GalCiv II/Elemental) and maybe published (Sins/Demigod) will be on this.

I would buy more games on Steam if I didn't have a stupid bandwidth cap, so I really don't see the super hassle some of you point out in buying a retail copy (as long as it's about the same price as on Steam, plus I commute anyway so I pick games up most of the time on the way home) and installing it, then just adding a shortcut to launch it from Steam. I love the overlay because it tells me the time and has a browser I can launch plus the friends list. I mean, some games I don't launch with Steam simply because I can play it windowed without care (e.g. WoW, popcap games).

Really, you could live without Steam if you avoid Steamworks games and everything, but even the overlay and community features are such a great convenience, I dunno why you wouldn't.

GOG games don't get patches that often, because they're old. Games that update rapidly benefit from Impulse/Steam style downloaders.

As for the overlay, the way Stardock does it with Elemental is something Steam can learn from, it's a lot more elegant. (you can crap on Elemental the game all you want, but its integration with Impulse is better then any Steam game) The only issue is that Stardock hasn't made a game that's really MP-friendly, so the community integration isn't there yet.

Sounds more like a Paypal issue to me.

Yeah, Paypal is evil. That said, why should the customer be the one to suffer here?

I asked you to give us one case where this happen before and you ignored it. I have never heard of Valve locking your account because you requested a refund.

http://www.facepunch.com/threads/10...y-account-was-disabled-over-a-trading-debacle. Not entirely the same, but similar. It would be easy for a bunch of people to grief claiming scamming on someone's account and getting it shut down.

 

[Boonoo]

I would buy more games on Steam if I didn't have a stupid bandwidth cap, so I really don't see the super hassle some of you point out in buying a retail copy (as long as it's about the same price as on Steam, plus I commute anyway so I pick games up most of the time on the way home) and installing it, then just adding a shortcut to launch it from Steam. I love the overlay because it tells me the time and has a browser I can launch plus the friends list. I mean, some games I don't launch with Steam simply because I can play it windowed without care (e.g. WoW, popcap games).

Really, you could live without Steam if you avoid Steamworks games and everything, but even the overlay and community features are such a great convenience, I dunno why you wouldn't.

Are you sure Steam downloads count towards your cap? I'm pretty sure they don't in Australia (or you can make it so they don't count fairly easily), and I guess I assumed that would be the case everywhere.

 

[SturokBGD]

Are you sure Steam downloads count towards your cap? I'm pretty sure they don't in Australia (or you can make it so they don't count fairly easily), and I guess I assumed that would be the case everywhere.

Months of repeatedly busting my cap tells me that yes, Steam downloads count. :lol

I'm in Ontario, Canada though - Roger's caps are complete bullshit.

 

[Stallion Free]

http://www.facepunch.com/threads/10...y-account-was-disabled-over-a-trading-debacle. Not entirely the same, but similar. It would be easy for a bunch of people to grief claiming scamming on someone's account and getting it shut down.

That isn't even close to the same.

 

[Nabs]

Months of repeatedly busting my cap tells me that yes, Steam downloads count. :lol

I'm in Ontario, Canada though - Roger's caps are complete bullshit.

in aus there are isps that have their own steam servers. saves you from going over for downloading a single game.

 

[Boonoo]

in aus there are isps that have their own steam servers. saves you from going over for downloading a single game.

I could really see it being worth it for Valve to actively work with ISPs in bandwidth capped countries to set up stuff like that. Strange that Australia would be alone in having that set up; maybe Valve has a sweet spot for them because of the Team Fortress guys.

 

[szaromir]

Very true, thank you for pointing out that nuance. But still, the existence of steamworks only games doesn't make PC gaming a close system controlled by steam. Steamworks is a great service and until someone offers something better (for free too right?)

Steamworks is not free for developers/publishers.

 

[Nabs]

Where did you hear that?

 

[Volcynika]

Steamworks is not free for developers/publishers.

?

From original announcement:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/51016

Valve Software today announced Steamworks, a suite of tools freely available for any developers to use with retail or online PC releases.
The tools include real-time sales, gameplay, and product activation statistics, an encryption system, territory control, auto updating, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, social networking services such as leaderboards, and other development tools. The full list of features can be found on Shacknews.

Many of the features are already integrated into the Steam Community platform. The tool set is similar to what Microsoft offers to developers--for a fee--in both Windows Live and Xbox Live.

"Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today's market," said Valve president Gabe Newell. "Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liiberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing."

I'm kind of confused.

 

[water_wendi]

Well, it's not really shocking when that is one of the big benefits of digital distribution. It's one of the primary benefits in exchange for not getting ownership of a piece of physical media.

Yea that was my point. Even when offered a DRM-free backup service people just relied on the notion that the DD service would be around forever. When GOG went down there were so many people distressed because they couldnt get access to the games they played. That loss of control is always going to be a black mark against DD imo.

 

[Boonoo]

Where did you hear that?

Not from Valve.

Steamworks gives you access to a connected community of 25 million gamers and a robust world-wide network – and it's entirely free. There are no licensing fees and there’s no charge for bandwidth, or OEM distribution. With Steamworks, you avoid the overhead and delay of certification requirements. Distribute your game on your terms, updating it as quickly and frequently as you see fit.

 

[faceless007]

You kept wording shit like people who ask for refunds get their accounts locked.

Charge back is not how you go about getting a refund. Dumbfucks who do that to get a refund instead of actually submitting a ticket to Valve shouldn't be surprised when their accounts get locked.

The fact that you think it's OK for merchants to dictate the conditions under which consumers can use the protection mechanisms of their credit cards is telling.

 

[Baha]

Steamworks is not free for developers/publishers.

Did Randy Pitchford tell you that?

 

[Nabs]

The fact that you think it's OK for merchants to dictate the conditions under which consumers can use the protection mechanisms of their credit cards is telling.

merchants have to protect themselves from dickhead customers who abuse the chargeback system.

 

[1-D_FTW]

The fact that you think it's OK for merchants to dictate the conditions under which consumers can use the protection mechanisms of their credit cards is telling.

That he's an ebay seller who knows how easy it is for buyers to abuse the system?

Steam has a very straight forward system. If you've been wronged, they're not hiding. I'm sure they'll resolve it. There's a lot of dickweeds out there and I can see why Valve doesn't want to deal with scammers.

 

[Fugu]

Really, now. You're clearly talking about playing games which aren't even available on Steam anyway here. And if they are then it's at least as much work to pass around an install folder on the LAN to ensure that everyone is running the same version as it is to do the same thing with a Steam backup.

Not if that version is not the most current one available.

This is not really true. Again, for your own backups you can just move the folder around just like any other installed game, and if you want everyone who owns the game on the LAN to have it then you back it up and pass it over. There is an internet connection required but that's only momentary then it's offline all the way. Not to accuse you of anything shady but these issues are only really problematic if you're trying to play LAN games and not everyone owns a copy of the game in question, so it shouldn't really be a concern.

And to copy a game without Steam, all I have to do is copy a folder, regardless of my state of connectivity or the account that it will be used for. Also, when we LAN, we don't have an internet connection most of the time.

One of my computers is never connected to the internet; the ability to connect momentarily to the internet is frequently not there.

Okay now you're just being silly.

Nope.

 

[Minsc]

merchants have to protect themselves from dickhead customers who abuse the chargeback system.

I was under the impression that if the merchant had evidence the customer was abusing the chargeback system or lying (to which the credit card companies always first ask the customer to tell them they have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their issue with the merchant), the customer's chargeback would be revoked.

It's a case of Valve being lazy and brutish imo.

 

[Fugu]

I was under the impression that if the merchant had evidence the customer was abusing the chargeback system (to which the credit card companies always first ask the customer to tell them they have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their issue with the merchant), the customer's chargeback would be revoked.

It's a case of Valve being lazy and brutish imo.

When some guy stole my battle.net account and used a stolen credit card to pay for time on it (I don't understand why he did this, but he did), the bank of the stolen card instituted a chargeback and my account was instantly closed. If Steam did this and the conflict were not resolved amicably, I would be really pissed.

 

[duckroll]

Nope.

He didn't say you were lying, he said you were being silly. That screenshot just proves how silly you are. But hey, it's your computer! :lol

 

[water_wendi]

Okay now you're just being silly.

They already posted a pic but there are huge mods for Diablo 2 that are easier to maintain with multiple installs.

 

[Ledsen]

When GOG was down i was amazed at the amount of people that use DD as storage. People had tons of GOG games they paid for but either did not have them installed or backed up so they could not play. This isnt a weird hypothetical. It just happened a month ago.

No it didn't. It was a joke.

 

[Fugu]

He didn't say you were lying, he said you were being silly. That screenshot just proves how silly you are. But hey, it's your computer! :lol

- I have 1.00 installed because I did a playthrough (at a LAN) of it. It's substantially more difficult than the game in its current state.
- I have 1.04 installed because it's extremely buggy and fun to play as a result.
- I have 1.09 installed because it is the most heavily modded version of the game; there are very few mods for the current version of the game, so if you want to play any of the mods, you're going to need 1.09.
- I have 1.13 installed because it's required to play online.

The rest are backup installations in case I accidentally patch one.

You calling me silly seems like a case of nerds calling nerds nerds. You don't really have any idea what the purpose of me having multiple installs is, so what's with the random name-calling?

 

[water_wendi]

No it didn't. It was a joke.

In the end thats what it turned out to be for the few days where nobody really knew what was going on the people who thought they lost their stuff (even just losing access until later that week) had people going crazy.

 

[1-D_FTW]

I was under the impression that if the merchant had evidence the customer was abusing the chargeback system or lying (to which the credit card companies always first ask the customer to tell them they have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their issue with the merchant), the customer's chargeback would be revoked.

It's a case of Valve being lazy and brutish imo.

American Express is notorious for allowing chargebacks for pretty much no valid reason at all. In fact, I'm sure if ebay made it an option, all sellers would forbid AE from funding purchases.

And before you say "Why doesn't Valve just forbid them?" They can still fund paypal purchases and chargeback that way.

Well then forbid Paypal. Forbid this. Forbid that.

This is why institutions have draconian rules. Because otherwise the line will constantly be moving and you have a mess.

 

[arstal]

American Express is notorious for allowing chargebacks for pretty much no valid reason at all. In fact, I'm sure if ebay made it an option, all sellers would forbid AE from funding purchases.

And before you say "Why doesn't Valve just forbid them?" They can still fund paypal purchases and chargeback that way.

Well then forbid Paypal. Forbid this. Forbid that.

This is why institutions have draconian rules. Because otherwise the line will constantly be moving and you have a mess.

I think merchants could just choose not to accept American Express. That's fine.

 

[flyinpiranha]

Of course it's possible, just like sex without a partner is possible.