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Xbox Support: 343 blocking refunds for Halo: MCC

EDIT: I did receive a refund from phone support. I want to note while Frankie offered to help it was taken care of without his intervention.


You are entitled to a refund. If the customer service rep told you all that stuff, they were incorrect.

343 wouldn't even know who to talk to, to tell them any such nonsense. Everyone here is heads down fixing the issues, not messing with already irate consumers. The person you spoke to appears to be some kind of fabulist.

Apologies for your experience but it is not some developer mandate. It doesn't even work like that.

I have flagged it and it will be dealt with.

Yesterday I took the day off to play this game. After waiting now 2 days from the midnight launch I have yet to get into a match. I decided return it until it is actually working. Since I bought it digitally I contacted Microsoft Xbox support. They were more than happy to process the return. I was surprised when they told me the refund failed stating:

Xbox Support:
I tried processing for refund for this game, since you were not able to play it, but the system is lock for refund of this game for the mean time.

We receive a hold off order for refunds at the mean time from 343 Industries, the game developer as they are still fixing the issue with the game. One they're done with it, refunds will be available but for sure time, the game issue will also be fixed.

On Microsoft side, John, we don't really hold refunds for games with technical issues, just like what you are experiencing right now, though part of our Terms of Use is "All sales are Final". Since we value our customer's satisfaction, we can override the system and process refunds for technical issues with the game. But for this certain specific game, the hold order is coming from the developer itself.

The developer for the game is 343 Industries, Microsoft is the Publisher of the game.

The next steps will be either to contact 343 Industries John or to wait from them for the go signal about the game. Since this issue is known to our developer, anytime soon it will be working fine.

I certainly understand that John and this is what we are working on with the 343 industries to fix the issue or at least, with the refund for the game since it did not met the expectation from our customers.

I am not going to go on some kind of rant but this is nonsense. I 100% would have bought again, maybe later honestly when the issues were resolved. Either way, if the game is not working now there should be no difference between this and any other game.


I know there will be some who say I should wait, be patient etc but I am sick of these games launching totally broken. This one after a 15GB day one patch. I don't think this is unreasonable. Making it worse is that there is a block from 343 on refunds do they are not willing to accept any repercussions on this.

Edit: This may be a MS issue and not directly 343 so if that is the case I apologize. I only directly put them in this because of the chat above.
 

RoKKeR

Member
This is strange... I don't even see where 343 could be in a position to do such a thing. Microsoft is the publisher of the game, they handle stuff like this...right?
 

Rich!

Member
As I always say - if you live in the UK, you are legally protected by the distance selling regulations and can request a full refund for any online or distance bought item (digital or not) within the first 14 days.

If they refuse, they are breaking the law.

I've been issued many refunds before for digital purchases after making threats.
 

Abriael

Banned
yeahhh... support rep knows.

Not really.

Mind you, 343 industries is OWNED by Microsoft. So anything that comes from 343 industries comes from Microsoft. Which means that this whole talk makes absolutely no sense.
 

DarkJC

Member
That's pretty ridiculous. Ship out a broken game and customers aren't allowed refunds until you fix all the problems?

Why not just ship a working game to begin with? If customers are blocked from getting refunds for broken games like this how is there going to be any incentive to ship out games that are actually tested and working properly?
 
Why would you refund?

You will rebuy once matchmaking is sorted!

Babies spitting there dummies out

I explained why already. Why is it ok that this keeps happening? You are entitled to your opinion, I am the consumer and entitled to a refund if something doesn't work. Its not about being an asshole, it's about it not working.
 

timlot

Banned
I bought digitally. And the words "No Refunds" before you confirm your purchase are engraved in my mind. Patience.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
Why does 343 get the rights to do this? I mean I'm unsure why you'd want refunds, but I'm sure someone has a valid reason for needing a refund, so this is kind of stupid?
 

Doukou

Member
That's shitty, try threatening to contact BBB.
Also I've seen this many times where they say to contact developer. When I tried to get a refund on Killer Instinct Combo breaker edition since I wanted to buy Ultra they kept telling me to contact Double Helix even though they don't work on the game anymore and MS is the publisher.
 

10k

Banned
It's been two days. I'm sorry OP, but this seems rather trivial. You're jumping all these hoops when the game will be fixed soon and you'll buy it again anyway.
 
yeahhh... support rep knows.

Not really.

Mind you, 343 industries is OWNED by Microsoft. So anything that comes from 343 industries comes from Microsoft. Which means that this whole talk makes absolutely no sense.

Except he did try to refund and escalated to his manager. His replied are pretty specific in detail.
 
Your name is John?

e64b89a92547072260df963a934889c8.jpg
 
Why would you refund?

You will rebuy once matchmaking is sorted!

Babies spitting there dummies out

I get where you're coming from, but a product was purchased by a customer with the assumption that it was in working condition (I know the terms may vary here since multiplayer is but one aspect of this game), which it is not.

They will fix it, we can very easily assume this is something they won't leave by the wayside, but a product was sold to a consumer that at this current point in time, is unplayable (yet again, I imply this towards multiplayer, singleplayer seems fine).

Point being, let him rebuy it when it works, until then, there's no obligation on the customer to "wait it out", cause he wasn't aware of this risk when he purchased the game.
 

Soulflarz

Banned
'All Sales are Final' my ass.

If it doesn't work, the sale is NOT final.

Yep. That's my view.

As previously said, BBB/UK law will probably save some of you. Especially UK law. It's obnoxious to suddenly say you cant get a refund until we fix all these issues and you have no valid reason for us to issue a refund.
 

Yagharek

Member
It's been two days. I'm sorry OP, but this seems rather trivial. You're jumping all these hoops when the game will be fixed soon and you'll buy it again anyway.

You have a lot of faith in a developer who released a game that doesn't work as described.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Why would you refund?

You will rebuy once matchmaking is sorted!

Babies spitting there dummies out

And how long will that take? If he wants his money back for a product that doesn't work as advertised how can you blame him? People were saying the same shit when Driveclub happened and while I don't expect 343 to be that incompetent to get their shit together how long does it have to take for a refund request to be reasonable?

But that said this is why you should avoid preordering anything or buying anything day 1 - especially digitally. Can't get your money back without some serious headaches (unless you're buying something on Origin).
 

DarkJC

Member
It's been two days. I'm sorry OP, but this seems rather trivial. You're jumping all these hoops when the game will be fixed soon and you'll buy it again anyway.

If they can fix the game so fast why not release in a week then, hm? Then the OP wouldn't be considering a refund to begin with.

And if it takes longer than a week, then the OP is right to try and get a refund as fast as possible. The longer you wait, the less likely you'll get a refund.
 

Clockwork

Member
I admit I may look at things a bit differently than some, but why would people demanding a refunding at this point? The game has been out for one day. Not only that, but even if they can't get matchmaking to work *right now* there are still 4 games worth of SP campaign/content to get through....
 

Abriael

Banned
Except he did try to refund and escalated to his manager. His replied are pretty specific in detail.

And they still make zero sense: "hey, it's not our fault, it's the company we own's fault."

343 is not an independent developer, or even a second party developer.They're a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.
 

Madness

Member
Well Xbox support has been wrong before. It's just me, but I'd still wait at least to the end of the day. I'm salty as hell about this too, but I'm going to give them the benefit of at least a week to sort this out. But that's just me, others have their own time, finances.

I can't imagine any developer has the ability to decline refunds but you never know. Plus it's digital. I don't even know if retail stores allow refunds for open games because the matchmaking is down or the game is glitchy.
 

El Sabroso

Member
just talk to another rep, 343 has 0 input in the billing system for MS, also they might be having an internal issue so you can wait a couple of days to try again
 
Wait.

You'll buy it when the issues are sorted out. OK

Bought it. Doesn't work well, Return it. Then buy it again.

/dead.

Why not just wait, i dunno like till the weekend to return it? Is there some limitation to when you can return this by?

I mean, you just downloaded 15gb to finish installing the game.
 
"Please play our game." -343

In all seriousness, I'd give them another call. Maybe someone else will be able to help you out.
 

Abriael

Banned
I was able to get a refund about an hour ago. It might just depend on who you talk to on chat.

iNtCkbL.png

Not surprising at all. As I said above, the rep was most probably just talking out of his rear end. There's no way someone with any expertise would say "hey, we don't block this, the company we own did"
 

Acorn

Member
Yep. That's my view.

As previously said, BBB/UK law will probably save some of you. Especially UK law. It's obnoxious to suddenly say you cant get a refund until we fix all these issues and you have no valid reason for us to issue a refund.
Yeah but actually quote the law in your request or they'll spout the same no refunds shit.
 
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