The myths and reality of Steam generally not refunding games - also belongs to Rome 2

[alQamar]

See. This is where I have issue with your debate. There are literally thousands of people that play the game every day with no problem. This isn't an issue of hardware. This is like I said in my previous post, you seem to be trying to blur the lines between an actually defective product, and a product that doesn't meet your personal standards. That's not how it works. I don't get a refund from a movie when I think the plot is complete crap and the CGI is pretty shoddy because the trailers made it look awesome. You're trying to say that because some people deem it unacceptable, it's able to be returned, even though there are many who find it to be an apt product. It's not like a sweater you can return to the store, they wash it and put it back on the shelf, it's an intellectual/artistic product, you've already had the experience, it's done. No trade backs fellas.

Thats your point of view but not interesting on the point of law. Software is a good, a shirt is a good. And if I mentioned some people have no issues this could be the case, we never know the truth, however if it is not you have your rights to return any game if your particular issue cannot be solved by the eager first level support on totalwar.com.

they wash it and put it back on the shelf

they unassign the cdkey and are ready on Steam. If you have another retailer, and Steam is one too, they need a repackage. You can also return other packaged products, even 50" TV screens. So repackaging Rome 2 should not be an unsolveable problem, really not.

[PeonKing]

Thats your point of view but not interesting on the point of law. Software is a good, a shirt is a good. And if I mentioned some people have no issues this could be the case, we never know the truth, however if it is not you have your rights to return any game if your particular issue cannot be solved by the eager first level support on totalwar.com.

they unassign the cdkey and are ready on Steam. If you have another retailer, and Steam is one too, they need a repackage. You can also return other packaged products, even 50" TV screens. So repackaging Rome 2 should not be an unsolveable problem, really not.

You're ignoring the fact that digital sales don't need to be repackaged. The cost is all in the intellectual part of the product, not in the manufacturing. I was trying to point out that you can easily resell a sweater if one person doesn't like it, but there's no trade back value for a company with a purely digital product. The CD key doesn't cost them money to manufacture. A shirt and a mode of entertainment are both goods, but not the same type and can't be returned the same way. Rome II is more like a movie than it is like a shirt. You get a refund if the movie cuts out, like you'd get a refund if a bug made the game unplayable and can't be fixed, but you don't get a refund because you don't like it.

[chris10]

In 2009 the Business Software Alliance has issued its own sinister view on things: “”Digital content is not a tangible good and should not be subject to the same liability rules as toasters. It is contractually licensed to consumers and not sold.” In other words “the consumer’s just borrowing it and so has no right to complaint.” - Nice corporate try to strip customers from all their customers right's

under EU law, the right of software developers to control distribution of a piece of software – whether stored physically or digitally – is "exhausted" (i.e. lost) once the developer has been paid for it (known as a "first sale"). This means that developers lose the ability to prohibit any second hand sale.

Regarding no tangible goods the court held

"the downloading of a copy of a computer program and the conclusion of a user license agreement for that copy form an indivisible whole. Downloading a copy of a computer program is pointless if the copy cannot be used by its possessor. Those two operations must therefore be examined as a whole for the purposes of their legal classification" (para 44).

The CJEU therefore decided that making software available for download while at the same time entering into a license agreement with the downloader and receiving payment for it "examined as a whole, involve the transfer of the right of ownership of the copy of the computer program in question" (para 45).

"if the term ‘sale’ within the meaning of Article 4(2) of Directive 2009/24 were not given a broad interpretation as encompassing all forms of product marketing characterized by the grant of a right to use a copy of a computer program, for an unlimited period, in return for payment of a fee designed to enable the copyright holder to obtain a remuneration corresponding to the economic value of the copy of the work of which he is the proprietor, the effectiveness of that provision would be undermined, since suppliers would merely have to call the contract a ‘licence’ rather than a ‘sale’ in order to circumvent the rule of exhaustion and divest it of all scope" (para 49).

Slap into corporate face's

Just as the resale issue for digital copys has been settled once and for all now you perfectly can get refunds for buggy games (a product who does not work as advertised or intended) ...regardless what publishers and devlopers wanna make poeple believe...none of their positions will hold up in court since courts tend to treat software as tangible goods and they are perfectly aware of that fact...this is why no software corporation has ever tried to test a real no refund policy in court...they always roll over if you are persistent since the industry wont risk a precedent ruling on this...

[Naked Emperor]

I made the mistake of buying The War Z...or Infestation: Survivor Stories like it's called now to make people forget about the War Z controversy http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...s/#more-157060

I just pointed out on my Steam ticket that this was false advertisement as features that were promised were lacking in the game and I got refunded without a hassle.

[lawandorder82]

If the movie is not the same as the trailer you can't expect a refund for that I dont see what this has to do with rome 2 with the newest patch the game is very improved.

[PeonKing]

Just as the resale issue for digital copys has been settled once and for all now you perfectly can get refunds for buggy games (a product who does not work as advertised or intended) ...regardless what publishers and devlopers wanna make poeple believe...none of their positions will hold up in court since courts tend to treat software as tangible goods and they are perfectly aware of that fact...this is why no software corporation has ever tried to test a real no refund policy in court...they always roll over if you are persistent since the industry wont risk a precedent ruling on this...

Sounds interesting to me. If you guys really believe this game is defective enough to merit a refund, knock yourselves out trying to prove your side. Honestly I find this argument exhaustive at this point, since I really don't see the merit in the 'defective' argument with a product I've used for over 100 hours and still continue to use on a pretty regular basis. I suppose I was wrong comparing the game to a movie.

[King_Tutankhamun]

I am truly amazed by the people who say that nothing is wrong with this Game OY VEY! I have tons of hours on RTW2 and none of them were enjoyable to say the least. They were all spent trying to mod or use mods to make the game any good. And no mod can make the game any good because its core is just not finished. Its a broken game! Its like a you bought a model car the cover looks cool but when you open it up parts are missing and there is no glue ?! Its just unreal.... I am a fan of TW games BIG TIME! but this game was NOT finished when they sold it and that merits a refund for anyone who wants their money back. Because even here where I live if you buy a car and have to take it back 7 times to fix something wrong, you get all your money back for the car, doesn't matter if you drove it a year. Its a Lemon. @Krisslanza and Peon sheesh people Just because you can click the short cut and the game starts, doesn't mean working as intended lol. The whole reason these companies are taking your money and not giving you what you want is pre-ordering. Stop the madness Don't pay for ANYTHING unless you know what your getting its called common sense.

[craziii]

Steam does refund if the game is unplayable due to tech bugs. I know it has happened a few times already. Rome 2 doesn't fit that rule. If you play the game for 10+ hours or a few campaigns, and doesn't like the changes, new features, too bad. you can always not buy future games by the same company, it is that simple.

[Rittsy]

Or madame?

I am truly amazed by the people who say that nothing is wrong with this Game OY VEY! I have tons of hours on RTW2 and none of them were enjoyable to say the least. They were all spent trying to mod or use mods to make the game any good. And no mod can make the game any good because its core is just not finished. Its a broken game! Its like a you bought a model car the cover looks cool but when you open it up parts are missing and there is no glue ?! Its just unreal.... I am a fan of TW games BIG TIME! but this game was NOT finished when they sold it and that merits a refund for anyone who wants their money back. Because even here where I live if you buy a car and have to take it back 7 times to fix something wrong, you get all your money back for the car, doesn't matter if you drove it a year. Its a Lemon. @Krisslanza and Peon sheesh people Just because you can click the short cut and the game starts, doesn't mean working as intended lol. The whole reason these companies are taking your money and not giving you what you want is pre-ordering. Stop the madness Don't pay for ANYTHING unless you know what your getting its called common sense.

The problem is you have "tons of hours" in the game. If you've sunk "tons of hours" into something it's safe to assume that it does 'work' ie. it's not crashing every 2 minutes. If you don't enjoy the game, but others do, than unfortunately that's subjective. There's nothing 'wrong' with the product, it just doesn't meet your tastes. You could ask for a refund, but just like if you were trying to return a working toaster, you've got no guarantee.

[PeonKing]

I am truly amazed by the people who say that nothing is wrong with this Game OY VEY! I have tons of hours on RTW2 and none of them were enjoyable to say the least. They were all spent trying to mod or use mods to make the game any good. And no mod can make the game any good because its core is just not finished. Its a broken game! Its like a you bought a model car the cover looks cool but when you open it up parts are missing and there is no glue ?! Its just unreal.... I am a fan of TW games BIG TIME! but this game was NOT finished when they sold it and that merits a refund for anyone who wants their money back. Because even here where I live if you buy a car and have to take it back 7 times to fix something wrong, you get all your money back for the car, doesn't matter if you drove it a year. Its a Lemon. @Krisslanza and Peon sheesh people Just because you can click the short cut and the game starts, doesn't mean working as intended lol. The whole reason these companies are taking your money and not giving you what you want is pre-ordering. Stop the madness Don't pay for ANYTHING unless you know what your getting its called common sense.

Well see you went from a pretty moderate argument in your first sentence, saying that some people act like there is nothing wrong with the game, to saying that you have literally never enjoyed the game, ever. That's where I disagree. I agree with the pretty sizable list of poor design choices, I've never claimed it doesn't have problems. In fact I repeatedly state it's not as good as it should've been, but I still enjoy the game. On the contrary, I don't know where people are coming from when they say it is COMPLETELY unenjoyable in all aspects, like what you're saying. I can respect that designing a TW game is hard, since it's trying to design a 50+ hour campaign that is immersive the whole time.

You're acting like I'm crazy for enjoying the game, honestly it's not you who should be speaking down to me, I feel bad for you. I'm fine with the money I spent, I feel I'm getting my money's worth, more so than in many other games that have a definitive single player campaign with limited replayability. You're the one who can't find a way to enjoy themselves, and decide to make this a black or white issue with saying you either love the game completely or hate it because it's not what they said it was going to be. I accept it has flaws, and I see CA making moves to fix them. I'm not interested in acting like this is a holy war against CA for making a product that was beneath customer expectations, I'm going to deal with their products objectively and not try to take it as a personal slight because of what are pretty obviously some design flaws.

And go ahead, I am actually interested to see if anyone can get a refund. It will certainly lend credence to what you're all saying. Who knows, maybe you'll start a trend and instead of having to stomp around the forums talking about how CA has wronged you, you can just get your money back and play some other game you enjoy.

[wozzar]

Interesting article about this topic.


Steam’s refund policy is restrictive, incoherent and in urgent need of change


http://www.incgamers.com/2013/12/ste...nt-need-change


Google about X Rebirth refunds: http://steamcommunity.com/app/2870/d...11852425934472

If you like it share it and write down your thought on the social networks / reddit etc.

The laws in the US will only changed when people stand up for there rights and lobby congress for changes to Digital downloads.

[lawandorder82]

It is a frievlaos law suit I rather we use the judicial system for justice not people that have a axe to grind what does this have to do with rome two.

[ElvenKind]

It is funny how software companies look at their products: if you had stolen their product, they consider it as a good, and, if you bought it and want your customers rights to be applied on the product, then, it is a license, and not goods anymore.

Different laws for the SAME thing/ product ? Companies like to **** their customers.

[chris10]

It is funny how software companies look at their products: if you had stolen their product, they consider it as a good, and, if you bought it and want your customers rights to be applied on the product, then, it is a license, and not goods anymore.
Different laws for the SAME thing/ product ? Companies like to **** their customers.

yup...exactly...but hey..the european court has slapped corporations on this definition already and clearly stated the first sale doctrine applys to software too as purchase of the physical copy/download and the license together convert it into a tangible good and the ruling is final...no appeal

"the downloading of a copy of a computer program and the conclusion of a user license agreement for that copy form an indivisible whole. Downloading a copy of a computer program is pointless if the copy cannot be used by its possessor. Those two operations must therefore be examined as a whole for the purposes of their legal classification" (para 44).
The CJEU therefore decided that making software available for download while at the same time entering into a license agreement with the downloader and receiving payment for it "examined as a whole, involve the transfer of the right of ownership of the copy of the computer program in question" (para 45).

"if the term ‘sale’ within the meaning of Article 4(2) of Directive 2009/24 were not given a broad interpretation as encompassing all forms of product marketing characterized by the grant of a right to use a copy of a computer program, for an unlimited period, in return for payment of a fee designed to enable the copyright holder to obtain a remuneration corresponding to the economic value of the copy of the work of which he is the proprietor, the effectiveness of that provision would be undermined, since suppliers would merely have to call the contract a ‘licence’ rather than a ‘sale’ in order to circumvent the rule of exhaustion and divest it of all scope" (para 49).

[King_Tutankhamun]

Well see you went from a pretty moderate argument in your first sentence, saying that some people act like there is nothing wrong with the game, to saying that you have literally never enjoyed the game, ever. That's where I disagree. I agree with the pretty sizable list of poor design choices, I've never claimed it doesn't have problems. In fact I repeatedly state it's not as good as it should've been, but I still enjoy the game. On the contrary, I don't know where people are coming from when they say it is COMPLETELY unenjoyable in all aspects, like what you're saying. I can respect that designing a TW game is hard, since it's trying to design a 50+ hour campaign that is immersive the whole time.

You're acting like I'm crazy for enjoying the game, honestly it's not you who should be speaking down to me, I feel bad for you. I'm fine with the money I spent, I feel I'm getting my money's worth, more so than in many other games that have a definitive single player campaign with limited replayability. You're the one who can't find a way to enjoy themselves, and decide to make this a black or white issue with saying you either love the game completely or hate it because it's not what they said it was going to be. I accept it has flaws, and I see CA making moves to fix them. I'm not interested in acting like this is a holy war against CA for making a product that was beneath customer expectations, I'm going to deal with their products objectively and not try to take it as a personal slight because of what are pretty obviously some design flaws.

And go ahead, I am actually interested to see if anyone can get a refund. It will certainly lend credence to what you're all saying. Who knows, maybe you'll start a trend and instead of having to stomp around the forums talking about how CA has wronged you, you can just get your money back and play some other game you enjoy.

I'm not down talking anyone. I'm merely stating a fact, that it amazes me that there are people who say this game is not broken when its so obvious. Can you play it? yes Is it fun ? Not to me why? Because its not finished its broken they just said here you go its a game. Maybe they will fix it maybe they wont it doesn't matter they have your money. I don't give a damn about the 60 bucks I paid really, I've put hours into the game because I like the time period, I want to enjoy it, but every time I try to play this garbage game I want to roll my forehead across the keyboard. Its a pathetic excuse for a game and they just used the Name Rome: Totalwar just to make a fast buck . so if you enjoy it grats! I think its a embaressment , and Id hate to be one of the people who made this garbage.

[King_Tutankhamun]

@Rittsy Your one of those guys that only reads what he needs to make his own point lol Actually Tons of those hours were spent crashing and not loading until finally CA settled it down 8.1 patches later Secondly the other tons of hours was spent trying to find a way to fix this broken game so yeah if you consider that fun times boy woohoo I had a blast.

[PeonKing]

I'm not down talking anyone. I'm merely stating a fact, that it amazes me that there are people who say this game is not broken when its so obvious. Can you play it? yes Is it fun ? Not to me why? Because its not finished its broken they just said here you go its a game. Maybe they will fix it maybe they wont it doesn't matter they have your money. I don't give a damn about the 60 bucks I paid really, I've put hours into the game because I like the time period, I want to enjoy it, but every time I try to play this garbage game I want to roll my forehead across the keyboard. Its a pathetic excuse for a game and they just used the Name Rome: Totalwar just to make a fast buck . so if you enjoy it grats! I think its a embaressment , and Id hate to be one of the people who made this garbage.

You're saying something is a fact when it's not. The whole game isn't broken. There are pieces that aren't working as intended, which is chiefly the siege AI, which can actually just function at the lowest common denominator, which is only torching your gates. I'm also gonna go with saying the naval battles are messed up, but I can't really speak to that since I usually avoid naval battles in TW games like the plague anyway, and the only one I tried I found the ships to be pretty unresponsive to commands. Besides that, what's broken? You might get some errors during amphibious assaults, but those types of assaults aren't that common to begin with and it's not that common to have the error anymore. Besides that I can't think of any major game play bugs right now.

Also, you said you've had tons of hours crashing and not loading, I never experienced that. My laptop is prone to overheating, so yeah, I've had my computer crash due to my own hardware limitations before, but that's not limited to R2. Besides that I never experienced a frozen loading screen or a game crash that was limited to R2. Are you still crashing at this patch? If not, like I said earlier in my posts, you're losing credibility towards the 'defective' part every patch they release, since they are zeroing in and fixing bugs.

Honestly if you're not going to go try for a refund, this whole argument is just blustering and your not really willing to back up your 'facts' with action.

[karamazovmm]

People didn't knew you could ask for a refund at least in Eu land?

OK...

[alQamar]

This thread, again, is about making people aware about their possibilities while the major part of a response to any refund claims still is: "You have no rights / Steam do not refund games.". This may apply in US coutries.
I simply do not know, but there is another part of the world where this happens very much on basis of customer laws.

To refutate those "semi-facts", this was my solely intention to create this thread.

You're saying something is a fact when it's not. The whole game isn't broken. There are pieces that aren't working as intended, which is chiefly the siege AI,

Not only that. I could give some more reasons, personally I will not decide to return Rome 2 for some personal reaons, but I would have enough reasons to do.



- graphical abilities far below advertised, blurry textures and bugged textures all way long (if put some effort to watch on them in detail, zombie faces still)
- missing advertised content
- game mechanics broken (food / squalor / civil war)
- still unit blobbing, despite their try to fix it with the hold position marker, which will give you disadvantages
- no care for balancing multiplayer
- poor performance especially on high end machines above their recommendations (generally if you play with settings extreme or above
- unit slowmotion in battles
- missing but needed collision for ships (still) and units
- loads of desyncs in multiplayer and mp campaign, just for example you still cannot play together when someone has a german and the other one an english version, which is ridicilous to be there since release.

We could either admit the problems, ignore them or try to spend hours into remodding the whole, which is not the intended way. Mods should extend a game, made by the community for the community, and not to fix a game.

[PeonKing]

- graphical abilities far below advertised, blurry textures and bugged textures all way long (if put some effort to watch on them in detail, zombie faces still)

I'll give you the graphics, even though I still think that's a bit of a shady trade there. Most promos you see with any game display a product with maxed out ultra settings and a little bit of a touch up, so I don't really see the big deal with people assuming R2 did the same thing. The graphics can be very stunning provided you have the right set up, but there are graphical errors none the less. Does that make the game broken? Nope, it's something that should be fixed though.

- missing advertised content

Missing advertised content? What content is that? I agree that some of the stuff they said was going to be great, like how they said their combat was 'way pre-alpha' during the Teutoburg forest demo, and yet the combat pretty much works the same at release. That's not missing content, that's just them being a exaggerating for the sake of marketing. Again, not a penchant of a defective product.

- game mechanics broken (food / squalor / civil war)

I don't know how food, squalor or civil war are broken. I've played several campaigns past civil war, and all those things function fine.

- still unit blobbing, despite their try to fix it with the hold position marker, which will give you disadvantages

Is that even an error? I've had a lot of success, especially in my recent campaigns, with pike and spear units holding formation.

- no care for balancing multiplayer

I can't really speak to that. This game seems to have been purposely more focused on the single player, likely because not all factions are created equal. Shogun 2 had an awesome MP system, but they also had a much smaller unit roster. Multiplayer in anything that has asymmetrical sides is particularly difficult to balance. Even look at games that are actually heavily devoted to multiplayer, like MMORPGs, they have a terrible time creating balance. Again, I'm not really sure what you mean by it not being balanced, I don't know if you mean there's just so many glaring exploits, or if that 9/10ths of the units offered are completely useless.

- poor performance especially on high end machines above their recommendations (generally if you play with settings extreme or above

- unit slowmotion in battles

I put these two together because they're probably the most legitimate ones, and also go hand in hand. I tend to encounter the slo-mo problem with amphibious assaults, which are literally the last type of battle you want the game running at 1/4th speed at because they tend to take forever since ships are landing anyway. A problem, but not one encountered in most battles.

- missing but needed collision for ships (still) and units

This one is good too.

- loads of desyncs in multiplayer and mp campaign, just for example you still cannot play together when someone has a german and the other one an english version, which is ridicilous to be there since release.

Another MP thing. Not really my thing, sounds like an inconvenience though.






Anyway, I don't really see how those make the game completely unplayable? Some of them, like saying that squalor/food is broken, I've seen no evidence of and I'm pretty sure we are playing the same game. Save for the squalor/food/civil war one you brought up, most of those seem like fringe problems? Should they be there? Hell no. Are they deal breakers? I wouldn't say so.

I understand seeing CA in a negative light after this, they did not come through with a lot of their boasts. I can see not wanting to pre-order their products without having a good look at what they actual look like finished, because some people take these games very seriously. But I don't see the merit behind asking for a refund. I hope somebody gives it a shot though, I'd like to see what Steam has to say about it.

I hope I don't seem too hostile to you guys. I appreciate a good debate, and I know a lot of you guys put in a lot of effort into looking how Rome 2 turned out the way it did.