I find GoGs policy a nice middle ground to Steam, on one side, and ruining their business as you suggest, on the other.
Hit them where it hurts: state regulators. If you're in New York, for example, complain to the Department of Financial Services (DFS) [1]. They're hard hitting and know what they're doing. (I think California's analog is the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO), though it isn't, to my recollection, as intimidating as DFS.)
Someone should make a list of all local regulatory agencies by location. List all places hat deal with average joes as well as how likely they are to respond to you and how often they win against companies.
I really dislike digital distribution of games and software on this point. While some Steam games I can run offline I am not sure if all of them can be. Plus how do I reinstall?
It is a sad state of affairs when being a buyer on ebay is safer than buying from Steam
I was also under the impression that the card networks frowned upon trying to prevent cardholders from exercising any chargeback right they have with their card. Then again, I have business interests that accept payments via these card networks and I've never even seen the full terms that we supposedly agreed to on the merchant side, so I don't know how I'd check even though we're presumably subject to the same rules, whatever they are.
Cough, ahem, No Man's Sky...
According to Steam I'd played around 40 hours, but in reality most likely <10 hours active and stupidly left the game idling a couple of nights which racked up the hours.
I tried to get a refund from Steam and was refused, I then tried a charge back from PayPal and Steam stepped in and more or less told me that if I continue down this road I'll be locked out of all my games.
A few lessons learned:
1. Don't pre-purchase games
2. Wait a couple of weeks for real gamer reviews
3. Avoid Steam/digital distributions for higher value games.
This has certainly soured me from buying anything costing more than a few quid on Steam.
>> 2. Wait a couple of weeks for real gamer reviews
I know it's hard to do if everyone you know's playing the latest hotness, but if you can wait a few months, you can usually get the game heavily discounted in one of Steam's (or Humble, Green Man or other Steam key sellers) quarterly sales.
I used to buy my games on release date at or near full price, but these days I try very hard to wait as long as I can for them to get heavily discounted. When you pay much less than full price, the sting is lessened if you chalk up too many hours to get a refund.
To be honest NMS is the only game I've paid for prior to the release date, and even then I only paid for it a week beforehand.
I'm not a huge gamer (with the exception of dipping into Eve Online no and then). But NMS was hugely attractive to me, less so from the gamer/press hype, but from all the things Sean had talked about and demo'd.
That'll learn me.
Last month I bought Dishonored 2 for £10 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for £8, roughly six months after release (when they were £60).
THIS. I posted my own comment, but I also suffered from the same crash/hang refund issue. The game was so unplayable I gave up, and shut down my Steam link. Unbeknownst to me, it was still running and therefore Steam refused my refund, and didn't reply to my follow up.
And reinstalling the games is easy. You can install a copy on any computer you log into. You just can't play more than one at a time.
If you played a game for more than a couple hours, are you really entitled to a refund? And when you mention "Even games dropped by developers don't matter to Steam" do you mean early access games?
Caveat emptor. Digital distribution won't magically prevent you from buying bad games. Look at reviews, try the game for an hour or two, and ask for a refund if you don't like it.
Tried it twice, works wonders.
in my experience the time limits are related to delivery of the service. for instance, you pay with credit card for a service happening 9 months in the future. if the appointed day arrives, and the service is not performed, there won't be a problem getting a charge back even though the actual charge was 9 months old.
i don't think it's crazy for a software company to want to claim that i'm leasing software from them after a one-time payment, but if that's the case, i also feel like i forever have grounds for the return of my money if they ever break the lease.
To ensure they don't get more chargebacks, they have little choice but to block your account. Most companies will do whatever they can to avoid a chargeback. It's better to start there if you want to maintain a relationship.
[1] https://chargeback.com/chargeback-fees-processor-library/
Often, the company is happy to rectify the situation if you contact them, because like you said, chargebacks can be expensive per transaction.
In my experience, sometimes consumers will run a chargeback even for legitimate purchases. For example, a spouse will run through a credit card statement and do a chargeback if they don't recognize a purchase, without even checking with their partner. Then, the credit card company often sides with the consumer despite evidence, and if you sold a tangible good, you're SOL.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/350574/valve-fined-3m-in-australia...
They're estimated to have stolen from Australians 22,000 times out of ~25m population so you can imagine why they scrambled so hard to change their policies before justice was served in the EU or US.
You can make a new account and use a new credit card I guess, but you still lost your library of games.
they don't need to justify anything. Their platforms, their rules. You signed your rights away when you clicked yes to the EULER.
Of course, you can litegate, but then you'd end up costing more money than you can gain, and probably no one will find it worth the hassle.
"But I can't chargeback if I get irrationally gamer-ragey" is not something I've ever worried about, ever.
Steam's ToS are at odds with federal law in this respect as they say I have a 2 week / 1 hour window to get a refund.
Federal law says I have 60 days and then outlines under what conditions, but they are pretty broad.
Previously I purchased a software license for Gamemaker Studio Master Collection (directly from YoYo, not through Steam thankfully).
This was when Windows 10 was very new, but YoYo claimed it was supported. Turned out it had bugs with some configurations and so it was crashing on launch; completely unusable.
I opened a support ticket and was following up, but they had no idea how long it would take to fix it.
Next thing that happens is they drop the price from about $800 to about $400.
There I was, still unable to use the software and now it was 1/2 the price. So I contacted them again and said, "Look, it's been a month now and you still haven't fixed this and you dropped the price to 1/2 what I paid. I've been really patient, the least you can do is refund me the difference since I still can't even use the software."
They came back and said, "No it was $800 when you bought it you just have to wait until we get it fixed."
At that point I was super frustrated and replied back and said, "I'm done, just refund the entire amount and cancel my license."
YoYo's reply was that they don't give refunds under any circumstances and that it was plainly spelled out in the EULA.
So I called my credit card company and they did a charge back.
Circling back, now they sell through Steam and if this had happened Steam would ban my account and block me from ALL software I had ever purchased from them.
It's unethical and bordering on illegal that Steam takes retaliatory measures against consumers for excercising their consumer credit rights as provided by federal law.
Quite frankly Steam should be on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit.
And if you're really paranoid about it, you can pretty easily back up games and play them with a cracked Steam DLL. It's not a big deal.
Chargebacks are super useful, but they aren't guaranteed and I try to avoid overusing them so that when you need them you know the credit card company will take you seriously.
Just be careful if you intend to keep using Uber - many companies (Steam is notorious for this - folks have lost access to thousands of dollars of games for contesting a single one) will ban you from the service if you do a chargeback.
I've personally used price protection, roadside assistance, extended warranty, and concierge service. Plus many thousands of dollars worth of cash back, points, and miles (probably close to $10,000 total).
OTOH, getting a credit card and paying the full balance every month is S good way to build your credit history and scores.
Mine, for instance, will let me lodge a dispute - however to do so, they cancel my card and re-issue a new one. This means in the N places where my card is in use, I now have to go and update it.