How would it be a nightmare? Just don't release the funds to the developer for the first 7 days until the refund period expires. Origin only allows you to refund your game during the first seven days after purchase, or 24 hours after first launching it - whichever comes first.
Sure, there's some technical elements to that which are somewhat complex, but certainly not "nightmare" level.
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What about the added workload? Consider the vast difference in amount of products between Origin and Steam, and how many people would get into the habit of using such a policy as a 24-hour full-access demo? It'd be nice to have a more comprehensive returns process, but it doesn't need to be like Origin's.
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I don't understand why anybody here would defend Steam on this. You, the customer, should not give a shit whether it would be convenient for Steam to have a return policy. That's Steam's/Valve's problem. Look out for your own best interest, not Valve's, they have heaps of money and don't need your help.
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I don't think anyone is "defending" Steam on this. Its just that it seems very unlikely and unrealistic to expect something like this from Valve as it would involve a whole new dimension of logistics for them to tackle.
Lets be honest here, for them to implement such a scheme would require them to have a dedicated and swift team managing the Steam Workshop / Store. Currently, Valve is leaning towards a small team taking care of Steam (as you can see proof of this by the way front page of Steam store usually runs,the usually slow Steam Support, the usual Game Discussion forums etc. There is no moderation on Valve's side and most of these things are handled as the developer wishes)
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Yes, gog has a 30 days money back policy. Although according to the terms it is in case you experience technical issues with the game, and they will try to fix those issues within the time.
http://www.gog.com/support/website_help/money_back_guarantee
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And from my experience they don't come down to just refund. They really try to address all the technical issues and seem to be working close with developers (if the still exist) to achieve that. I've seen features added, removed, reworked upon user feedback.
In terms of service quality, I think no other seller or publisher comes even close to them.
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Origin is pretty much only EA games, so it's easy for them to decide to do refunds. And they want to attract attention away from Steam, so that's a good way to do it, obviously.
However, Steam has tons of publishers, so it's not really up to them. Granted, if they wanted, they could offer it as an option for publishers. And maybe now they will. Then again, for all we know, they've already discussed stuff like this before with publishers and there weren't enough of them willing to do it for Valve to justify the time to implement it.
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The broader a product portfolio gets, the harder it is to offer full support for all of them, after all. That is perhaps the one bonus that Origin has over Steam, is that with it's smaller offering they can better afford a higher quality of support (at least, in speed and immediate interactivity).
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I believe Steam implemented a return policy for preorders shortly after Origin implemented their return policy.
It may not be enough, but it's a start.
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Absolutely, it's that right their. A lot of indies are able to be beaten in about 2-10 hours, that's why they cost less in the first place. People will abuse a 24 hour return policy.
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It's not their fault you bought a game without researching it.
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It's not their fault you bought a game without researching it.
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It's not their fault you bought a game without researching it.
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Yup, it's been a known fact for 10 months already.
Origin is only offering refunds on games from EA though. On Steam, the equivalent policy would mean that you could only get a refund on Valve games (or EA games if you want the exact same offer)
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They should include Return Policy TO THEIR HOMES
hueheuheueehuehuheuheuehe
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I think Steam has this policy, but only for Europeans, since it's required by law.
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Umm... They do need a source through which to access games, to be able to reverse engineer / decompile them and make cracks. Duh?
In the past, before digital downloads, this was usually done by release groups having people on the inside, working at stores, who could sneak CDs / DVDs of games out of the store for a night, dump the entire CD into an image, and upload it to an FTP for the groups' crackers to have a swing at, before returning the disk(s) to the store the day after - oftentimes this was done before the street date of a game, as stores already had disks laying around, ready for the games' official release date. This is why a lot of stores now thoroughly check their employees by either camera surveillance, and/or checking them before they leave the store. Nowadays, with digital downloads becoming more and more the de facto way of distributing games, more and more release groups are turning to using downloaded copies of games off the Steam store - or other platforms / services - to make cracks, rather than relying on physical disks. A lot of the pirated copies of games you'll see floating around torrent sites and the like will even outright say their source was a Steam copy. I assume a lot of them come from purchases made on dupe accounts with stolen credit card credentials, or otherwise perhaps a group will chip in and actually buy a copy together, for cracking and distributing. Of course, this depends on the group, and what kind of people are in them.
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Well i found the sources that i need, at least, the one of the pre-ordes, but im not sure about the "general" games.
http://www.valvetime.net/threads/steam-self-use-refunds-now-available-for-pre-orders.244258/
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Steam claims to have a "store". It even names it as such: "Steam Store". Stores do have return policies. I never saw any store before, where you can't return something that doesn't work. This also goes for rental stores. If it's a store, when you get something that doesn't work, you are able to return it. In many cases, you are even able to return something simply because you don't like it, even if it works perfectly otherwise.
Valve gets away without a return policy because... I don't know why. It doesn't make sense. It's anti-consumer, really. There are laws about this in most countries, but they seem to be able to just ignore them.
I've seen the argument that says "it would be too difficult for Valve to have a return policy." You know what? If you're a multi-billion dollar company, you ought to deal with difficulties. It's expected of you. And besides, Steam got rid of the difficulty of shipping physical products. That's one difficulty less for them to deal with. They sure as hell should deal with at least some remaining difficulties. They seem to expect that the world is perfect and made just to suit their business model. Well, I have news for you. The world is not perfect and it's not made to exactly suit Valve's business model.
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Wow! I actually agree with you. And on a Steam related site too. How odd. Most "stores" don't prevent you from reselling the things you bought from them either, but Valve gets away with that too. /shrug.
It's all spelled out in their TOU.
From Disclaimers; Limitation of Liability; No Guarantees section A (their caps):
VALVE AND ITS AFFILIATES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM (I) ANY WARRANTY FOR STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, AND THE SUBSCRIPTIONS, AND (II) ANY COMMON LAW DUTIES WITH REGARD TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, AND THE SUBSCRIPTIONS, INCLUDING DUTIES OF LACK OF NEGLIGENCE AND LACK OF WORKMANLIKE EFFORT. STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, THE SUBSCRIPTIONS, AND ANY INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, "WITH ALL FAULTS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NONINFRINGEMENT.
As far as I'm concerned, my legal rights should supersede their TOU, but my government doesn't agree with me.
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Because Origin sucks and Steam doesn't, so naturally Origin want to do these "extra things" thinking that they could attract more people... But still they suck and EA is a shit company :v
I know it has nothing to do with this but since I couldn't care less for a "return policy" on Steam (After all I just buy games form bundles and/or Steam offers from 70% off onwards) what I would really like to see improved is the freaking app for Android, it's so bad, I can't even write/read reviews or check the community forums, nothing, it's useless, also it would be nice to have a "chat history" I use the Steam chat a lot and not being able to go back and check past conversations is a real pain in the ass.
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I don't see the "hilarious" part of it, I already said it, the reason why Origin "actually tries" as you called it, it's not because they care, it's because that's the only way they can compete since so many people hates EA and the idea of a "Steam-like gaming thing" with a library of games so limited is really not necessary at all and dumb, but yeah, they're EA, money is the number one absolute priority "Fix glitches you say?? patches to improve the performance of the game?? fuck that, let's make more DLC" of course they would have wanted to create "their own Steam" so they don't need to pay to the real Steam for they service, it's only natural coming from EA, this is not matter of opinion buddy, is fact.
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That is, of course, your opinion, very far from being a fact..
Origin/EA cares about their customers, and they actually reply to tickets within a reasonable amount of time (usually less than an hour).
'Steam-like gaming thing'? Origin is different from Steam, only EA's game is available. I like having my games available for online download.
Generating money is every companys first priority, including Valve.
Glitches? I have yet to experience a major glitch in any of EA's games, and I've played quite a few.
It'd be stupid to pay Valve a % of all their sales when they could make 'their own Steam' and avoid those costs. Again, money is all companies first priority.
Also, there's many EA games available on Steam.
The only thing holding me back from using Origin instead of Steam is the limited amount of games.
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Steam doesn't do it because they like being draconian (see: VAC) and own most of the market. Also, refund policies for third party games and managing all the indie titles and thousands of options might be a bit annoying.
Origin is putting in a bunch of free games and other stuff because they know that they suck and everyone hates EA, so by being nice they might convert a few people.
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How is getting rid of cheaters and hackers draconian? I realize it false flags every so often, but if one good egg is thrown out with 1,000 moldy ones it's worth it.
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I recently saw a commercial on YouTube for Origin's return policy: Clicky.Why isn't Steam doing this? I like the idea of the return policy, but would love if Steam did this, as I would've turned in a few games in the 24 hours. Do you guys think Steam should have a return policy or do you think the return policy could increase the pirating of games?
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