(Updated)Steam, Sony & Amazon begin accepting No Man's Sky refund requests no matter what playtime you have

[Master Disaster]

It looks like HG might have (quietly) entered damage control mode and allowed retailers to accept refund requests on the game no matter what playtime the user has logged. 

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Hello Games’ woes with No Man’s Sky for PC continues to bother gamers as well as its developers. In the meantime, Game Revolution reports that Steam has quietly started accepting refund requests from the PC users regardless of the play hours. Following that, even Sony and Amazon U.S. is issuing refundsto the buyers irrespective of the play hours clocked, reported Gadgets 360. The game is available via Steam, Sony, and Amazon for $59.99.

 

Launched on PC earlier this month, thousands of Steam users who paid forNo Man’s Sky weren’t happy with the game’s performance and stability. Earlier this week, Hello Games released three patches and shared the details inlengthy release notes on the Steam Community forum.

 

No Man’s Sky is a sandbox-style, space exploration game set in a massive universe that procedurally generates worlds. Starting off as an explorer, drift in the space exploring new planets and trading items from your inventory. The game features 18 quintillion planets to visit and explore. That sure makes it feel tedious, and of endless scale. In fact, you might end up spending an entire lifetime exploring every nook and cranny of each planet. However, the same idea might be transfixing for those who love such games, reports Vox.

 

The word about Steam offering a refund for No Man’s Sky spread via Reddit. A user named whaaatcrazy posted, “Just heard on a random twitch channel they’re giving the refund, so I gave it a shot even though I tried the day it came out, AND HOLY S**T IT WORKED.”

 

Steam’s official refund policy states the following... 

 

“Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours.”

 

When the game launched on Steam in mid-August, over 220,00 players were actively playing No Man’s Sky. That number has dropped to roughly 15,000 players this week, reported PC Invasion. That’s a massive drop that puts the game developers in hot water.

Sony are even doing the same thing for PS4 players and Amazon are accepting refund requests for digital purchases too. 

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PlayStation 4 users were infuriated over Sony’s archaic cancellation, and refund policy, according to Eurogamer. As per PlayStation Store’s official documentation, the user can request for cancellation within 14 days of the purchase. However, the caveat here is that user must not have initiated the download or streamed the game.

 

To our surprise, even Sony is now issuing refunds to the PlayStation Network accounts. The biggest fear among PS4 users is that Sony will give them the money back but will block the possibility of purchasing a digital copy of No Man’s Sky at a lower cost again in future. However, Sony assures it won’t be the case with this game.

 

Amazon, who sold digital codes for the No Man’s Sky, is also accepting refund requests from its customers and most found that the live chat was the fastest way to get it.

 

Some gamers are already posting about their success with refunds from Steam, Amazon, and even Sony’s PSN on the NeoGAF forum boards.

http://www.inquisitr.com/3458500/no-mans-sky-steam-sony-and-amazon-begin-issuing-refunds-regardless-of-play-time/

 

(UPDATE) 

Looking through SPUD it seems Steam users are still not getting refunds. Some users are saying you MUST go through the support ticket system to get your refund, the automated system will refuse if you've got more than 2 hours (which makes total sense). 

 

(UPDATE 2) 

There are rumours being posted on reddit and SPUD that NMS will be moving into Early Access in the next few weeks. Just to be super clear, these are rumours and are totally unconfirmed (I've personally searched and can't find anything outside of Reddit & SPUD) so take with a truckload of salt.  The reddit thread has since been entirely deleted which makes me think this is not true. 

 

Damage control indeed, I'm sure they've either realised or been told that the chances of a lawsuit are pretty damn high so better to allow refunds than fight a court case. 

 

This move isn't being widely advertised by the retailers so if you own it and are unhappy go and get your refund ASAP. 

 

(Update 3)

A few hours ago Valve added the following message to the NMS store page... 

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The standard Steam refund policy applies to No Man's Sky. There are no special exemptions available. Click here for more detail on the Steam refund policy.

 

[porina]

Wow... is there a precedent for this scale of game refunding before? I do wonder, by giving refunds of this magnitude, does that mean the game is effectively dead? Who's going to buy it now?

 

I knew the game has its faults. I was quite hyped about it too, but I'm not an early buyer as the price was a bit rich. Watching some gameplay videos on youtube confirmed this was not the game I was hoping for.

 

One of the gamers I follow elsewhere summed it up nicely. I forget the exact phrasing, but it was along the lines of if it would be ok if the price were far lower.

 

 

[EUD]

60 bucks for this and they still treat potential customers and players like dung

Stay away from greedy studios. ATM Killing Floor with mod support and great devs that listen to community is 18 bucks on steam. 

id only pay 60 bucks 4 dis game if games vastness was that of star citizen. 

[Master Disaster]

8 minutes ago, porina said:

Wow... is there a precedent for this scale of game refunding before? I do wonder, by giving refunds of this magnitude, does that mean the game is effectively dead? Who's going to buy it now?

 

I knew the game has its faults. I was quite hyped about it too, but I'm not an early buyer as the price was a bit rich. Watching some gameplay videos on youtube confirmed this was not the game I was hoping for.

 

One of the gamers I follow elsewhere summed it up nicely. I forget the exact phrasing, but it was along the lines of if it would be ok if the price were far lower.

 

 

There's been a few cases before, most significant was Batman Arkham Knight. 

[manikyath]

12 minutes ago, porina said:

Wow... is there a precedent for this scale of game refunding before?

dont have to look very far. (i have no idea if that's even the right batman game, i never cared about the series)

[Master Disaster]

Just now, manikyath said:

dont have to look very far. (i have no idea if that's even the right batman game, i never cared about the series)

The fact these 2 games are both in a tiny category of games together speaks volumes about just how bad NMS really is. 

[manikyath]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

The fact these 2 games are both in a tiny category of games together speaks volumes about just how bad NMS really is. 

IMO the biggest issue with no mans sky is it's an indie style title, going for a AAA style price.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

IMO the biggest issue with no mans sky is it's an indie style title, going for a AAA style price.

Personally (tinfoil hat mode engaged) I believe it's Sonys fault. I believe HG had no intention of charging such a high price, it was originally marketed as an indie title. Sony got involved as the publisher, used their power to build hype and convinced HG to sell it as a AAA title (which it clearly isn't) and as they say, the rest is history. 

[manikyath]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

Personally (tinfoil hat mode engaged) I believe it's Sonys fault. I believe HG had no intention of charging such a high price, it was originally marketed as an indie title. Sony got involved as the publisher, used their power to build hype and convinced HG to sell it as a AAA title (which it clearly isn't) and as they say, the rest is history. 

actually... the work ethic of the datacenter team i work in applies very well here:

its not a matter of whose fault it is, its a matter of that person raising their hand and going in to fix it.

[porina]

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

There's been a few cases before, most significant was Batman Arkham Knight. 

I vaguely recall hearing about problems, but I don't recall reading about refunding at the time. Was that the one where they released it too early, before it was polished enough? How is it doing now? I see it is still for sale on Steam for example. Did people go back or did they stay away after getting burnt?

[Master Disaster]

13 minutes ago, manikyath said:

actually... the work ethic of the datacenter team i work in applies very well here:

its not a matter of whose fault it is, its a matter of that person raising their hand and going in to fix it.

Very well said. 

 

I guess this is the start of that process but unless they actively start telling customers about it it's still not enough. 

 

12 minutes ago, porina said:

I vaguely recall hearing about problems, but I don't recall reading about refunding at the time. Was that the one where they released it too early, before it was polished enough? How is it doing now? I see it is still for sale on Steam for example. Did people go back or did they stay away after getting burnt?

BAK was slightly different. It was so bad they actually pulled it from sale, told everyone they could refund it then took another few months to try and fix it. When it went back on sale it was better (though certainly not fixed) but shortly afterwards they made 2 announcements. 

 

1) They were scrapping the seasons pass and giving the one piece of DLC that was complete to every owner for free. Anybody who owned the Seasons Pass could refund it or keep it and get the entire back catalogue of Arkham games (including all DLC) for free. 

2) The game was so bad they would never be able to fully fix it. 

 

Warner brothers did also directly apologise to players over the state of the game. 

 

Also it was only the PC version of BAK affected, the console version was fine. 

 

As for did it hurt player numbers? Yep it did. 

[drok]

23 minutes ago, manikyath said:

dont have to look very far. (i have no idea if that's even the right batman game, i never cared about the series)

Batman was like €30 for preoder and for that money it was a great game whereas no mans sky is still €60.

[manikyath]

Just now, drok said:

Batman was like €30 for preoder and for that money it was a great game whereas no mans sky is still €60.

22 minutes ago, manikyath said:

IMO the biggest issue with no mans sky is it's an indie style title, going for a AAA style price.

the issues with batman didnt make it dull and/or unplayable for part of their userbase tho.

batman was just hilareously, stupidly poor optimization.

 

if sony themselves would make a PS4 emulator for windows (its both x86, so basicly a "compatibility layer") i bet it'd have been smoother and more reliable.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, drok said:

Batman was like €30 for preoder and for that money it was a great game whereas no mans sky is still €60.

I got it for free with a GTX 970, tbh even without the bugs it was a pretty mediocre game. 

[VerticalDiscussions]

Thanks the gods i didnt pre-order this royal turbine of computer doom....

 

Your better off buying an armadillo:

 

[Master Disaster]

5 minutes ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

Thanks the gods i didnt pre-order this royal turbine of computer doom....

You shouldn't be pre ordering anything. 

[VerticalDiscussions]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

-snip-

GOG.com said youd get a blue exclusive ship skin tough :j. Steam sales are op altough for sure.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

GOG.com said youd get a blue exclusive ship skin tough :j. Steam sales are op altough for sure.

You know what's funny about preorder bonuses? Your not actually getting anything as in almost every case they end up giving them to everyone eventually. 

 

 

[VerticalDiscussions]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

-snip-

Wow, that sux a lot. Would sure be good to get that comics novel, artbook and physical goodies, but instead just giving some pretty basic in-game content makes someone feel quite depressed about theyr purchase afterwards for sure, especially if its given in a patch to other players. 60€ for a sandbox game like this seemed worth because of the "unlimited" hype, but with such graphics and such problems it totally loses its shine for most, altough over 30 fps gaming is still acceptable in a way, if it looks good i guess lol But what am i saying if Kingdom Hearts 3 is over 10 years late anyways... Squeenix noob developers.

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

The fact these 2 games are both in a tiny category of games together speaks volumes about just how bad NMS really is. 

Especially since batman wasn't a bad game. There was a refund because the game was unplayable at first on pc.

They took it down and re-released a bit after when it was playable, some people bought it again and it turned to be an okay game I think. Because of bugs it has 2.4 user score on metacritic,  but it has still a 70 score which could have been a 75, and it finally had decent sales.

[zMeul]

[Sauron]

To be honest if you preorder a game and end up not liking it, the fault is only yours. You actively encourage these practices by the studios and make it worse for everyone. I hope people finally learn their lesson this time, but I doubt it. Everyone has already forgotten about Watch_Dogs and Arkham Knight, it will only be a matter of months before they forget about NMS and make the same mistake again.

[Misanthrope]

That's not true: they denied mine specifically because of the playtime.

[Kevin_Walter]

3 hours ago, manikyath said:

dont have to look very far. (i have no idea if that's even the right batman game, i never cared about the series)

 

Not really fair. Batman didn't have an issue with content or misrepresentation... it was horribly optimized on PC because of bad decisions made by Warner Brothers. Decisions that severely hurt Rocksteady's reputation... even though they didn't really deserve the backlash for what happened.

 

As a fan of the series since Asylum, I think Arkham Knight is actually a really great game. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's my favorite in the series (status previously given to Arkham City). What happened on the PC side of things was shameful, but nowhere near the overall deception that occurred with NMS.

[manikyath]

4 minutes ago, Kevin_Walter said:

 

Not really fair. Batman didn't have an issue with content or misrepresentation... it was horribly optimized on PC because of bad decisions made by Warner Brothers. Decisions that severely hurt Rocksteady's reputation... even though they didn't really deserve the backlash for what happened.

 

As a fan of the series since Asylum, I think Arkham Knight is actually a really great game. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's my favorite in the series (status previously given to Arkham City). What happened on the PC side of things was shameful, but nowhere near the overall deception that occurred with NMS.

the question wasnt if it was fair, the question was if a "recall" of this magnitude ever happened