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News EA's Origin gets bad-game refund option

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 20 Aug 2013.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Maki role

    Maki role Dale you're on a roll... Lover of bit-tech

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    That's actually... a really good idea?? Din't think I'd be saying that in relation to EA any time soon (choo choo). I wonder if other distributors are going to see this and think about including it too? My only concern though, comes with the kind of scenario where people are most likely to return a game quickly. If a game has an always on restriction and the servers etc are dead (like the Sim City release), could a flood of returns also crash these ones in the same way that happens when too many try to buy/play a game at once? That would be a bigger issue than not being able to play it as you'd have a 24 hour window for the service to be up and running again, realistically less than that if you've actually tried to play the game first.

    I can imagine the returns traffic would be much lower in almost any scenario, but it's an interesting consideration nonetheless.
     
  3. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    There has to be a catch.

    It's EA. There's always a catch.
     
  4. damien c

    damien c Mad FPS Gamer

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    I did this with the last Medal Of Honor game, when me, my dad and brother in law all had issues with the game.

    All I did was call EA and request a refund of all the copies I bought, with my dad and brother in law with me so they could deal with the questions relevant to there accounts.

    EA gave me a refund straight away and the refund was in my account within 3 days.



    Will say though that the last time I had to get a game refunded from Steam, they were a pita about it but they did it in the end although it took nearly 2 weeks.
     
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  5. Phalanx

    Phalanx Needs more dragons and stuff.

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    FTFY.
     
  6. Hamfunk

    Hamfunk I AM KROGAN!

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    Why does everyone persist in bashing EA? It's been going on for 10 years or so!

    Origin is no where near the mess it was when it was first released (under what ever name) and EA are no where near the corporate scum bags they were all those years ago!
     
  7. Phalanx

    Phalanx Needs more dragons and stuff.

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    Totally agree Hamfunk. I actually like Origin. It's fast, slick, has a smaller footprint than Steam and EA genuinely seem to want to push the boundary of digital purchasing, whereas Valve are still resisting against even new EU laws.
     
  8. liratheal

    liratheal Sharing is Caring

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    I've just had more hassle with Origin than Steam.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm no Steam fan either, but Origin just ground my gears more than Steam last time it was installed.
     
  9. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Humble bundle launch pretty much killed the servers due to load. Not to mension people's downloads freezing after a few mb if not running a certain version of origin ( not latest)

    Origin still has along way to go before I'd say its good. EA has also seen to want to force it onto us is also annoying. Mass effect series is a prime example origin was out before it began but I have the series now on 2 program's steam for 1 and 2 and origin for 3.
     
  10. Maki role

    Maki role Dale you're on a roll... Lover of bit-tech

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    I must admit I've actually had a pretty smooth run with Origin, much more so than with Steam. Steam's driven me round the bend before, once to the extent where it actually deleted my account and the games on it (something about being a legacy account or something). My problem with EA doesn't lie with Origin, but with it's handling of the games it's studios produce. As much as it's the fault of the actual studios when it comes to making the games, it should really be their job to sit back and think "No that's not good" when bad ideas float around. Case in point, the ME3 ending. I don't know the specifics of why the original ending was chosen, rushed targets, lost developer vision, it doesn't matter. In my eyes it was up to EA to ensure that the game they put out met the quality standards, which they didn't. I doubt it was any one party's fault, but that doesn't exclude either from blame.

    Another example is the Sim City release, which was a complete shambles. Again I don't know the specifics about who asked who to make the game server-side only, but wasn't a good idea and was poorly executed. When it worked, I really quite enjoyed the game (despite some obvious flaws), but the key phrase there is "when it worked". They just need to clean up their act really. They're also not the only guys out there with issues, Ubisoft are pretty damn awful to deal with too, and Blizzard's handling of Diablo III was disastrous.
     
  11. Phalanx

    Phalanx Needs more dragons and stuff.

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    What, you mean like how when a game launches on Steam and they give you a crap download speed and constant drops? Demand will do that unfortunately. As for the latest version of a client, Steam doesn't even ask you if you want the latest version. You have it. Period. I don't see why that's such a problem if EA ask you to have the latest client too.

    So Valve don't force you to have Steam for their games? As for Mass Effect, I took my Steam keys, typed them into Origin and voila, the game added itself to Origin! Try asking Valve to allow you to do the same with Origin keys, see what response they give (if they even respond).
     
  12. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    I think this is a great move, hopefully it won't be abused too much (people buying games, completing them within the 24h and getting a refund), some simple measures should stop that though.

    Hopefully it will encourage other digital distribution companies to start following suit :)
     
  13. damien c

    damien c Mad FPS Gamer

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    I hoep it doesn't get abused either, but I think they could try and make it so that they don't issue a refund if the campaign has been completed but that would mean it needs the cloud based game save to be used on every game, and not have the option to save locally like you currently get.
     
  14. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    I'm sure they will implement measures to stop it, like a maximum time of actual play, or based on achievements etc
     
  15. abezors

    abezors Lurking since '08

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    If only game demos were still released these days then this feature wouldn't be needed. Alas, unlike the games of old, there is no way to try-before-you-buy (short of pirating). Hopefully Steam will jump on this idea soon enough.
     
  16. longweight

    longweight Possibly Longbeard.

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    Sounds like a good step forward :)
     
  17. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    Steam already do this. My lady bought The War Z and it was so appalling she complained and got her money back.

    I complained about HAWX 2 once and got my money back for that also.
     
  18. Tris

    Tris What's a Dremel?

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    That's a surprisingly excellent stance. One of my main gripes with Steam is the fact that they don't offer anything similar, which has caused me extreme frustration in the past.

    I rather imagine that the WarZ situation was due to massive community pressure and high profile, though I don't know about HAWX2.
    Certainly my own experience differs - I purchased the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim and found it to be incredibly poor quality (within 4 hours I had managed to get the game into a state where I had to revert to a previous save and lost progress not once, but twice). All attempts at a refund were rebuffed with reference to their terms and conditions.

    Anyway, I still won't be using Origin much in spite of the positive feeling I have towards this move. The cost of new releases is still ridiculous (£45 when I can buy the DVD version for £30) and any service where I have to hack around the config files to make the adverts f**k off can go to hell.
     
  19. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    I bought HAWX 2 via Steam so I could play it with a mate of mine (I bought it for him also).

    His gift never arrived (so they refunded that) and then I found out I had to install their crappy DRM front end and I wasn't happy with that either so yeah, got refunded.

    I don't like buying a game on Steam only to find I have to install a load of viral rubbish on my PC in order to get it running..

    TBH and I could be wrong here but games shouldn't be any different to hoovers (as an example) IE - 7 days etc.
     
  20. LordPyrinc

    LordPyrinc Legomaniac

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    I remember trying to play Diablo III on release day. I think I might have managed to run it for a total of two hours (non-consecutively) in the first 36 hours or so once I got home and got it installed. In the long run, the game was worth what I paid for it, but the first couple of days definitely sucked. That experience has made me think twice about buying a game on release day.

    Even some games that allow you to play on day one seem to be bug infested. Though I experienced some bugs, I didn't have any game breaking issues with Space Hulk on release day. Other users weren't so lucky based on the comments I read.

    Back to Blizzard, I didn't buy Heart of the Swarm until well after the release date. Unfortunately, I've discovered that it breaks some of the Wings of Liberty campaign missions for some users, myself included. Others also report freezes in v's play as well though I haven't tried that out yet. Worst thing is, it doesn't matter if you buy HOTS or not, the original game is still updated when you log in.

    If Steam goes the way of Origin, then I would expect quite a few returns even with titles from more respectable publishers. It seems like they are skimping on proper QA these days.
     

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