News No APB refunds from RTW or Valve

Because your contract, as a consumer, is with Valve. You don't have a receipt on a Realtime Worlds account for buying APB, but Steam has a full trading account for you. You give them the money, it's their responsibility to pay you back if it all goes wrong.

 

They're acting as a retailer. What's the first place you go to when you decide what you bought isn't fit for purpose? The place you bought it from.

If that's Steam, then you go to Valve, because they sold it to you.

 

This totally sucks that people paid money for a sucky game and now they can't even play APB because it had no offline component.

RTW should man up and release tools for LAN support so owners can host the game themselves now that they are out of business.

Thanks EA for stepping up

Dick moves like this from RTW is why some people PIRATE in the first place.

 

Valve, as a retailer has sold the product for a specific function, which it no longer able to perform. The customer should then be entitled to get their money back, regardless of who the retailer is. The retailer can then go back to the RTW administrators and file a claim for the money they lost.

 

Bit-tech is kind of getting into the bad habit of attention grabbing half-truth titles just like the mainstream media. But even worse is the fact that the community doesn't seem to actually read and comprehend the article to realize "oh so that's what you meant"


Anyways, @OP: EA are the company that actually published the game, so isn't it natural that THEY should be giving refunds?

 

Anybody who retails the game should give refunds (not store credit etc) to the customers who purchased the game from them. This includes EA, valve, and HMV. The retailers can then make a claim for their losses to the administrators of RTW.

This is where the Online-only software model start to get interesting, as most products we are accustomed to have utility irrespective of the manufacturer's fortunes, but online-only software doesn't. Devs/pubs have jumped on the bandwagon because it is much more profitable, but they haven't ironed out these issues, so when a company goes bust and shuts down the servers it is actually liable to lose even more money through people (rightly) wanting refunds.

 

I don't see what's misleading or half-true about the title. It's a simple and relevant declarative; the creator of a product isn't offering refunds on a game which, for some at least, won't fulfill the basic requirements of use. They refer people to retailers. At least one of the biggest retailers says "No, sod off" and, so, only the publisher is stepping up - and even then by only giving discounts and other compensation. Don't see how the title is misleading or strap are misleading at all.

 

It's not really a dick move from RTW, it's just a consequence of them going bust. It's like if a guy dies behind the wheel of his car it's not really a dick move if said car crashes, it's just what happens.

From what I've been hearing from my APB clan (as such they will be known til we find a new game) EA are being very reasonable about refunds and so on, which is pretty nice of them considering. Personally I'm not chasing a refund or anything of that sort because between one month of subscription after launch and the fifty hours that came with the game I felt like I got enough out of it. I was about finished with the game when it closed, so I guess I'd fit into that rare category of 'satisfied customer', something you won't find too many of where APB is concerned.

 

Not really. Your contract is with the retailer that sold you the game, not with the publisher. If you bought the game through direct download from EA.com then you'd have a contract with them but not otherwise.

 

It implies that OMG NO REFUNDZ0RZ even though EA are clearly trying to square people away.

I'm afraid it's not that simple with the gaming industry.

 

"No APB refunds from RTW or Valve"

How does this say (or imply) anything about what EA or other retailers and e-tailers are doing? I don't see it myself.

 

That's the thing, it doesn't.

 

Yeah, the headline doesn't imply anything about anyone. It states quite clearly that two companies are not offering a refund, which, given that's what the article is about, is very clear. There's no implicature that EA either is or isn't offering a refund in the headline.

Example:
If I say that David Cameron and Nick Clegg both have children then it doesn't imply that Gordon Brown either does or doesn't.

More importantly, you're obviously navigating to the story via the forums because the strapline visible on the front page declares clearly immediately beneath the headline that "EA offers compensation." So, there's even less confusion. Of the three companies discussed in the article the headline and strap make it abundantly clear which ones offer refunds and which ones don't.

There's no hysteria or melodrama there either, so I don't see where the 'OMFGNOREFUNDS' bit you mention comes from. The one complaint you could level at the article is that it's fairly obvious that RTW, a bankrupt company, wouldn't offer refunds.

There's no grey area that I can see in the story. RTW doesn't do refunds, says talk to retailer. Retailer Valve say they don't do refunds. EA is, under no obligation, offering compensation. Done.

 

Because as a retailer selling in the UK, the item has to be "fit for purpose". If you can't play it, it's not, hence it is breaking legislation and you are entitled to a full replacement, or if that is not possible, a refund.

 

Aaah, this time your psychological warfare saved you, but one day, one day i will defeat your journalist trickery! I just picked a bad example

Yeah i didn't want to go there because that wasn't my point.

 

There should be a filter on this forum, similar to the Cheesecake=cheesecake one, that turns "Steam" into "Valve". Steam is not a company, Valve is.

So with that clear, the reason so little people honestly worry about their games is the fact that no, MS/Valve/Sony/Etc. will not go down because of one bad game. These are massive companies with enough fat to easily carry on with an unprofitable system, just look at Sony specifically not turning a profit off the PS3 until years after release. Even if it never turned a profit they could stop making consoles and keep PSN up for a couple years until the next gen of consoles when no one cares anymore. It would take a massive blow to drop any of these companies, something bigger than a game.

 

And then we'd have Valve weekend deals, Valve username thread and valvepunk case mods?

 

This is partly why i steer clear of 'pay to play' MMO's.

I think Valve's decision re refunds is harsh, but fair. Their terms and conditions regarding the use of steam and game 'subscriptions' is cast iron and leaves no room for any comeback on them.

The other side of it is Valve themselves have generally supported their own games far more than any other developer, and their business model doesn't expose them to excesses such as apb and it's bloated budget.

 

EA was serving as the publisher so they really need to be the ones to step up. In fact, I bought mine from EA's online store.

However, I will avoid anything that David Jones or any of his toadies spill out on to the market like radioactive spew.

 

At first I read this post and was too angry to reply, so I had to blow off some Valve first.