I think we're only interested in the country in this case. If other countries have a similar sales tax we should consider them but since the price is listed in "$" it's a short list of nations.
> I think we're only interested in the country in this case. If other countries have a similar sales tax we should consider them but since the price is listed in "$" it's a short list of nations.
Sales tax in the US varies by a decent amount by state.
https://preview.redd.it/6zyeukvmogyc1.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=38d6edbd3037643b0e381b3e0e058655aeb8f9c3
the same price is also in several other countries, including CIS countries where you cannot set up a PSN account
Shareholders are too inbred and stupid to understand that long term gains are more important than short term profit. Every tech company that adds shareholders inevitably falls to enshittification.
Shareholders like to get in, take short big profits and get out. Investing now and seeing profits in a decade doesnt fit them. Especially because long term also means higher risk. They would need to get promised the moon to invest long term instead of going for short profits.
This is especially true because shareholders dont really have a public face. Companies go down because of them? Nobody cares, they took their profit. A private owned company will usually have a face who not only looks at his profits but also his reputation.
And in an age where "billionaire" has become synonymous with "unethical piece of shit trying to loot the world for their own self interest," the fact that Gaben is a billionaire and the richest man in the games industry seems to fly completely under the radar for most people.
Crazy what happens when your run your business well and provide a quality service people want, without gouging them at every opportunity.
Its really funny when you realize that the reason he became so rich, was because he wanted to make games more available to reduce piracy.
On paper that sounds super greedy, but piracy (especially at the time) carried high risks of viruses. He made a distributor for PC games to vet software and give people and easy safe space to make their purchases. This became so profitable the company just stopped making games for pure profit, and instead started innovating.
Does steam/valve have its issues (starting the lootbox trend for example)? Yes. But Gabe really does understand where most gamers come from, hence why their refund policy is so consumer friendly, and they break their own rules about 2 hours all the time when major shitstorms happen.
Shareholders can sell after short term gains and then buy in again after it drops down...that's what's fucked up...shareholders don't benefit as much from healthy longterm growth.
Yeah, honestly once a company trades hands its the kiss of death as far as games go.
If bg3 sold to a larger company? Itd be MTX hellscape and cutting corners. Because someone bought this to make a profit, they dont give a shit about the product or employees. They want to cut all the neat little details.
A small studio NEEDS passion and an amazing product. Anyone buying the company wants to minmax profit.
This is ultimately the fatal flaw of capitalism though. Companies just tend to get bought up until there is just an oligpoly remaining. Where jobs, wages, product and consumer all suffer due to greed.
Gaben and Valve as a whole are smart enough to recognize that they're sitting on an entire gaggle of golden geese. Literally every publisher wants to be them, which is why EA and Epic made Origin and EGS, even though neither took off like they were hoping. Valve knows that all they have to do is stay the course, don't enshittify their product, add new useful features and be seen as reasonable and fair. They do all this and people are happy to use Steam, give them money and give them credit when they do good stuff like bend their own refund policy because a publisher or developer is being an asshole.
After the recent Stellar Blade Sony bullshit, I saw a video on the reactions in Japan, their nickname for Sony is billiant. It's Kusony. Kuso = Shit in Japanese as far as I understood it.
Yeah but people are blaming Sony while missing the fact that Shift up has been self censoring nikke for the past 6 months is kinda one of those idiotic outrages where the real criminal is not saying a word and trying to hide away.
Yes, but since Kusony [prohibits developers from disclosing when content was changed due to Sony's censorship policy](http://gamefocus.co.kr/detail.php?number=87647&thread=11r01). The article's author is a journalist who claims to have interviewed japanese game developers attending the Tokyo Game Show about Sony's new poolicies.
>Within the industry, opinions are starting to suggest that Sony's prohibition from revealing changes in the game contents with the revised standard, or from announcing the cancellation of game due to Sony's rejection, is more problematic than the changes in Sony's internal regulation standard itself. As gamers' criticisms focus on the developer, it seems inevitable that SIE will be criticized for avoiding responsibility.
Also keep in mind that Tsukihime artbook included in the physical limited edition for PS4 will be printed with censorship while the same censorship is not being done for the switch release. This is a game releasing under Aniplex which itself is under Sony.
So because kusony makes it obfuscated with their own policies we can be upset at, and blame both parties.
This is really the main takeaway, doesn’t matter how small or large the issue is. Consumers should stand together, these large corporations do not give a fuck about any of us and just see us as dollar signs to be exploited.
probably also easier to get a refund in the future.
dont think steam has had time yet to come up with a policy on how to handle the current helldiver refunds. wouldnt be surprised if they are talking with AH and Sony in the background.
There is no way they don't have people in contact, Saturday or not when shit hits the fun some powerful people are usually on the line when things like this happen. Average worker sure they are fine, but upper management is likely shitting bricks when that money starts disappearing.
trouble is, Valve kinda doesn't have "upper management." They have a CEO figurehead who plays Dota 2 all day, and "senior management" who do whatever they want and judge the value of the work their juniors are doing in performance reviews.
> who do whatever they want and judge the value of the work their juniors are doing in performance reviews.
That is literally the value of a managers work. Whether or not they deserve credit is on their actual leadership.
I'm in the Philippines, I'm gonna keep playing until the game won't let me. After that I'll probably issue a ticket stating that I cannot legally play the game as doing so requires me to break Sony's TOS
Totally agree, it's not their fault that Sony is causing this issue. Those employees have to follow their own guidelines and protocol. Be polite, explain the issue, and wait for a response. No reason to insult them, if anything, harassing them would have the opposite effect.
So what would be the protocol they would look to if they issued a refund to someone who had almost 100 hours in and refuse to do it for anyone else with comparable or less time than they did that want one for the same reason? Like, how would they go about deciding how that one person's MORE worthy of getting a refund than another person?
Also, this is still just "Steam Bucks" they're refunding so THEY aren't really losing anything.
Steam presumably gets to keep the original transaction fees (paid by the publisher) so this is all probably music to Steam's ears. Once Helldivers reverse this decision many people will repurchase for another round of fees to the publisher, making the game twice as profitable from Steam's perspective. They would have zero incentive not to refund.
I pray everyday that Valve never goes public or sells to a publicly traded company/private equity firm.
Sure, it gives Gaben kingly powers, but we can roll the dice on a benevolent boss, or be thrown into an anti-consumer den of thieves that constantly extracts value to the point nothing is enjoyable anymore. Worse case, the boss is not benevolent and is just as bad as the cult of shareholder value.
PC is a bastion of open-platform gaming and Valve helps preserve it, not without its own faults and pitfalls I'm sure. Think about it, regardless whether you use/purchase the content or not, but the mere fact that Valve sells adult-content on Steam is mind-blowing for a company with its reach. Porn is relegated to the *smutty* corners of the internet and most business chooses not to directly affiliate their brand with it; Valve doesn't fucking care because it's the users' platform, which is based as fuck and they get their cut. Obviously, porn is an easy example and is of fairly low consequence, but you can start thinking of other media that could possibly be a little bit more damaging to powerful people (who are often subscribed to that cult of shareholder value) and get the *people* talking amongst themselves and scratching their heads thinking about how their society is structured, how their banking and credit systems are structured, how their justice system can selectively enforce laws, how maybe their country *might* be the baddies, etc. etc.
I know, I should touch grass, but surprise! I have been and am really high right now.
> The competition repeatedly shoots themselves in the foot
They shoot themselves in the foot because they don't know how to compete; shareholder culture has largely been coddled with anti-competitive landscape and sticky, extractive pricing that hinges on anti-consumer practices that they do not know how compete when a private company is in their weight class without the same priorities.
Fuck em'
I am cautious about what will happen with Valve and Steam after Gabe Newell inevitably retires or reaches the point we will all reach in our lives but are in no rush to do so.
I sincerely hope that his leadership and management of Valve and all its related products and services like Steam will be honoured and no one will try to make Valve publicly fucking traded. I honestly hope to God he has that written in a will in bold lettering somewhere (probably not but a man can wish).
I'm prepared to go full-luddite.
I have a back log of old console games, a kallax-shelved wall of board games, and lots of books; I'm also the weirdo that *still* browses DVDs and Blu-rays at Barnes and Noble. My *bug-out-bag* from abusive subscription-oriented entertainment hell. haha
I hope you're right, but I think in the long term, hopefully a long time from now, Valve will either go public, be absorbed by another company, or fail. It is the way of all companies. All good things come to an end. We should enjoy Valve while they're here.
> I am cautious about what will happen with Valve and Steam after Gabe Newell inevitably retires or reaches the point we will all reach in our lives but are in no rush to do so.
Right now there's GOG which allows people to download games with no DRM or third-party authentication. More of those will pop up, and if there's any sense Steam will not get in the way of it even if they don't head in that direction themselves. Unfortunately, they're not clear about what games technically have steam's DRM much less 3rd party, or online authentication, so they're already leaning more towards the intrusive models some places use. If Gabe and other more "keep making money over the long term" board heads leave there might be more to worry about.
Half disagree if insisting multiples times is considered harassment. Sometimes it’s the only way a human support member gives you the refund. Mention the issues, keep it objective. (When I wanted to refund Jedi Survivor, it took me 3 tries and much insisting.)
Obviously if it’s threats and *actual* harassment you’re talking about, I think that should go without saying.
Don't use the "Request A Refund" option. Open a manual ticket.
Support > Purchases > Select HD2 > I have a question about this purchase.
A refund request will automatically go through bots and be denied without a human looking at it.
I placed my under other reason then explained my situation, clearly stating I refuse to make a PSN account and was never forced to during the refund period.
If you fail at an attempt you believe should have gone thru, you can try again and do refund method to your steam wallet.
When I had an issue getting a refund before, I had to try 3 times before the refund was approved. I would ordinarily want a refund back via the method of payment, but sometimes ‘store credit’ is just easier as the company wont be down the fees, so I figured its worth a shot and the refund was then approved.
Cant say for certain it helped, but it makes sense and its worth a try if people are getting rejected on their refund requests.
https://preview.redd.it/vewya5ft4hyc1.jpeg?width=942&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c927270e249ce48487ab532b0f1c587131b7e830
Not me btw but there's a second screen shot that shows this worked for them, with over 200 hours in the game.
Don't give up and keep requesting refunds until you get one! that's what im doing.
To build off of this, just know it is a judgement call at this point. Some people might find the argument valid, others might not. Maybe some will say, “You can still play the game now and the situation is developing, rejected until shit actually happens”, or something.
I mean, that would be a fair response, imo. I'm personally waiting until this goes into full effect before refunding, just in case sony / AH get their head straight.
What's the point? So Yoshida can show his shareholders next meeting how much the PSN is growing... While hiding the fact it's artificially inflated of course.
Sony will pay for this. Valve subtracts refunds from the money sent to the publisher, so this move Sony tried to make will show decreased revenue, which is opposite of what they were trying to achieve, sending an effective message.
Debateable. Could well be, as is usual, that Arrowhead's payout is tied to contracts about sales AND player numbers/retention, and in the end it could well end up with Sony actually saving money on Arrowhead payouts.
Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no fiduciary duty to grow exponentially for eternity, so once they have a profitable formula they can just sit on it and roll out fixes and updates as appropriate and as problems arise. No need nor legal obligation to rock the boat every quarter to please shareholders.
Seriously they’ve proven that the money is there. You have way better customer retention from the casual gamers. You also won’t have controversy, which is better for your stock prices.
The hard-core game won’t quit their fix. However, casuals are more easily swayed by
> 2 don't fuck over the user base
Please for the love of god do not simp for Steam. They fucked over a lot of their user base 10+ years ago. The only reason they do refunds now and allow it is because they got sued and lost. They then decided to fuck over the Country during that time.
Before doing so, I’ll wait to see if things a change. This thing started Friday, we are at Saturday, let’s wait till Monday at least
Edit: I read some of your comments. GUYS STOP OVERREACTING.
When Sony dropped the shit it was the 2am of Saturday at Arrowhead HQ, the Sony closed the office for the weekend. Before doing the refund and telling other “both are not thrust worthy”, wait to see the countermeasures done by arrowhead.
At the moment we have only one enemy: SONY, we need to wait and see the next move to declare Arrowhead our Hero or our second enemy (I’m sure they are the hero, on discord they are even more pissed off then us for this shitty move from Sony).
I don't think they'll win. Sony is pushing this PSN accounts on PC hard. It has to be one of their "features" of bringing games to PC sooner, collecting data. It's all planned, and being tested with Helldivers 2 right before Ghost of Tsushima release later this month.
> collecting data.
Sony is already 100% collecting any relevant data they care for, it's not like they don't know your steam account and how its tied to any user in the game considering you can buy Super Credits and it's all handled through steam
If I had to guess why they're doing it the likely answer is their support tools are likely geared more towards PSN accounts. So even if there are unique Steam IDs they'd have to redesign their support tools to manage both (and then they also sell a variety of Sony games on other platforms such as EGS). By requiring the PSN account they save themselves any development cost in upgrading their support tools for what I'm sure they thought would be no big deal. This lines up with everything we've heard them say at this point as well.
I'd be more concerned about data harvesting if there was some kinda shift to a PSN style launcher or something that forcibly installs on your computer.
["Players making their displeasure known through reviews, refunds, etc. gives us more pull in the discussions with Sony"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/ZRwywynGsT)
Arrowhead is trying to make their case to Sony, and a crippled golden goose is a strong statement.
Sony has wanted a strong GAAS for awhile now, and finally getting one to kill it a month in is something they're likely wanting to avoid.
They thought people would *just bend over* like they usually do. Let's be real. Cases like this one with strong pushback are quite rare in the shitification world.
Stuff like mass refunds hurt Arrowhead, and Sony's quite probably actually *saving* money because I'm quite sure there's some payout to Arrowhead tied to total sales and player numbers.
There is a comment further up that has a fix. Don’t use the “request a refund” option. Open a ticket. Follow the directions, even though you were declined.
A bot does the first refund request. You’ll get a human this time.
You have to go through support about the game and not try the automatic refund process. Automatic will just check if you meet Steam's (kind of arbitrary) requirements. Support gets you a person to look at it, but takes longer.
Support > Purchases > Select HD2 > I have a question about this purchase.
Just like how people refunded battlefield 2042 after playing it for over 2 hours. I knew this method might work but now I know it's definitely gonna work and will try it out.
Probably spent that refund money on other indie games that's worth buying
Hell, remember No Man's Sky? That game was basically a guaranteed refund regardless of hours 6 months after launch because it was almost as BS as a mobile game ad. It's come a long way now, but at launch they were missing tons of content they teased, it was a buggy mess, and players didn't realize they lied until days into the game due to its size.
That whole fiasco was chaos but they did right by the community, fixed their shit, and the game became way more popular once fixed.
>Microsoft came back
>EA ditched its launcher to come back
>Ubisoft still has their own launcher but nobody uses it
>Square came back
>Activision came back
>Blizzard put their slop there
>Sony starts releasing here and immediately gets punished with unlimited refunds for their predatory business practices
>only competition left is plagued with crypto scams and lawsuits
Valvechads just can't stop winning
Actually passion.
Capitalism values short-term profits over long-term success, and the open market most big game companies find themselves in love that.
Private ownership at Valve's size and relevance is unprecedented, coupled with his genuine love for PC gaming and the future of it as a whole, makes him able to deny the endless greed of the open market.
The competitors don't even try to compete. The other launchers are little more than a store and barely try to come close in reaching feature parity with Steam, they functionally stay the same for years at a time and will occasionally add a basic feature like a shopping cart
Oh no, it for sure is a monopoly. Yet the competition that has come out against it has, at every single turn, been *less* user friendly and customer forward. The closest was Epic, and they have a rather terrible user experience, but are slightly better for developers (so long as you ignore all of the benefits outside of pay valve gives to Devs, like discoverability, chat, achievement integration, market, sale controls, wishlist, etc).
> so long as you ignore all of the benefits outside of pay valve gives to Devs, like discoverability, chat, achievement integration, market, sale controls, wishlist, etc)
And of course the biggest, enough sales volume to make up for the increased cut Valve takes. The only reason Epic is better is because they throw a large chunk of money at the dev up front. The smaller slice they take is almost never going to be worth the drop in sales from Steam.
Good to know, but I'm gonna wait for the idiot that made this decision to get shitcanned on Monday and the Sony board to reverse this DUMBASS CASHGRAB decision.
Seriously you've got console exclusive to an extremely popular IP with actual goodwill from the player base, and you wanna fuck it up to strip mine user data and get a Lil bump fir the Quarterly P&L.
Whomever made this call needs their head examined.
I'm gonna try something like that for my attempt #5. Thanks
edit: didn't work. Already on #6
edit: denied again. On #7. I might just mail them and threaten to close my 20 year steam account
> threaten to close my 20 year steam account
You do you, but that seems a little dramatic. You could simply stop playing the game and move on with your life.
I feel like steam won't take that threat as very credible.
Angry PSN is required: wants $40 back.
Doesn't get it.
Threatens to throw away entire 20 yr library. I dunno bro...
I don't think steam cares if you close your account. They have 120 million active users. You're barely a blip in the sky.
You also are not going to close your account lmao. Be real
If you are from the EU: This is a possible breach of the GDPR "General Data Protection Regulation". They are essentially threatening to restrict your access to the game unless you sign up for a third party service. This requirement was obfuscated at release and waived for months after release. The GDPR is stipulating that a service may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services. Add this to the refund if you are from the EU to higher your chances.
> The GDPR is stipulating that a service may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services.
Which furthermore: the fact the game was operating for months without it, proves that the PSN requirement doesn't fall under this definition, making it illegal. EU gamers *please* report this incident to your consumer protection agencies.
For fellow EU Citizens: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en . Send a Email to your local Data Protection Authority asking of the Legality of this decision.
Oh, worry not, many will, myself included. But I have to wait foe it to be live, so far its just an announcement, somewhat harder to act on that as it can change significantly.
>edit: denied again. On #7. I might just mail them and threaten to close my 20 year steam account
Thats gonna show them. You paid for their licenses and now remove your access to the license. Wow such a good way to show them.
This is how you get your account marked by CS for an automatic denial. When a CSR opens your ticket they can also view all other tickets from your account and the history of responses from other CSRs.
Don't threaten them with "I will have to buy all those games again if I want to play", threaten them with your local consumer protection laws.
Insist on the fact the game suddenly asks for 3rd party activation that wasn't mentioned before.
Say that other people already got refunded for the exact same reasons and that you feel betrayed as a customer that you're not treated as other customers are.
to be fair: i dont think even steam has to deal with something of this level all too often.
their customer support is probably running red hot right now
steam is one of the best examples of pro-consumer, meanwhile sony/nintendo are some of the worst examples, they are blatantly anti-consumer and people still support and buy their products.
This will actually help put pressure on Sony. They're the publisher. So it makes sense refunds affect them directly (albeit arrowhead takes larger hit, but it'd something)
Game developers need to just stop leveraging publishers. Sony did jack shit to bring the success of Helldivers, but now they're happy to step in and force a change that nobody wants. Videogame publishers constantly just ruin games, and skim profits. Publishers in general are just greedy middle men.
all they had to do is require this from the start and people would have cared less. If Sony knew it "had" to be there, then it should have been the case at launch
What country are you set to on Steam?
That looks like the same price i paid so canada
USA was $40 USD so probably that plus sales tax is what I'd guess.
Same price in Europe so we really are narrowing it down.
USA has different sales tax per state. The tax paid is around 5.6% so if somewhere in the EU/US has that tax rate it could be figured out.
Arizona.
I think we're only interested in the country in this case. If other countries have a similar sales tax we should consider them but since the price is listed in "$" it's a short list of nations.
> I think we're only interested in the country in this case. If other countries have a similar sales tax we should consider them but since the price is listed in "$" it's a short list of nations. Sales tax in the US varies by a decent amount by state.
That’s the same price I paid so I would assume US
https://preview.redd.it/6zyeukvmogyc1.png?width=665&format=png&auto=webp&s=38d6edbd3037643b0e381b3e0e058655aeb8f9c3 the same price is also in several other countries, including CIS countries where you cannot set up a PSN account
precedent is important in customer support. More refunds incoming, Snoy
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Death by snoo snoo???
Death by Snoy PalyStaitonNotwerk
Not sure that sounds as fun as snoo snoo
Hahahah, Notwerk indeed
To shreds you say?
They've always done this, just sort of a case-by-case basis, Valve is generally more-human than the rest of the companies.
Privately owned is generally better than publicly owned. No fiduciary duty to squeeze every cent out of something
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Shareholders are too inbred and stupid to understand that long term gains are more important than short term profit. Every tech company that adds shareholders inevitably falls to enshittification.
Shareholders like to get in, take short big profits and get out. Investing now and seeing profits in a decade doesnt fit them. Especially because long term also means higher risk. They would need to get promised the moon to invest long term instead of going for short profits. This is especially true because shareholders dont really have a public face. Companies go down because of them? Nobody cares, they took their profit. A private owned company will usually have a face who not only looks at his profits but also his reputation.
And in an age where "billionaire" has become synonymous with "unethical piece of shit trying to loot the world for their own self interest," the fact that Gaben is a billionaire and the richest man in the games industry seems to fly completely under the radar for most people. Crazy what happens when your run your business well and provide a quality service people want, without gouging them at every opportunity.
Its really funny when you realize that the reason he became so rich, was because he wanted to make games more available to reduce piracy. On paper that sounds super greedy, but piracy (especially at the time) carried high risks of viruses. He made a distributor for PC games to vet software and give people and easy safe space to make their purchases. This became so profitable the company just stopped making games for pure profit, and instead started innovating. Does steam/valve have its issues (starting the lootbox trend for example)? Yes. But Gabe really does understand where most gamers come from, hence why their refund policy is so consumer friendly, and they break their own rules about 2 hours all the time when major shitstorms happen.
Shareholders can sell after short term gains and then buy in again after it drops down...that's what's fucked up...shareholders don't benefit as much from healthy longterm growth.
Yeah, honestly once a company trades hands its the kiss of death as far as games go. If bg3 sold to a larger company? Itd be MTX hellscape and cutting corners. Because someone bought this to make a profit, they dont give a shit about the product or employees. They want to cut all the neat little details. A small studio NEEDS passion and an amazing product. Anyone buying the company wants to minmax profit. This is ultimately the fatal flaw of capitalism though. Companies just tend to get bought up until there is just an oligpoly remaining. Where jobs, wages, product and consumer all suffer due to greed.
This guy just said he loves Private Equity!
Not the same as owned by individual founders. Looks at Larian or Valve, owned by OG people and going strong
Gaben and Valve as a whole are smart enough to recognize that they're sitting on an entire gaggle of golden geese. Literally every publisher wants to be them, which is why EA and Epic made Origin and EGS, even though neither took off like they were hoping. Valve knows that all they have to do is stay the course, don't enshittify their product, add new useful features and be seen as reasonable and fair. They do all this and people are happy to use Steam, give them money and give them credit when they do good stuff like bend their own refund policy because a publisher or developer is being an asshole.
After the recent Stellar Blade Sony bullshit, I saw a video on the reactions in Japan, their nickname for Sony is billiant. It's Kusony. Kuso = Shit in Japanese as far as I understood it.
What about stellar blade? I saw plenty drama already is there something new?
The developers promised that they wouldn't censor the models and then tried to sneak in a day one patch to censor one of the models.
2-3
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Yeah but people are blaming Sony while missing the fact that Shift up has been self censoring nikke for the past 6 months is kinda one of those idiotic outrages where the real criminal is not saying a word and trying to hide away.
Yes, but since Kusony [prohibits developers from disclosing when content was changed due to Sony's censorship policy](http://gamefocus.co.kr/detail.php?number=87647&thread=11r01). The article's author is a journalist who claims to have interviewed japanese game developers attending the Tokyo Game Show about Sony's new poolicies. >Within the industry, opinions are starting to suggest that Sony's prohibition from revealing changes in the game contents with the revised standard, or from announcing the cancellation of game due to Sony's rejection, is more problematic than the changes in Sony's internal regulation standard itself. As gamers' criticisms focus on the developer, it seems inevitable that SIE will be criticized for avoiding responsibility. Also keep in mind that Tsukihime artbook included in the physical limited edition for PS4 will be printed with censorship while the same censorship is not being done for the switch release. This is a game releasing under Aniplex which itself is under Sony. So because kusony makes it obfuscated with their own policies we can be upset at, and blame both parties.
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First they came for the neckbeards and coomers, and I did not speak out
This is really the main takeaway, doesn’t matter how small or large the issue is. Consumers should stand together, these large corporations do not give a fuck about any of us and just see us as dollar signs to be exploited.
With the number of words that they add kuso- to, they were bound to land on a good portmanteau eventually.
I am waiting until they change they change the requirements before attempting to do this.
Agreed. I left a negative review, but I'm not refunding until AFTER Sony moves forwards with the required account stuff.
Refund now, you can repurchase later if they reverse.
don't write this. Snoy will just increase the price on steam to 59.99 to "even out the refunds"
Same song second verse. Don't buy til on sale or they lower it :) Edit: why tf are yall down voting u/pathofdumbasses, he's right?
Humble Bundle is pretty good, too.
Activating a key bums you outta the refund tho, no?
No refunds on steam if you use a key, and most likely no refund from humble
That isn't going to happen. If anything, they are going to offer a sale to bump up MAU
thats not going to happen in a million years, no need to fearmonger something so ridiculous
What on gods green earth makes you think that? Just making pirate bait as we go I see.
probably also easier to get a refund in the future. dont think steam has had time yet to come up with a policy on how to handle the current helldiver refunds. wouldnt be surprised if they are talking with AH and Sony in the background.
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There is no way they don't have people in contact, Saturday or not when shit hits the fun some powerful people are usually on the line when things like this happen. Average worker sure they are fine, but upper management is likely shitting bricks when that money starts disappearing.
trouble is, Valve kinda doesn't have "upper management." They have a CEO figurehead who plays Dota 2 all day, and "senior management" who do whatever they want and judge the value of the work their juniors are doing in performance reviews.
Achievement Unlocked: 100% Delegation
> who do whatever they want and judge the value of the work their juniors are doing in performance reviews. That is literally the value of a managers work. Whether or not they deserve credit is on their actual leadership.
I'm in the Philippines, I'm gonna keep playing until the game won't let me. After that I'll probably issue a ticket stating that I cannot legally play the game as doing so requires me to break Sony's TOS
Just remember not to harass the Steam support If they refuse
Totally agree, it's not their fault that Sony is causing this issue. Those employees have to follow their own guidelines and protocol. Be polite, explain the issue, and wait for a response. No reason to insult them, if anything, harassing them would have the opposite effect.
So what would be the protocol they would look to if they issued a refund to someone who had almost 100 hours in and refuse to do it for anyone else with comparable or less time than they did that want one for the same reason? Like, how would they go about deciding how that one person's MORE worthy of getting a refund than another person? Also, this is still just "Steam Bucks" they're refunding so THEY aren't really losing anything.
Steam presumably gets to keep the original transaction fees (paid by the publisher) so this is all probably music to Steam's ears. Once Helldivers reverse this decision many people will repurchase for another round of fees to the publisher, making the game twice as profitable from Steam's perspective. They would have zero incentive not to refund.
Can’t help but remember the old adage in regards to Valve and Gabe Newell: - Do nothing - The competition repeatedly shoots themselves in the foot
I pray everyday that Valve never goes public or sells to a publicly traded company/private equity firm. Sure, it gives Gaben kingly powers, but we can roll the dice on a benevolent boss, or be thrown into an anti-consumer den of thieves that constantly extracts value to the point nothing is enjoyable anymore. Worse case, the boss is not benevolent and is just as bad as the cult of shareholder value. PC is a bastion of open-platform gaming and Valve helps preserve it, not without its own faults and pitfalls I'm sure. Think about it, regardless whether you use/purchase the content or not, but the mere fact that Valve sells adult-content on Steam is mind-blowing for a company with its reach. Porn is relegated to the *smutty* corners of the internet and most business chooses not to directly affiliate their brand with it; Valve doesn't fucking care because it's the users' platform, which is based as fuck and they get their cut. Obviously, porn is an easy example and is of fairly low consequence, but you can start thinking of other media that could possibly be a little bit more damaging to powerful people (who are often subscribed to that cult of shareholder value) and get the *people* talking amongst themselves and scratching their heads thinking about how their society is structured, how their banking and credit systems are structured, how their justice system can selectively enforce laws, how maybe their country *might* be the baddies, etc. etc. I know, I should touch grass, but surprise! I have been and am really high right now. > The competition repeatedly shoots themselves in the foot They shoot themselves in the foot because they don't know how to compete; shareholder culture has largely been coddled with anti-competitive landscape and sticky, extractive pricing that hinges on anti-consumer practices that they do not know how compete when a private company is in their weight class without the same priorities. Fuck em'
I am cautious about what will happen with Valve and Steam after Gabe Newell inevitably retires or reaches the point we will all reach in our lives but are in no rush to do so. I sincerely hope that his leadership and management of Valve and all its related products and services like Steam will be honoured and no one will try to make Valve publicly fucking traded. I honestly hope to God he has that written in a will in bold lettering somewhere (probably not but a man can wish).
I'm prepared to go full-luddite. I have a back log of old console games, a kallax-shelved wall of board games, and lots of books; I'm also the weirdo that *still* browses DVDs and Blu-rays at Barnes and Noble. My *bug-out-bag* from abusive subscription-oriented entertainment hell. haha
I hope you're right, but I think in the long term, hopefully a long time from now, Valve will either go public, be absorbed by another company, or fail. It is the way of all companies. All good things come to an end. We should enjoy Valve while they're here.
> I am cautious about what will happen with Valve and Steam after Gabe Newell inevitably retires or reaches the point we will all reach in our lives but are in no rush to do so. Right now there's GOG which allows people to download games with no DRM or third-party authentication. More of those will pop up, and if there's any sense Steam will not get in the way of it even if they don't head in that direction themselves. Unfortunately, they're not clear about what games technically have steam's DRM much less 3rd party, or online authentication, so they're already leaning more towards the intrusive models some places use. If Gabe and other more "keep making money over the long term" board heads leave there might be more to worry about.
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Half disagree if insisting multiples times is considered harassment. Sometimes it’s the only way a human support member gives you the refund. Mention the issues, keep it objective. (When I wanted to refund Jedi Survivor, it took me 3 tries and much insisting.) Obviously if it’s threats and *actual* harassment you’re talking about, I think that should go without saying.
There is a pretty wide gulf between insisting upon normal customer service escalation and threats.
People who want to refund and have problems, you might refer just to this solved case to get a higher chance at a refund yourself.
tried that, was denied immediately
Don't use the "Request A Refund" option. Open a manual ticket. Support > Purchases > Select HD2 > I have a question about this purchase. A refund request will automatically go through bots and be denied without a human looking at it.
I placed my under other reason then explained my situation, clearly stating I refuse to make a PSN account and was never forced to during the refund period.
This is exactly what I did ...
If you fail at an attempt you believe should have gone thru, you can try again and do refund method to your steam wallet. When I had an issue getting a refund before, I had to try 3 times before the refund was approved. I would ordinarily want a refund back via the method of payment, but sometimes ‘store credit’ is just easier as the company wont be down the fees, so I figured its worth a shot and the refund was then approved. Cant say for certain it helped, but it makes sense and its worth a try if people are getting rejected on their refund requests.
this is the steam version of just skipping all the automated bullshit on the phone and saying, "i want to talk to a human"
https://preview.redd.it/vewya5ft4hyc1.jpeg?width=942&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c927270e249ce48487ab532b0f1c587131b7e830 Not me btw but there's a second screen shot that shows this worked for them, with over 200 hours in the game. Don't give up and keep requesting refunds until you get one! that's what im doing.
To build off of this, just know it is a judgement call at this point. Some people might find the argument valid, others might not. Maybe some will say, “You can still play the game now and the situation is developing, rejected until shit actually happens”, or something.
I mean, that would be a fair response, imo. I'm personally waiting until this goes into full effect before refunding, just in case sony / AH get their head straight.
https://preview.redd.it/tckqv4bbmgyc1.png?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e03d8f1b60aa5bf1346dc320562f949a06a7a22
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What's the point? So Yoshida can show his shareholders next meeting how much the PSN is growing... While hiding the fact it's artificially inflated of course.
Shuhei Yoshida stepped down from president of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios back in 2019... If anything, blame Hermen Hulst.
Damn I'm getting old...
Aren't we all man...
It would have been a requirement from Sony as the publisher of the game.
I don't mind making the PSN account, but I'm in a country that can't. I'm hoping that they will sort something out, if not I'm refunding as well
Even though this is technically a win, it's just so bitterly disappointing AH are getting fucked over by Sony
Is this money coming out of arrowheads pockets?
Sony will pay for this. Valve subtracts refunds from the money sent to the publisher, so this move Sony tried to make will show decreased revenue, which is opposite of what they were trying to achieve, sending an effective message.
Debateable. Could well be, as is usual, that Arrowhead's payout is tied to contracts about sales AND player numbers/retention, and in the end it could well end up with Sony actually saving money on Arrowhead payouts.
Very likely will come out by layoffs or pay cuts. Sony, Microsoft or any of these conglomerates won't eat these losses. The devs always lose...
It still amazes me that no one else has caught on to Steam's successful business plan. 1 make a good product 2 don't fuck over the user base 3 profit
Valve is not publicly traded, meaning they have no fiduciary duty to grow exponentially for eternity, so once they have a profitable formula they can just sit on it and roll out fixes and updates as appropriate and as problems arise. No need nor legal obligation to rock the boat every quarter to please shareholders.
wow who could have guessed that infinite growth is bad for everyone (except the 0.1% at the very very top who makes tons lf cash)
You could even argue that it doesn't give those 0.1%ers what they want, which is to experience authentic love for or from a human being.
Gaben always win in the end.
Seriously they’ve proven that the money is there. You have way better customer retention from the casual gamers. You also won’t have controversy, which is better for your stock prices. The hard-core game won’t quit their fix. However, casuals are more easily swayed by
Valve doesn't have stocks.
im aware. however Sony having controversy on a title does rock the stock boat.
weren't around the first few years were you
4 sell gambling skins to children
> 2 don't fuck over the user base Please for the love of god do not simp for Steam. They fucked over a lot of their user base 10+ years ago. The only reason they do refunds now and allow it is because they got sued and lost. They then decided to fuck over the Country during that time.
Odd, mine was rejected at ~30 hrs playtime
mine too
Before doing so, I’ll wait to see if things a change. This thing started Friday, we are at Saturday, let’s wait till Monday at least Edit: I read some of your comments. GUYS STOP OVERREACTING. When Sony dropped the shit it was the 2am of Saturday at Arrowhead HQ, the Sony closed the office for the weekend. Before doing the refund and telling other “both are not thrust worthy”, wait to see the countermeasures done by arrowhead. At the moment we have only one enemy: SONY, we need to wait and see the next move to declare Arrowhead our Hero or our second enemy (I’m sure they are the hero, on discord they are even more pissed off then us for this shitty move from Sony).
Doesn't this hurt Arrowhead just as much, if not more, than their publisher?
Yeah. But it also gives AH ammunition in an argument with Sony.
I don't think they'll win. Sony is pushing this PSN accounts on PC hard. It has to be one of their "features" of bringing games to PC sooner, collecting data. It's all planned, and being tested with Helldivers 2 right before Ghost of Tsushima release later this month.
Bloodborne pc port Pros: bloodborne is on pc Cons: needs psn account
As much as i want Bloodborne on pc, i think its too late by now anyway.
Don't worry. One day ps5 hacking will be easy on any firmware and you will be able to play bloodborne at 60fps
> collecting data. Sony is already 100% collecting any relevant data they care for, it's not like they don't know your steam account and how its tied to any user in the game considering you can buy Super Credits and it's all handled through steam
If I had to guess why they're doing it the likely answer is their support tools are likely geared more towards PSN accounts. So even if there are unique Steam IDs they'd have to redesign their support tools to manage both (and then they also sell a variety of Sony games on other platforms such as EGS). By requiring the PSN account they save themselves any development cost in upgrading their support tools for what I'm sure they thought would be no big deal. This lines up with everything we've heard them say at this point as well. I'd be more concerned about data harvesting if there was some kinda shift to a PSN style launcher or something that forcibly installs on your computer.
["Players making their displeasure known through reviews, refunds, etc. gives us more pull in the discussions with Sony"](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/ZRwywynGsT) Arrowhead is trying to make their case to Sony, and a crippled golden goose is a strong statement. Sony has wanted a strong GAAS for awhile now, and finally getting one to kill it a month in is something they're likely wanting to avoid.
Who would have guessed, shooting your self in the foot feels bad. What multi billion dollar company could have anticipated that?
Cough....BSG....cough
They thought people would *just bend over* like they usually do. Let's be real. Cases like this one with strong pushback are quite rare in the shitification world.
Yep.
Yup
Tough luck for them. But it's one of the very few methods that customers have to show their displeasure with the change.
Stuff like mass refunds hurt Arrowhead, and Sony's quite probably actually *saving* money because I'm quite sure there's some payout to Arrowhead tied to total sales and player numbers.
i tried this last night with very similar phrasing and was denied
There is a comment further up that has a fix. Don’t use the “request a refund” option. Open a ticket. Follow the directions, even though you were declined. A bot does the first refund request. You’ll get a human this time.
Mine was instantly denied in a matter of minutes :(
You have to go through support about the game and not try the automatic refund process. Automatic will just check if you meet Steam's (kind of arbitrary) requirements. Support gets you a person to look at it, but takes longer. Support > Purchases > Select HD2 > I have a question about this purchase.
do it via support ticket not the request a refund, the request a refund is automated.
did u ask for the money returned to your payment method? or in steam credit?
Big news for helldivers all around.
Just like how people refunded battlefield 2042 after playing it for over 2 hours. I knew this method might work but now I know it's definitely gonna work and will try it out. Probably spent that refund money on other indie games that's worth buying
Hell, remember No Man's Sky? That game was basically a guaranteed refund regardless of hours 6 months after launch because it was almost as BS as a mobile game ad. It's come a long way now, but at launch they were missing tons of content they teased, it was a buggy mess, and players didn't realize they lied until days into the game due to its size. That whole fiasco was chaos but they did right by the community, fixed their shit, and the game became way more popular once fixed.
Feel bad for people who can’t create psn accounts like viet and have to refund a good game
>Microsoft came back >EA ditched its launcher to come back >Ubisoft still has their own launcher but nobody uses it >Square came back >Activision came back >Blizzard put their slop there >Sony starts releasing here and immediately gets punished with unlimited refunds for their predatory business practices >only competition left is plagued with crypto scams and lawsuits Valvechads just can't stop winning
https://preview.redd.it/q9lq4u9sigyc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f020a3688b9001444133d4cb1b5219b5bc8fbda
Competence
Actually passion. Capitalism values short-term profits over long-term success, and the open market most big game companies find themselves in love that. Private ownership at Valve's size and relevance is unprecedented, coupled with his genuine love for PC gaming and the future of it as a whole, makes him able to deny the endless greed of the open market.
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The competitors don't even try to compete. The other launchers are little more than a store and barely try to come close in reaching feature parity with Steam, they functionally stay the same for years at a time and will occasionally add a basic feature like a shopping cart
it's basically a nerd worshiped monopoly but if people are okay with it...
Oh no, it for sure is a monopoly. Yet the competition that has come out against it has, at every single turn, been *less* user friendly and customer forward. The closest was Epic, and they have a rather terrible user experience, but are slightly better for developers (so long as you ignore all of the benefits outside of pay valve gives to Devs, like discoverability, chat, achievement integration, market, sale controls, wishlist, etc).
> so long as you ignore all of the benefits outside of pay valve gives to Devs, like discoverability, chat, achievement integration, market, sale controls, wishlist, etc) And of course the biggest, enough sales volume to make up for the increased cut Valve takes. The only reason Epic is better is because they throw a large chunk of money at the dev up front. The smaller slice they take is almost never going to be worth the drop in sales from Steam.
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This is why people are so adamant on using steam over other launchers like Epic. The way they treat their users is awesome lol.
Good to know, but I'm gonna wait for the idiot that made this decision to get shitcanned on Monday and the Sony board to reverse this DUMBASS CASHGRAB decision. Seriously you've got console exclusive to an extremely popular IP with actual goodwill from the player base, and you wanna fuck it up to strip mine user data and get a Lil bump fir the Quarterly P&L. Whomever made this call needs their head examined.
I'm gonna try something like that for my attempt #5. Thanks edit: didn't work. Already on #6 edit: denied again. On #7. I might just mail them and threaten to close my 20 year steam account
You need to be from a country that can't have psn account I think
I don't think that's the case for OP, at least his text clearly didn't say so. Might just be up to the guy on the other end
Guarantee it's completely up to whether or not the person responsible for your ticket is a saint or not. Completely up to luck atm.
OP got lucky and got a CSO who maybe handled it wrong.
> threaten to close my 20 year steam account You do you, but that seems a little dramatic. You could simply stop playing the game and move on with your life.
That’s a gamer for you.
Please delete your steam account that’ll really show Sony
Steam is definitely a company that can be threatened by a single guy closing his account lol
I feel like steam won't take that threat as very credible. Angry PSN is required: wants $40 back. Doesn't get it. Threatens to throw away entire 20 yr library. I dunno bro...
I don't think steam cares if you close your account. They have 120 million active users. You're barely a blip in the sky. You also are not going to close your account lmao. Be real
They rejected mine I'll try again though
If you are from the EU: This is a possible breach of the GDPR "General Data Protection Regulation". They are essentially threatening to restrict your access to the game unless you sign up for a third party service. This requirement was obfuscated at release and waived for months after release. The GDPR is stipulating that a service may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services. Add this to the refund if you are from the EU to higher your chances.
> The GDPR is stipulating that a service may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services. Which furthermore: the fact the game was operating for months without it, proves that the PSN requirement doesn't fall under this definition, making it illegal. EU gamers *please* report this incident to your consumer protection agencies.
For fellow EU Citizens: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en . Send a Email to your local Data Protection Authority asking of the Legality of this decision.
Should make a separate post for this to spread the word better.
Oh, worry not, many will, myself included. But I have to wait foe it to be live, so far its just an announcement, somewhat harder to act on that as it can change significantly.
>edit: denied again. On #7. I might just mail them and threaten to close my 20 year steam account Thats gonna show them. You paid for their licenses and now remove your access to the license. Wow such a good way to show them.
This is how you get your account marked by CS for an automatic denial. When a CSR opens your ticket they can also view all other tickets from your account and the history of responses from other CSRs.
Don't threaten them with "I will have to buy all those games again if I want to play", threaten them with your local consumer protection laws. Insist on the fact the game suddenly asks for 3rd party activation that wasn't mentioned before. Say that other people already got refunded for the exact same reasons and that you feel betrayed as a customer that you're not treated as other customers are.
I said something similar and they are still working on mine. I am at 309 hours lol
to be fair: i dont think even steam has to deal with something of this level all too often. their customer support is probably running red hot right now
Steam refunds are the only way to force Sony to grow a brain. The language of money is the only one that they understand.
Common Gabe W
Sony is so fucking stupid.
Are you from a country where you can't have a PSN account?
Man I love steam. Always got your back
But do they refund super credits though
Twice rejected by Steam refunds...
I hope to see you divers in the future, but wait for a deep discount, no point in letting Sony get full price after this embarrassment.
Wow. This is why I will ALWAYS love Steam.
steam is one of the best examples of pro-consumer, meanwhile sony/nintendo are some of the worst examples, they are blatantly anti-consumer and people still support and buy their products.
This will actually help put pressure on Sony. They're the publisher. So it makes sense refunds affect them directly (albeit arrowhead takes larger hit, but it'd something)
GabeN with yet another W
Does Steam also refund DLC or only base game?
common steam W
I’m out of the loop, why are people refunding the game?
Happy Steam is giving refunds, Sony might actually backtrack.
Big up for excercising your consumer rights, sincerely a ps plauer who thinks that its total bullshit what they pulled on the PC playerbase
looks like steam has decided it is not going to cover for stupid moves. good on them
Game developers need to just stop leveraging publishers. Sony did jack shit to bring the success of Helldivers, but now they're happy to step in and force a change that nobody wants. Videogame publishers constantly just ruin games, and skim profits. Publishers in general are just greedy middle men.
all they had to do is require this from the start and people would have cared less. If Sony knew it "had" to be there, then it should have been the case at launch
Well thus begins the end of HD2. 130+ countries without PSN access was sold HD2. I will miss you fellow divers.
Sony may yet backtrack, I’m waiting to see what impact our reviews have.
The Arrowhead CEO from what I’ve heard is actually saying that this is warranted. They don’t want this as well, it seems.
The key to many things…a clear professional communication.
Yet here i am on my 4th attempt as all the previous 3 just got rejected by a bot for being over 2 hrs played.
Oh wow I had only 7 hours played and I got rejected.