Buggy games should be 100% allowed to be refunded.
I have no idea how many runs I started in BG3. Every few moments I report a bug. Every update the game seemingly gets worse. Decisions don't work, pathing is awful, after the latest update attacks no longer connect properly and my character claims not to be able to attack with a clear line of sight and so on. I have never finished the game, because by the time I reach Act 3, it just gets too much. I don't want to go into details, because, again, I reported tons of bugs. Steam refuses to refund me the money, even though the game is too buggy to complete. Sure, I can probably get to the credits, but the choices saved into the world aren't mine and the world didn't progress correctly. Multiple times I had dialogue not happen, end abruptly with no option to redo the line and rolling back save not fixing it. If you have no issues, I'm happy for you. But I'm tired. I just wanted to play my silly game and be happy, but instead I wasted 60 euros (actually 120, bought it twice, I'm a fool, don't want to elaborate on that) to work as a free QA and be treated like dirt. Fuck this.
What you're describing isn't real, but even if it was, it wouldn't warrant a refund. You can't play 100 hours then make up phantom bugs to get your money back.
I get that you‘re frustrated for more reasons than a freshly released game has bugs but this is literally the first time I hear of bg 3 being not completeable. What specs are you running on?
You can refund games for being buggy, you cannot however, play them for dozens of hours and then refund them. Steam's limit is two hours and two weeks.
Steam is known to be more generous about the rule if you have few refunds on your profile and a decent amount of purchases. Unfortunately the same can't be said for updates, even if the update makes the game unplayable.
If the automatic refund was rejected, you can ask for a manual review.
But if you've really started that many runs, and put in enough hours to get that far, don't be surprised if they deny a refund. You've already experienced most of the game. It's like going to a restaurant, tasting your meal, saying it's horrible, then continuing to eat it.
I requested a refund immediately upon realizing the game is too buggy for a proper playthrough. How is it my fault the game is longer than 2 hours so it doesn't go under the requirements? Besides, there's no request for manual review. All reviews are "manual", but they seldom if ever consider anything besides playtime, for examples look at the trend of running entire game and then refunding. I work professionally as QA, so to me this is plain bullshit. With the amount of time I spent reporting bugs, I should have a second salary, not money spent on a game I cannot even properly complete.
They're pretty lenient with refunds past two hours' playtime, if it's not that much more and you don't have a history of requesting refunds. I've been refunded for games after like four hours, but I've also only done maybe two refunds tops.
Have you consider sending your collection of ticket and professional bug reports to Latina and properly get a 2nd job and earn your justified income?
Granted I haven't finished my first run, but locking out contents/dialog/story path is part of the deal in crpg no? (Or, like if you killed some NPC and then later not be able to finish a side quest involving that dead guy is fairly normal.)
@Sprite@SheeEttin too buggy for a proper playthrough? I have like 300 hours. I don't know what you are doing that you can't play the game, but that is not the experience most people have.
If you'd not mentioned BG3 then more people would agree, but any game that is buggy should be refundable for sure and to say other wise is anti consumer
I’d probably love the tedium of being a QA tester. I’d be happy to switch careers and take your job if it probably didn’t imply a pretty hefty pay cut.
With such an attitude, I am looking forward to your next post where you whine about being fired after working so hard for these years and being so professional boo hoo why am I being fiired. Please, union, save my job.
Well, that's because one of your corporation's projects in another country that you have zero effect on earned a negative amount of money because of your fantasy and due to refund bombing. Instead of at least covering production costs, such losses would bury company after company all around the world until all of the game development switches to hyper-casual games. All because of toxicity you just made up. Think twice. Look further down your nose.
That's even not mentioning your professional mind deformation. You are not average. You should understand this. You see what others don't and this doesn't help you feel positive about products. You should be okay to feel bad about every single product, including your own.
In every interview, I ask QAs questions like your fantasy to find out whether the person is able to perceive different work aspects from a business perspective, not only a product perspective. This is very important to discover in an interview to filter the red flag attitude like this post of yours.
Sorry for the moral speech. It's just my day-to-day work pain. I wish you the best, OP.
I just wanted to comment to say that I find the game just as buggy as you say. I do think that some people are more sensitive than others. I’m playing couch coop and my gaming partner doesn’t notice any of the bugs until I call them out for him. Unless they are game breaking. Within 11 hours of play I have encountered 3 bugs that warranted a game restarts and countless other bugs that ranged from minor to frustrating.
This is typical larian though. Divinity 1 + 2 were the same for me. If anything this game is even buggier.
You say that rolling back to a previous save "didn't fix it"? Do you mean that the error happens every time you reload? How far back are you going in time?
Yes, the issues I encounter are 100% repro. I roll back to before the interaction that is broken at the time, but I had so many broken dialogues I'm too tired. My 2nd refund request was rejected by Steam, I wrote an email to Larian, albeit I fully doubt they will even respond, considering how much emails they get related to bugs. I'm currently sitting rewriting my CV. Some people may not understand, but I've spent my life in gaming, my work is literally being a gaming QA tester and I'm too tired.
I could see that being a bit of a struggle to implement in the case where games become buggy after updates like you mentioned but I do get what you mean and have a bit of respect for companies who will issue refunds after some kind of community feedback regardless of playtime. For example when some games took away native Linux support and issued refunds. Similar kind of thing.