• DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Would be nice if devs today would still offer demos so that people can see if the games even run on their system.
    But I won't bother anyway. Buying the first game was such a mistake, same with Stellaris. I just can't afford this shit, spending hundreds of bucks on a single game. Video games become more and more an unaffordable luxury.

    • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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      1 year ago

      Would be nice if devs today would still offer demos so that people can see if the games even run on their system.

      The Steam refund policy pretty much serves this purpose nowadays. Since the refund is auto accepted if you have 2h or less in play time and bought the game less than two weeks ago. After that you still have good odds for a refund but you'll have to actually explain why you want one ("game gets too slow toward late game" would be a reason that would very likely get your refund granted)

      Nobody forces you to buy DLC either, there is plenty of content in the free updates. Plus there are always sales if you really want a DLC and from historical precedent Paradox offers decent discounts even on recent DLCs and massive discounts on older ones.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        When did they make it auto accepted? I had a refund denied after 15 minutes when I said it caused motion sickness

        • arin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think if you're within 2 weeks since purchase and within 2 hours of playtime it's auto accept

        • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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          1 year ago

          Completely forgot to answer your question… IIrc it was sometime after 2018, they lost a court battle in Australia and decided to adopt a slightly more lenient than required refund policy globally afterwards.

        • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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          1 year ago

          Not sure in your case but I'd guess it has been over 2 weeks since purchase. The auto accept part is literally stated in their refund policy:

          It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within the required return period, and, in the case of games, if the title has been played for less than two hours.

          As well as

          There are more details below, but even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can ask for a refund anyway and we’ll take a look. Consumers in some jurisdictions may have additional rights to a refund in circumstances where the game is faulty.

          which is ambiguous and, from my experience, is definitely applied when the time played exceeds 2 hours.

      • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The Steam refund policy is nothing but a fucking joke.
        A lot of games nowadays require stupidly long shader building already. Then you might even have to go through 5 hotfixes before the games run adequately, each one of course also requiring their own redoing of the shaders. By the time you actually got the game running and in a playable state you're typically well past the 2 hours. And games that straight up don't run properly, despite tinkering and a lot of work, are then still denied with idiotic automated messages, because no real person actually reads your pleas and explanations what you've spent your time "playing" actually with.

        Nobody forces you to buy DLC either, there is plenty of content in the free updates.

        lmao
        Get that head out of corporates asshole and then we can maybe talk again.

        Plus there are always sales if you really want a DLC and from historical precedent Paradox offers decent discounts even on recent DLCs and massive discounts on older ones.

        I already said that discounts are already factored into this. And Paradox doesn't go below I think it was like 50% discount for their shit anyway, so if you wait for a good deal, you'll wait practically forever. Meanwhile, the next game is already coming out while you try to scrape together the content for the previous one. It's a joke.

        • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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          1 year ago

          A lot of games nowadays require stupidly long shader building already. Then you might even have to go through 5 hotfixes before the games run adequately, each one of course also requiring their own redoing of the shaders. By the time you actually got the game running and in a playable state you’re typically well past the 2 hours. And games that straight up don’t run properly, despite tinkering and a lot of work, are then still denied with idiotic automated messages, because no real person actually reads your pleas and explanations what you’ve spent your time “playing” actually with.

          sure, if believing that that's what happened helps you cope, please go ahead.

          Get that head out of corporates asshole and then we can maybe talk again.

          I literally said "don't buy the dlc if you don't want to" how tf is that being stuck in a corporate asshole?

          And Paradox doesn’t go below I think it was like 50% discount for their shit anyway, so if you wait for a good deal, you’ll wait practically forever. Meanwhile, the next game is already coming out while you try to scrape together the content for the previous one

          Well first of all, you're wrong. Paradox does discounts up to 80% but those are mostly on the base games. And looking past that if you can't "scrape together" 100€, or even 200€ if we're being really generous to your idiotic claims, in 8 years I don't think the price of the game is the problem.

          Listen buddy, if you're this angry I think you should just go read a book. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything, if you think the price is too high then don't buy it. That simple.

          Although after reading the entire thing I think I know what's going on. Going by you complaining about the prices a lot and for some reason needing to manually apply hotfixes to games (I don't need to do that on linux ffs) I have a guess what's going on. Stop playing games on Windows 95 hardware

          • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            sure, if believing that that’s what happened helps you cope, please go ahead.

            lmao
            I believe it because that's literally what happened already. So the one coping here is apparently you as the little corporate shill trying to shun me for voicing my completely valid complaint, for "reasons".

            I literally said “don’t buy the dlc if you don’t want to” how tf is that being stuck in a corporate asshole?

            "afford to"
            Remember when you were able to buy complete games? But please, make even more excuses while the gaming market goes even more to shit.

            Well first of all, you’re wrong. Paradox does discounts up to 80% but those are mostly on the base games. And looking past that if you can’t “scrape together” 100€, or even 200€ if we’re being really generous to your idiotic claims, in 8 years I don’t think the price of the game is the problem.

            Yeah, at this stage you're just making shit up. I already proven that their major expansions don't go past the 50% mark. And yes, welcome to the world of poor people. If you think I can constantly shell out hundreds of bucks for games then you need a fucking reality check. That's literally weeks of groceries for me, literal survival.

            Listen buddy, if you’re this angry I think you should just go read a book. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything, if you think the price is too high then don’t buy it. That simple.

            Although after reading the entire thing I think I know what’s going on. Going by you complaining about the prices a lot and for some reason needing to manually apply hotfixes to games (I don’t need to do that on linux ffs) I have a guess what’s going on. Stop playing games on Windows 95 hardware

            And the mental gymnastics & thin veiled insults continue. Maybe go and troll somewhere else.

            • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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              1 year ago

              Remember when you were able to buy complete games?

              Remember when games were so complex you could run them on a calculator? Remember when "Free Content Update" didn't exist? When "Hotfix" was a bunch of patched files of questionable origin distributed on forums? Times change, development costs change. Are most gaming companies nickel and diming the customer? Absolutely. Does Paradox' DLC policy encourage their devs to salami slice deliver content? Also absolutely. Was Cities Skylines negatively impacted by that? Looking at how they sliced up the DLC so you could pick and choose, as well as the workshop being a thing: No, I don't think Cities Skylines was negatively impacted by it. The cosmetics DLCs were thematically self contained. The radio stations were for people willing to spend extra for little in return (sort of a donation). The major expansion were self contained in the feature sets, you don't need to buy any additional DLC to fully enjoy an expansion. Don't think you'll like the Campus DLC? No problem, you are losing nothing by not buying a game addition you don't like. Yes "addition". The base game was good when it released. The only problem with it today is that we know the DLC exists. The reference frames back then were: SimCity 2013 and SimCity 4 and Cities Skylines landed in between the two: Vastly Better Gameplay than SC2013 but worse than SC4. Vastly better graphics than SC4 but only on-par/worse (depending on who you ask) to SC2013. The game back then wasn't "incomplete". Nor do I expect this one to be. From what I can tell via Preview footage from the YouTubers it's a complete, self contained, product. There will be DLC but from the feeling I have right now, not because they intentionally made a core gameplay loop worse with the main goal of making it DLC content.

              I already proven that their major expansions don’t go past the 50% mark

              where? cuz last comment chain I checked you were full of bullshit with that claim. Although I'm sure you'll make up another one to "be in the right"

              constantly

              8 years

              uhuh

      • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Sales are already factored into this. I almost never buy anything that isn't 50-80 percent off, usually more towards the 80% mark.

        • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          How do you get into the hundreds then? Bought the base game and mass transit at full price and a few dlcs at sale and i'm at about 100 bucks. I'm not a fan of the paradox model aswell but you don't have make it worse than it is, you don't need the eifeltower and a new radio station to play a great game

          • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Pretty easy when you realize that Paradox max discount is 50%. So if you're at 400 bucks full price, then it's just a little bit of very simple maths to come out at 200. And that's for just one game. So we go from "unaffordable" to "still unaffordable". You're welcome.

            • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              That's just untrue base game was 30€ on launch iirc and i saw it below 6. Main Dlc's also went for 30 bucks so with 50% you can get 6 of them for below 100 thats basicly all the dlcs that matter for gameplay

              E: you also forgot to take stuff like the starter bundle into Account

              • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Wut?
                https://steamdb.info/app/715194/ 50%
                https://steamdb.info/app/614580/ 50%
                https://steamdb.info/app/547502/ 50%
                https://steamdb.info/app/420610/ 50%
                etc.

                But please, show me one major expansion that's been more than 50% off? Also, this would assume that everything would go 50% off, which isn't even true as many things have not been on sale at all, or only on tiny ones that don't affect the price much.

                And stop the "gameplay" argument, as if "cosmetic" content is irrelevant. It's an even dumber argument to make in a game that's literally all about building pretty cities, not that it is a good one in other games either.

                • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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                  1 year ago

                  one major expansion

                  here's three, two if you want to be pedantic about campus (who am I kidding, of course you will be)

                  https://steamdb.info/app/715191 60%

                  https://steamdb.info/app/369150 66%

                  https://steamdb.info/app/944071 60%

                  have not been on sale at all

                  The number of DLCs that have not been on sale can probably be counted on a single hand. I haven't checked through all of them but I only found 2 when looking at the 10 most recently released ones (you know, the ones least likely to get a sale)

                  And stop the “gameplay” argument, as if “cosmetic” content is irrelevant

                  It is a valid argument. You won't ever actually need most of the cosmetic packs, even if you do there is the workshop as a free alternative. And besides there are also the radio stations which don't even impact the look of your city and can be omitted entirely without losing anything of value.

                  • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    here’s three, two if you want to be pedantic about campus (who am I kidding, of course you will be)

                    Well lucky us, we can now shave a couple bucks off of the three digit price tag because two of them are 10% cheaper than I thought. I suddenly can now afford it all! Who would've thought? /s
                    The only one being pedantic here is you, thinking this would change anything about the point made. But thanks for the irony.

                    The number of DLCs that have not been on sale can probably be counted on a single hand.

                    Yeah, just like you can count the amount of discount on one hand.

                    It is a valid argument. You won’t ever actually need most of the cosmetic packs, even if you do there is the workshop as a free alternative.

                    Ah, the good old "the modders will fix it" argument to defend the actual developers & publishers continuing to do this shit.

                • knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  1 year ago

                  Ok keep being angry and keep your fomo for missing tiny bits behind a paywall, i will enjoy the base game a few handpicked dlcs and tons of mods.

                  Your claim was that Paradox max discount is 50% so have a look at cs1 base games and bundles.

                  • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    We're talking about their DLC. If your attention span loses contextually important information this quickly then you should simply not hold any sort of discussion with people at all. Same goes for your elitism / asocial tendencies.