[rickosborne]

> On Steam if you don't like a game, or if it doesn't work for you, you can get a full refund no questions asked as long as it's within 14 days and with less than 2 hours playtime.

There's a hole here: that 14 days is from time of _purchase_ not _access_.

I preordered _Humankind_ a month or two before launch, because it was listed as supporting MacOS. At launch, it didn't. It didn't get Mac support until 3 weeks later, even though that functionality was barely alpha quality with huge graphics and playability bugs. (Even today, months later, Mac support is barely at beta quality. And if you're on M1 you've got to manually configure the app for being run on Rosetta.)

I waited 12 days after launch before giving up and requesting a refund. That refund was denied, because they had taken my money months before. Steam support was unmoved by my assertion that the developer was flat out lying about Mac playability, and that I literally had no way of playing the game as advertised.

Be careful with your preorders, y'all.

[gamblor956]

That doesn't sound right. I've pre-ordered a game via Steam and gotten it refunded after launch many months later. For pre-orders, the refund clock starts ticking at launch...unless the game includes early access.

[rickosborne]

It's been a few months, so I went back and checked my story. I definitely never did get the refund, but maybe I was misremembering things. There's one extra piece I had forgotten: the split "release" of the Mac version.

tl;dr: Steam didn't know anything about the devs releasing the Mac version late, so the "14 days from release" didn't line up with my expectation of "14 days from access".

Details for posterity:

The game was set to launch on Aug 17. On Aug 3, the team included a footnote at the bottom of a news announcement which said Mac would be delayed by "about a month":

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1124300/announcements/detai...

(There was also a pinned discussion topic about this at the time, which has since been de-pinned. It didn't have any more details than "see the announcement".)

A month later, on Sep 15, a beta for Mac was announced:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1124300/announcements/detai...

Another month later, on Oct 21, Mac support was still in Beta, and M1 was still TBD:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1124300/announcements/detai...

If you want to see the dumpster fire of poor communication and frustrated customers at the time:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1124300/discussions/search/?q...

I asked for a refund on Sept 11, some 4 days before the beta announcement, and was denied the same day. I followed up via email for details, but was basically told the same "nope, it's been out too long" story in longer form. (At the time, there had been _zero_ word from the devs about Mac support, despite the initial "about a month" estimate, so I lost hope it would happen in anything like a timely manner.)

It looks like people were able to get refunds later that month specifically due to the lack of M1 support:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1124300/discussions/0/2963922...

I guess I happened to fall right into that dead zone between everyone wanting to believe the devs were running just a little behind, and people at Steam realizing there was a legitimate problem. I was cranky about it at the time, but months later I get that there was probably not going to be any other outcome. I certainly don't ascribe any malice, nefarious plotting, or ill intent on the part of Steam or the devs ... but nor would I say that I think either responded in the interests of the customers.

If I could get Steam to improve from this I'd love for them to track platform-specific release dates, and be more strict about developers claiming support for platforms which don't actually run the game ... but I'm not going to hold my breath.

As for myself ... as much as I believe in the idea that preorders can be used to help fund games, and help keep devs employed by not reinforcing the cycle of crunch-then-layoff, I admit this experience (and other preorders-go-sideways experiences like Homeworld 3, FF7R) has kindof soured me on it. It's fine as an abstract concept, but it's at odds with the reality of date-driven releases (as opposed to quality-driven). These days I'm more likely to just add something to my wishlist and check back some time after release day to see if there are any dumpster fires.

[Sverigevader]

>Refunds on Pre-Purchased Titles

>When you pre-purchase a title on Steam (and have paid for the title in advance), you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title. The standard 14-day/two-hour refund period also applies, starting on the game’s release date.[1]

I'm not going to debate you on the importance of being careful with preorders, especially outside of Steam, but this is the case as it stands right now.

I do however remember reading something like your scenario a long while ago, perhaps even so far back as to the beginning of Steam Refunds.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/