Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
F2P purchases get nerfed or drastically changed...
Vermillion_Raventhal
Member EpicPosts: 4,198
should you be able to get a refund(free respec if it applies) for what you buy or it is it tough luck?
I buy a pretty pony and for some reason the game find it's ability to be too powerful. Should I automatically be open to a refund?
If I buy a class and the class is nerfed suddenly should I be able to get a refund on the class I bought?
Comments
You actually do not own any of virtual in-game goods that you purchase with real money.
There is a good side to this though: the government can not tax you based on virtual property (because you do not actually own it).
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Yet. Just wait until life time gamers go into politics and decide to extract taxes from game transactions.
Well, you can tax the transaction just like you can tax a transaction from renting a movie/game from Blockbuster. However, the person who rented the movie/game does not own it: you can not count the movie/game as their property.
This is also why you would have a hard time winning a court case against a company that banned your account.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Thanks I wanted this virtual hug. Want to hold hands and walk around mmorpg.com?
I look at subs as access to games like if I was paying a monthly fee to hulu or netflix.
If I buy a movie from Xbox Live and they swap the normal version in place of the extended version I had I would expect a refund.
It's not a perfect analogy but I do think it makes a things a bit more tricker with F2P. F2P is all about perm(until servers are brought down or banned) access with microtransactions on selected content vs. temporary full content(in most cases) access paid month to month.
Depends on the circumstances surrounding the purchase. If you purchase a class, and the class is nerfed, then no. Classes get nerfed and buffed all the time, it's part of the ongoing development cycle. Also, if you bought a class strictly because it is / was overpowered, then common sense (rare as though it may b e these days) should tell anyone but a complete MMORPG newbie that it will be nerfed eventually.
The only way I think a refund would be appropriate is if either the entire class mechanic changed (such as changing a class from a ranged DPS to a melee tank / healer hybrid), or in the case of a cosmetic item, a redesign which is completely alien to how it looked upon purchase.
Other than that, it's caveat emptor. Don't buy items / classes which are widely known to be overpowered, because the nerf hammer will come down eventually.
It's a sad day indeed when a family is too afraid of reprisals to publicly thank somebody for saving their lives.
Maybe you do know the answer to your own question and again you just popped a post up here for some general human interaction. But in case your serious, I'll jump right to end game for you which should paint a fairly clear picture.
If a F2P game shuts down are they required to refund everyone for the cash shop purchases that were made for Virtual items?
This will allow you to answer yours and my question using the same obvious answer.
But the OP asked if you "should" get a refund, not whether you will or not.
A little reading comprehension can go a long way towards clearer and more precise communication.
One can easily argue that in the interest of fairness you should get one. But we know that's not how the world works.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That's not the same thing. Closing is not the same as no providing the same service while still operating. If I bought life time seating for a football team and then I got a pole placed in front of my seat I would expect a refund of some sort. If the team no longer played then I got my service for the life of the team pretty much.
These are ways to fail at running a game, because while the dev can say all these things to you and be right....
Do I ever have to buy anything from them again ?
They need you as much as you need them. Someone willing to buy something from you once is part of the 4 or 5% of paying f2p players. Piss them off with that type of attitude and they'll never buy from you again. Be respectful to them and they'll stay a customer.
In the OPs example of the mount getting changed they should offer you a refund and let you decide if you want to buy it back. A class is a bit more complex. They aren't just a simple accessory and people should know they are often subject to changes. It becomes pretty subjective in that example.
My view of the F2P worded into this question... is no different than if you paid a box price and a monthly subscription. No matter how you look at it you paid something at some point so the "F2P" part doesn't really matter...
In all cases they have that text either in plain sight or hidden (depending on company) that says "subject to change" ...
You'd have to like pre order an expansion that promised an item for a class the company knew it was going to remove (or the ability) and since it would happen at the same time as the expac went live... it would be false advertising... that's happened once in the industry that I know of and refunds were given. Just buying something and having it change later.. really hasn't worked well for refunds that I'm aware of. Unless you have a credit card with some special buyer protection but backcharges usually end with banned accounts as well.
In the end, these games are just databases, just 0s being turned into 1s and the game is just a shell around the database to make you care about whether a number somewhere in the database is a 0 or a 1. What's the best way to get you to pay to flip more 0s into 1s? Is it to offer you a refund if you are scared that your 1s are not being well-treated? Or to sadly inform of just how hard it is to flip a bit and thus how important your money is to the bit-flipping cause?
Right, but even when you buy a movie on XBox you are still only paying for access to it. If you end up getting your account banned you lose access to it. You never actually OWN the movie.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
I never owned a stadium or the seat of the basketball or football game but I assume that you have a right to refund in some cases. I think some of this just because it's digital you don't own it stuff is a lot of bull game companies come up with and law makers don't understand. Except of course when someone is pirating their digital property.
Right, but could you buy a ticket for a seat at a game, watch the game, and then refund the ticket?
It really all depends on the company, but at this current junction in time companies are not obligated to give you a refund: just like a company that sells you tickets to a game is not obligated to give you a refund.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Their liability is exactly the same in both scenarios. Don't compare the examples compare the outcome.
Hmm I pay for a service or item that gets radically changed in digital world you deal with it. If I pay for a service in the real world and you have far more options.
I seriously doubt if they installed a pole in front of your seats they wouldn't give you a refund from a sporting event if you have prepaid. Likelihood of getting a refund on a changed item in a game is 0 to none.
My friend, stop using examples that don't apply to online gaming. You don't own ANYTHING in an MMO nothing, zilch, nada, you are only using the service and the items as long as they are available and in whatever state they choose to allow you to use them in which will change CONSTANTLY.
All this is clearly defined in the EULA. Its really a pretty straight forward transaction.
edit: And highly risky I might add........
That's a really difficult question, and it's the type of thing that would have to be looked at on a case by case basis. More than likely, in a case where the value of a purchased item is perceived to be lowered by a subsequent change, the developer would have some kind of compensation for it. Some ways to do that are providing different benefits, refunding a portion of the RMT currency, or giving something extra to those that bought it.
Recently Dragon's Prophet dropped the price of the VIP packages and compensated the previous buyers with Station Cash.
The only particular incident I can think of right now where an actual virtual item got nerfed after release (although there have been several) was the Diner loot card for SWG. The TCG card packs sometimes had bonus cards that gave you in-game items for SWG. One was a Diner that gave you +5 to certain aspects of crafting. On the test server they pulled that the bonus on the Diner card (you still got the Diner) and that created a significant uproar in the community, primarily among those that were buying the card packs not for the card game but for a chance at in-game items for SWG. I believe the outcome was that the change never went live, but one of our resident SWG fans probably knows more about how it ended than I.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I agree it's a tricky subject, in some situations i think it's reasonable to ask for a refund (expecting an extended version of a movie as advertised) but when you play a game you know is subject to periodic changes (patches etc. We all like to see, and sometimes don't want) I don't think it's reasonable to ask for a refund because you knew of the fact that there are periodic patches coming, especially when the content of those patches is being published upfront, as most MMO's do. But if you buy a product, even when you don't own it, and you don't get the product you payed for, ok, refund could be reasonable... And I don't think it's reasonable if the product you bought and got is changed because of a game-patch. Those are part of the MMO-package imho because they also a part of making the game better we all want (although they can not make everybody happy).
If you pre-pay a ticket for a sporting event and for some reason none of the stars are playing (maybe they already qualified for the post-season and they are resting players) they don't give you a refund, even though what you are getting to watch is very different than what you thought it would be. They have nerfed their team to rest players, and no, you won't get a refund.