How do i get a refund for the game?

zombieapocalypse

zombieapocalypse
BigBANGtheory [VR] said:
I'm sure they are talking about in reference to Horizons.

So yes you could say 'you paid for Horizons (or the base game) and you got that' from a pure product contract PoV. However it wasn't really sold like that was it so there is a case of false advertising i.e. you buy the base game with a very reasonable expectation for support in future updates and expansions.
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There is literally no case for false advertising. Console owners paid for a game, which they received and they did get updates for many years, and they will still be able to continue playing that game for some time.

A game developer is under no legal obligation to continue supporting a game indefinitely, in fact, some live games have shut down after just a year or two. Besides, how would you define in law what is a reasonable amount of time to continue supporting a game? And should that expand beyond the lifetime of the platform - the new generation of consoles has already been out for a year?

That's not to say that I don't sympathise with console players, but that's the reality of the situation.
 

Rainbro

Rainbro
zombieapocalypse said:
A game developer is under no legal obligation to continue supporting a game indefinitely, in fact, some live games have shut down after just a year or two. Besides, how would you define in law what is a reasonable amount of time to continue supporting a game? And should that expand beyond the lifetime of the platform - the new generation of consoles has already been out for a year?

That's not to say that I don't sympathise with console players, but that's the reality of the situation.
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This is a major problem with games as a service, but the most appealing option I've heard is just...don't kill the game when you drop support for it. Run the game however you want and for however long you want, but once you're done, make sure the community has a way to keep going on their own if they wish. Doesn't have to be easy, but there should be a way for people to spin up their own servers to allow themselves and others to use what they paid for.

This doesn't really apply to the current situation with consoles, but when the game as a whole goes down, we can have faith in Lord Braben who did say that such a thing would happen.
 

zombieapocalypse

zombieapocalypse
Rainbro said:
This is a major problem with games as a service, but the most appealing option I've heard is just...don't kill the game when you drop support for it. Run the game however you want and for however long you want, but once you're done, make sure the community has a way to keep going on their own if they wish. Doesn't have to be easy, but there should be a way for people to spin up their own servers to allow themselves and others to use what they paid for.

This doesn't really apply to the current situation with consoles, but when the game as a whole goes down, we can have faith in Lord Braben who did say that such a thing would happen.
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That definitely happens for some games. When EA shut down the servers for some of the old Battlefield games, like BF2, fans set up their own community server system and you can still play it today. Same with Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Enemy Territory.

FDev could certainly soften the blow by offering all console players a free copy of the PC version of Horizons and by finding a way to do a full Commander transfer.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
How many games that you have played, that were either no longer developed or only have critical updates, have you been able to get a refund from the vendor, OP?

Sad blow that EDO isn't being ported to any version of consoles, it is true, but Horizons will continue to be playable on consoles until Frontier pull the plug on it, there was never any obligation for them to provide further expansions, they wanted to, they failed, but, for now at least, the game you purchased remains.
 

Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
Depends on how many hours you've played the game. I've seen people with 1800 hours demanding a refund and I'm thinking, you've had 1800 hours of entertainment for £40, that's 2.22p per hour.

The thing is that they're not shutting the servers down, so the game is not going away for consoles. It's not getting any more content. It's like any open world game now where you simply run out of things to do.
 

Zak Gordon

Zak Gordon
FlyingBrick said:
FD must not only return the money for the game, but pay for every hour spent in the game, since the time was wasted. And maybe pay for the treatment of hemorrhoids, which arose due to the inability to get up from the chair for several years.
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And i don't know about the rest of you but i refuse to work for anything under £20 per hour, so in terms of 'time wasted' i could be in for a decent paycheck from Frontier 💰




Edit: This IS a joke, just in case it is not obvious.
 

Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
Refunds are obviously a non-starter, as I'm sure many if not most of the people demanding them will realise once the dust settles. But I understand the place they're coming from.

I'm not a console player, although if had something more modern than an OG Wii hooked up to the big TV downstairs I might have bought a copy of ED for it by now and I'd probably be feeling fairly aggrieved this week. Not so much for the decision, which many had been predicting for a while now, but for the way in which it was communicated.

I know PR is difficult, and it's impossible to please everyone. And I appreciate that there's a whole range of presentation options from a short and brutal "it's over" announcement to a full-blown heart-wrenching mealy-mouthed apology that's likely to project about as much sincerity as a manifesto pledge. But if anything this announcement managed fall between two stools, its length suggesting hope for continued long-term study but its content ultimately being little more than a glorified mid-finger to the console community, particularly those who have been predicting this for months while receiving implicit assurances that it was still being worked on.

Perhaps to some degree it was, but I find it hard to believe that the decision to abandon the effort only became clear at the eleventh hour. My feeling is that the development team will have known for a while that the writing was on the wall, and that the choice of how and when to announce was 100% corporate. I am open to a change of opinion, but the argument will have to be very persuasive.

For heaven's sake even the title of the announcement -- Odyssey Console Development Update -- implies a continuation of a process rather than a termination, and it's only when you get to the second sentence of paragraph two that the sucker punch lands. It's almost as though it was designed to lift the readers' spirits slightly before stomping them into the ground. It's bordering on linguistic sadism.

I'm reminded of the story, possibly apocryphal, of the café whose chalk board read, "Today's special - no ice cream." Technically accurate, but there are much better ways of letting down the punters.
 

DemiserofD

D
Jack Schitt said:
Refunds are obviously a non-starter, as I'm sure many if not most of the people demanding them will realise once the dust settles. But I understand the place they're coming from.

I'm not a console player, although if had something more modern than an OG Wii hooked up to the big TV downstairs I might have bought a copy of ED for it by now and I'd probably be feeling fairly aggrieved this week. Not so much for the decision, which many had been predicting for a while now, but for the way in which it was communicated.

I know PR is difficult, and it's impossible to please everyone. And I appreciate that there's a whole range of presentation options from a short and brutal "it's over" announcement to a full-blown heart-wrenching mealy-mouthed apology that's likely to project about as much sincerity as a manifesto pledge. But if anything this announcement managed fall between two stools, its length suggesting hope for continued long-term study but its content ultimately being little more than a glorified mid-finger to the console community, particularly those who have been predicting this for months while receiving implicit assurances that it was still being worked on.

Perhaps to some degree it was, but I find it hard to believe that the decision to abandon the effort only became clear at the eleventh hour. My feeling is that the development team will have known for a while that the writing was on the wall, and that the choice of how and when to announce was 100% corporate. I am open to a change of opinion, but the argument will have to be very persuasive.

For heaven's sake even the title of the announcement -- Odyssey Console Development Update -- implies a continuation of a process rather than a termination, and it's only when you get to the second sentence of paragraph two that the sucker punch lands. It's almost as though it was designed to lift the readers' spirits slightly before stomping them into the ground. It's bordering on linguistic sadism.

I'm reminded of the story, possibly apocryphal, of the café whose chalk board read, "Today's special - no ice cream." Technically accurate, but there are much better ways of letting down the punters.
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Lol, yes, I had the same exact response. It seems like a very bizarre and unemotional way of announcing such a thing.

Honestly, it kind of feels like a calculated move; Yes, everyone will be ed off in the short-term, but if they can shove it under the rug, throw out some good updates for Odyssey, and try to get people to forget about it, then in a few months, when people are looking back, they will see the bland title and assume it was just another meaningless update, and all the rage will be forgotten, hidden beneath a gravestone so unassuming no one bothers to dig it up.
 

Darth Wonko

Darth Wonko
DemiserofD said:
Lol, yes, I had the same exact response. It seems like a very bizarre and unemotional way of announcing such a thing.

Honestly, it kind of feels like a calculated move; Yes, everyone will be ed off in the short-term, but if they can shove it under the rug, throw out some good updates for Odyssey, and try to get people to forget about it, then in a few months, when people are looking back, they will see the bland title and assume it was just another meaningless update, and all the rage will be forgotten, hidden beneath a gravestone so unassuming no one bothers to dig it up.
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Who digs up a gravestone?
 

ubermick

ubermick
Phoenix_Dfire said:
Depends on how many hours you've played the game. I've seen people with 1800 hours demanding a refund and I'm thinking, you've had 1800 hours of entertainment for £40, that's 2.22p per hour.

The thing is that they're not shutting the servers down, so the game is not going away for consoles. It's not getting any more content. It's like any open world game now where you simply run out of things to do.
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Your common sense is not welcome her, Col. The forums are still very much in the "anger" stage of grief, with "bargaining" beginning to appear in small pockets. It'll be next week at the earliest before we see depression. God knows when acceptance will set it. Perhaps never. (And perhaps it shouldn't)
 

gorankar

gorankar
Full save and cosmetics transfers to the PC version would be fair imo. Maybe a discount on the PC version might be well received. Free copies of the game is asking a bit much though.
 

CMDR Serra

CMDR Serra
FlyingBrick said:
FD must not only return the money for the game, but pay for every hour spent in the game, since the time was wasted. And maybe pay for the treatment of hemorrhoids, which arose due to the inability to get up from the chair for several years.
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If FDev are paying us back for wasted time then I could list a few threads on here I need reimbursed for.
 

ubermick

ubermick
Jack Schitt said:
Perhaps to some degree it was, but I find it hard to believe that the decision to abandon the effort only became clear at the eleventh hour. My feeling is that the development team will have known for a while that the writing was on the wall, and that the choice of how and when to announce was 100% corporate. I am open to a change of opinion, but the argument will have to be very persuasive.
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There's absolutely no denying the PR gaffe in all this, but in terms of development, Kay Ross on Twitter yesterday said that at the time of her leaving in October, "there was continuing efforts across multiple departments to optimise and eventually release on console" and that the decision to bin it off came as a shock to her. Even Sally seemed floored by it as well, tweeting from her mission battling her final boss.

My guess is that the rumour of it being discontinued started floating around their offices around Christmas - there was a midyear earnings report blaming the free support and updates as being a reason for the downtick in revenue that came out around that time - and that's why Arf and the CMs went radio silent, with the "we're seeking clarification on some stuff" before they resumed streams and the like. Given the fact that the chat on every stream was filled with "Odyssey on consoles when?" I can understand why they'd do that now.
 
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