Refund

[joeypesci]

@Johnny Boy

@RVALLANT

Well there was quite a few when it came out.

Anyway, just don’t buy games off the net I guess. As far as I know every game has a return policy of a refund with the exception of PC games which, usually tend to be replacements only. I know my store down the road won’t even let you return it if you’ve opened it.

Ok, it’s quite simple - this entire post is about purchasing something with your parents or wife’s (or husbands) credit card without them knowing, but they found out. Huh? Am I right?

Despite all the fanboy replies I’m actually a 30 year old male, unemployed, who, on a sleepless night, while tied, tried out the demo. Then thought “What’s the point in carry on with the demo and getting into it if it’s gonna limit me in some way. Might aswell just buy it. Ooo look it’s only £12. enters details. WHAT! Bloody VAT it’s gone up to £14 now . Well sod it, lets do it anyway”.

Then plays a bit a realises its all so samey and thinks “Shit, that was a mistake. Ya never know, private developer, speaks lots on the forum, might actually, in good faith, give a refund”.

Nope, seems it’s not gonna happen and now all the fanboys are starting. Sod it, lets just put it down to experience on not to order things you can’t afford when tied

[Johnny_Boy]

@joeypesci

Despite all the fanboy replies I’m actually a 30 year old male, unemployed, who, on a sleepless night, while tied, tried out the demo. Then thought “What’s the point in carry on with the demo and getting into it if it’s gonna limit me in some way. Might aswell just buy it. Ooo look it’s only £12. enters details. WHAT! Bloody VAT it’s gone up to £14 now . Well sod it, lets do it anyway”.

Then plays a bit a realises its all so samey and thinks “Shit, that was a mistake. Ya never know, private developer, speaks lots on the forum, might actually, in good faith, give a refund”.

Nope, seems it’s not gonna happen and now all the fanboys are starting. Sod it, lets just put it down to experience on not to order things you can’t afford when tied

Ok, well that would have been my second guess.

Actually, it’s nothing against you, but I have worked in retail (everyone gasps in disbelief), and unfortunately I’ve seen people try to return and get refunds on articles and items which have been used and well worn when they should bloody well know better. You seem to be honest, however, after seeing people try to return things such as half a loaf of bread, worn underwear (skid-marks included), empty cartons of milk, etc. etc… Well you catch my drift, you tend to become skepticle of peoples intentions.

So again, didn’t mean to make it sound like an attack against you. I just think that most people will enjoy this game if they enjoy casual games and give it a chance. Especially if they enjoy casual simulation type games with a loose sense of strategy (the consiquences of your actions actually apply and it’s very interesting to discover the different outcomes).
At the same time, your opinion is valid and at the very least you have received replies from the developer because he does care about this game. I’m sure he wants people to whole heartedly enjoy the game, yet at the same time I’m sure he’s also aware that you can’t please everyone.

Lastly, fanboy is harsh and also politcally incorrect, it’s fan-person.
And besides I’m sure you’ll find the actual fanatical fans playing games such as “The Sims” because they don’t really have a life, they’d rather live in the binary realm.
(just kidding around)

Take care.

J.

[joeypesci]

I’ll give it to my sister, I’m sure she’ll like it.

[draggar]

@joeypesci

I’ll give it to my sister, I’m sure she’ll like it.

Not a bad solution. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.

[Rowne]

Okay, I would ask that anyone reading this post hears me out before posting rashly and only having read half of what I’ve said. This’ll get a bit multi-layered I suspect.

First of all, I felt I got my money’s worth out of the game. It’s an enjoyable little game and it does indeed have a lot to it. Moreover, I’m really quite impressed with the community here. There are a lot of intelligent folks around and we even have the developer himself listening, taking suggestions and noting bugs to fix. Do you have any idea how rare that is? I’m going to keep an eye on future Positech products for those reasons alone.

Now then, to shift gears, under normal circumstances, a refund would be possible, yes. There are trade laws which say that if a person isn’t satisfied with the goods they’ve received (which has nothing to do with defective goods), then they may return the goods, undamaged, to their store of origin for a replacement, an exchange or a refund.

However, these are anything but normal circumstances.

The game was bought online, asking for a refund is basically the same as asking for a free game. The laws don’t cover stuff like this and this would be something for a court to decide (no, I’m not suggesting you go to court). The reason for this is that you can’t “return” the goods. The goods stay with you regardless, you could keep them. There’s no way for cliff to ensure that you won’t keep the goods as pirated software after you’ve received a refund. That’s the catch 22 with downloadable software.

That’s why, if there’s a demo available you should always play the demo first, exhaustively.

Now Positech has been very good natured in this, I can’t really fault them. Their demo is fully featured and has a good number of turns. It’s easy enough to see a lot of the game by the demo alone by playing more efficiently within each allotment of turns or trying different things.

I don’t think that a refund is a really apt solution in this case because there is a demo available and there’s no way to return the goods so I think it would be unreasonable to ask. Though for future use, Cliff might want to put a ‘no refunds due to the nature of digital software’ notice (possibly in legalese) up on the site’s main page. That’d help avoid confusion like this in the future.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

[Dreamshifter]

@Rowne

That’s why, if there’s a demo available you should always play the demo first, exhaustively.

That’s a good theory, and something people should do anyway, but…

Sometimes the demo doesn’t leave you with a real impression of the game. This is especially true of time limited games, whether they stop after X turns, or after you’ve played for X minutes (or hours). Sometimes the game just doesn’t progress much after the demo ends, or it gets pointlessly complicated/annoying.

Note that I’m not saying that’s the case here, and I’m not saying that refunds should be given (as you say, it’s pretty much impossible to get a return from a purely digital product like this anyway), but that a demo isn’t a perfect way of finding out how fun a game really is. And reviews? I stopped listening to most of them years ago, since they are so biased towards the reviewer’s viewpoint that they really are only valid for the reviewer…

Just something to keep in mind, really. And as for the OP, hey, at least he came and tried, instead of just going out and telling everyone he can find online (and offline) what a terrible game it is. Can’t blame him for trying, no matter how slim (or non-existant) the chances of success are.

[Rowne]

That’s true, though Kudos is a success by its own merits. Having one person decrying it loudly wouldn’t go against the public opinion that it’s a good game. The thing is, it’s a strategy game and I don’t think that many people were expecting that. It’s much akin to Civilization and the way that plays, to some it is repetetive, to others it’s an absolute blast.

The thing is though that no one should make a digital purchase unless they’re absolutely sure of the game they’re buying. Though usually, due to the cheaper price and the ingenuity of the indie community, I find there are rarely any games I do want to return. There has only been one instance that I recall (I won’t cite it, I don’t want to make them unpopular) and that wasn’t because the game was bad but simply because it used Star-Force protection, they weren’t up-front about using that protection method and I can’t stand that stuff.

One idea I do have though …

Perhaps Cliff could organize free days. Say an event once every so often where a download is made available that can be played until the next day before it shuts down completely, so instead of being limited to a set number of turns, the player hast he full game at their disposal for an entire day. This has worked well for companies such as Valve, one would think their free Red Orchestra event would’ve curbed sales a bit, allowing people to get their fill without buying it but it seems it’s done just the opposite.

With the modding community available and all, Kudos is open to expansion so if a person likes the kind of game that Kudos is, they’ll likely want to play it for more than just a day (I know I did). So that’s just an idea, I’m not saying it’s a great idea but it’s an idea that could work and would offset the ‘limited turns’ demo well. However, I’m not sure whether this is really a viable idea considering that Cliff developed Kudos himself and it would be time taken out of his schedule to release demos like this. Stuff to ponder, regardless.

So in closing, I’m not saying that a demo is the perfect way to handle promoting a digital product but if it isn’t, people need to talk about what is and make suggestions, like this. It’s no help to decry something and not suggest something that would work better. Also, the demo not being suitable is no excuse for a person ever going into a monetary exchange without knowing what they’re doing. Not every trade exchange works like standard consumer wares from shops do and this is knowledge people need to have.

As I said, I got burned once with a Star-Force infected product, since then I’ve made it my duty to know what I’m getting into, thouroughly, beforehand.