Why can’t support offer refunds for broken items?

[Deconstructed]

You simply let your wallet do the talking. I walked away from the game for a very long time over issues with bait sites/feeders and the WRR crashes. EW has not seen any $ from me in quiet awhile. I am very happy to come back and recently see what seems like an improvement on the bait/feeder sites but WRR crashes are still there hoping they can get that under wraps so I can open the wallet back up and fully enjoy the game again (this guest status sucks )

[Leventthyen]

As Softshoe quoted, many players will want a refund, but most of them will never go through the trouble to prove they deserve something in return. Bong_Boy has gone through alot of effort to prove something he believes.
Obviously there is something wrong and I think at least a better response should be expected from EW.

[gas56]

@OP I don't have any problem with you having an extra HS of 52, or any other real or imagined(79? really EW? that's so bad) number. You obviously have a broken item and this isn't some fiendish plot you've devised to swindle them out of a whopping $6. I don't care if you killed a thousand things with it, it's obviously broken now. Ideally, they should figure out their game and fix it, but since that's not about to happen you should either a) have the .303 removed from your inventory and be refunded 600em$, OR b) simply be given 600em$.

I will no longer support this company until this is amended to Bong_Boy's liking.

Wouldn't the most rational thing to do ATM is Bongboy just re-install the game to see if it was caused on his end?
If this wouldn't work...... Then proceed by installing the same new gun for free, hell I have a bunch of the same guns and they do me no good to have copies.
and if the problem of the gun still had the problem with the gun animation,.. trade him a new weapon of his choice worth the same amount of $em that doesn't have a gun animation problem on his end, well I don't think EW will do that to be honest.
Until other players have the same problem it is only a technical problem on his end that EW can justify only on his end.
If the problem starts becoming a bug with other players than EW will have to look into it or fix it, if that turns out the case.
but ATM it seems not to be the case.

[J_Birdman]

He already tried your suggestion with no luck, I don't know why you keep belaboring that point. And by your logic, a person who buys something that's broken doesn't deserve a refund unless other customers' product are broken as well. That doesn't cut it at all, it doesn't matter how many are broken. Either they fix the item or they refund him his money, it's that simple. If you pay for something and it's broken by no fault of your own, you should be given a 100% refund or some such exchange that satisfies the customer. If EW can't figure out how to take away an item without affecting the whole kills/HS nonsense, then they should let him keep his broken weapon to use any way he pleases AND give him back the em$ he spent on it. If they CAN take the item away, and roll back his kills/HS, then they should take the item back, roll his kills/HS back, AND give him back the em$ he payed for it. It's really not that difficult to understand right from wrong here. If Bong_boy doesn't receive any compensation for his broken product it's called theft, and if I were EW I'd not only make him happy, I would overly compensate him for all this nonsense they've put him through.

[caledonianblues]

This is a tough one, as is the entire minefield that is game and software refunds. I fully understand the OP's desire for a refund. The evidence he provided supports the claim that the gun has an animation bug which, as far as we know, only he seems to be able to reproduce. Based on the evidence provided, you can understand why most people would argue that a refund is justified, and why the OP would have the expectation of a refund. However, being able to provide evidence of a bug is not always sufficient grounds for a refund. For example, I could tamper with my computer settings and very quickly induce crashing and all sorts of issues with theHunter, which nobody else would be experiencing. I could even provide evidence that the game fails to load, but it wouldn't justify a refund. I know the case in point is a little more specific than a generic problem running the game, but the principle is the same.

I think Steam has a very fair and reasonable policy on refunds; one which Expansive Worlds might consider adopting (at least a variation of it) in the future. Any customer can request a refund for any product within 14 days of purchase, provided the product has been used for less than 2 hours. Beyond that, requests can still be made, but they get looked at on a case-by-case basis. I know that can't possibly cover every situation, but it's a reasonable compromise. If a Steam customer updates their hardware or suddenly developes a complex hardware fault, installs software that interferes with the game in question, fails to update drivers or chooses to opt for beta drivers, is it really the responsibility of the vendor/game studio to refund the customer? Because you could argue that such a policy would enable anyone to get a refund for any game, at any point, regardless of time spent playing it or how long ago it was purchased.

Steam is a huge company and has the resources to cope with the inundation of refund requests that must be received daily. Expansive Worlds' support department would grind to a halt if a precedence of refunding em$ (or real money) when things don't work was set, and for that reason I understand their reluctance to create a rod for their own backs. I also know there are no admin tools to handle backward propagation with regards to statistics when an item such as a weapon is removed from an inventory. Removing duplicates is one thing but removing single items which have been used carries a risk of breaking referential integrity in the database, and the job of doing it manually is error-prone and just not viable. So, leaving the hunter score or rank points in place simply might not be an option without causing issues further down the line, even if everyone is fine with the OP keeping those points.

I would refund the em$ and let the OP keep the rifle, but I completely understand the can of worms that would be opened in doing so, and therefore I understand the approach support has taken.

[TheSheWolf]

I have 51 kills with the .303 British in the hunter that is one of my favourite rifles in real life and is frustrating as the one rifle I very much want to use can’t be used by me. I payed 600em for this gun. Since the 24th of December I have been having this bug that dose not let me aim down sights.

Purely out of interest, have you tried getting completely 'naked' with nothing else and seeing if you can shoot it? Maybe it's something you're wearing/have equipped.

I definitely think you should be getting more help/support/refunding than you're getting. These aren't physical items, I know there's the whole "slippery slope" argument but you clearly have an issue with the gun, and it's just a digital weapon. Customer satisfaction is worth a whole hell of a lot more than a $6 digital item. At this point, with how much hassle you've gone through, they should be refunding the weapon and giving you another for free + a whole damn clothing set.

[supercelldrw]

I hunt with bongboy everyday, it's legit, for EW not to care baffles me

[Bong_Boy]

one of the fourm mods were nice enough to help me in this situation. I appreciate all the different options in the community and everyone’s take on the situation. I would like to see a change in EW and there refund policy incase this happens to someone else in the future. Sure I might be the only one now but what if it happens with the next weapon you buy or something similar.

[stancomputerhunter]

I hunt with bongboy everyday, it's legit, for EW not to care baffles me

Maybe you are the problem..?? I'm just kidding...smile!

[gas56]

He already tried your suggestion with no luck, I don't know why you keep belaboring that point. And by your logic, a person who buys something that's broken doesn't deserve a refund unless other customers' product are broken as well. That doesn't cut it at all, it doesn't matter how many are broken. Either they fix the item or they refund him his money, it's that simple. If you pay for something and it's broken by no fault of your own, you should be given a 100% refund or some such exchange that satisfies the customer. If EW can't figure out how to take away an item without affecting the whole kills/HS nonsense, then they should let him keep his broken weapon to use any way he pleases AND give him back the em$ he spent on it. If they CAN take the item away, and roll back his kills/HS, then they should take the item back, roll his kills/HS back, AND give him back the em$ he payed for it. It's really not that difficult to understand right from wrong here. If Bong_boy doesn't receive any compensation for his broken product it's called theft, and if I were EW I'd not only make him happy, I would overly compensate him for all this nonsense they've put him through.

Well, looks like the thread got the attention of everyone didn't it?..........
You can't get down to the heart of the matter if you don't know everything that is being done.
The next step is I would have told him to verify his files on STEAM for theHunter games.
But it looks like he may not need no more help.