You can demand whatever you want, that doesn't mean you are automatically granted a refund.
You can demand whatever you want, that doesn't mean you are automatically granted a refund.
A perfectly defendable statement on it's own. As are most of their statements. It's when you start looking at them all together that things might get different.
Saying the game runs surprisingly well on last gen was, as you've said, an incredibly silly lie to say. One that overinflated the company's stocks. Then follow it with another really silly lie. One that, assuming it is a lie, was said at a time when the company's stock were plummeting. Now it's starting to look like a pattern of knowingly misleading investors to generate investments.
It's not unheard of but it's a dangerous game to play and one that can ruin you.
Plus, you yourself said that you don't think the refunds are in the millions. If they aren't, there is no doubt that 13 million copies sold figure is true at this point.
It's much cheaper to refund than face chargebacks which below $100 are nearly universally approved by default.
If CDPR doesn't offer refunds chargebacks would mean they'll have to pay fees twice, a transaction fee and a chargeback fee, a chargeback fee is pretty steep (so are transaction fees on digital goods) which is why some store like the Epic store give sellers a huge "discount" if they assume the processing responsibility.
The Epic store has 2 fee structures, 25% when Epic is handling the transaction, and 12% when the seller assumes the fees.
With digital goods direct card transaction fees can be well over 5% on a $60 transaction and chargeback fees that can go as high as 20% on a $60 transaction this could mean that CDPR will have to pay as much as $15 or more for each sale that was chargedback.
Keep in mind that refunds still incur a transaction fee, depending on their payment processor they maybe only liable for the base fee which for a provider like Stripe is around 30 cents + exchange/interchange fees if the transaction requires settlement in different currencies and cross payment networks. So best case scenario they only lose 0.5-1% those $60, worse case they'll have to eat ~5% when issuing a refund.
That is for games sold directly by CDPR on GoG assuming there are no additional CoS externalities and fees, for sales on other platforms the cost of refunds could be much higher.
Technically that's false, at least on GOG.
I'm not 100% clear what GOGs policy on preorders is, they explicitly state that their refund policy is based around the technical issues with the game, rather than what the game is or isn't. So, in theory at least, asking for a refund on the grounds that "it's not what I expected" might be met with a "no".
I think pre-orders are handled differently (since technically one cannot realistically know what a game will turn out to be when pre-ordering)...? But, honestly, no clue on that one.
It doesn't matter what GoGs refund policy is, what matters is the consumer protection laws in countries where GoG is available, and what additional protection the card issuer offers. If you accept payment cards as a seller you accept the fees and contractual requirements the card issuer enforces this is why for example Amex isn't as widely accepted as say VISA their fees are pretty steep and they have a much more consumer friendly chargeback policy than VISA.
At the end of the day if they fail to issue refunds they are at risk of facing chargeback claims and chargeback claims would be extremely costly to them as they face losing as much as $20 in fees for each chargeback that is approved. If they face a swath of chargebacks the card issuer can also extend additional penalties on the seller, technically since most sellers would use a payment processor it's going to get smacked by the card issuers but they will transfer that pain onto the seller pretty quickly.
This is one of the reasons why there aren't many payment processors willing to work with porn/adult content it's rife with chargebacks due to people getting caught and embarrassed as well as quite a bit of messy social/political pressure from various groups. Even PornHub got spanked by VISA and MC.
Its a falsely advertised product. If someone told you they will sell you a car that goes 0-60mph in 3 sec but only does it in 7 sec, wouldn't you want to return it?
trust me, nobody hates this game more than I do. the story is trash, and decisions dont matter and very few of them anwyays and there are no real RPG mechanics. but i dont think refunding is the answer.
If the corporations do not fear refund and loosing money, they will continue to put out half baked products
I had an email a week ago telling me this.
As our service is currently extremely overwhelmed - with an ongoing, unprecedented volume of incoming requests, many times higher than ever before - this will help us provide support to Users that still need it. If that is you, we kindly ask for your patience - our agents will get back to you as soon as possible.
We are also working on making sure we will be able to offer Winter Sale discounts to those that we couldn't have helped during the promo period. Please also rest assured that if you requested a refund within 30 days from purchase, no matter if our Support gets back to you after that period passes, you are still eligible for a refund.
This is an automated message.
As our service is currently extremely overwhelmed - with an ongoing, unprecedented volume of incoming requests, many times higher than ever before - this will help us provide support to Users that still need it. If that is you, we kindly ask for your patience - our agents will get back to you as soon as possible.
We are also working on making sure we will be able to offer Winter Sale discounts to those that we couldn't have helped during the promo period. Please also rest assured that if you requested a refund within 30 days from purchase, no matter if our Support gets back to you after that period passes, you are still eligible for a refund.
This is an automated message.
First, the game does not run on pc for me playable and textures not loading, looking like sh*t(blurry, grainy, hazy).
Secondly, for some people 60$ its a lot of money. Not everybody lives in Western Europe or USA.
What kind of argument is that even supposed to be?
Like - I refunded based on principle alone. I got an unfinished and buggy product. Like, I would have refunded even if it cost half the price!