"YOU UNDERSTAND AND HEREBY AGREE THAT YOU HEREBY WAIVE THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL"
I thought bullshit like that got superseded by actual real law, or does the US have some batshit insane law that allows for things like this?
We are bank giving you a loan of Three Fiddy.
If you don't pay back within 5 seconds, we send muscle to your home to extort it out of you.
YOU UNDERSTAND AND HEREBY AGREE THAT YOU HEREBY WAIVE THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL
Sign Here: ✓
In Europe anything in a ToS or EULA that says "You agree to give up your right to x." are pretty much ignored in court under the reasoning of "You can't sign away your rights."
In America they take a stance more like "You had a chance to read this shit before hand, deal with it." Which doesn't work too well when the ToS is updated and applied to you without your agreement.
Why would you invest that much? Especially that early?
I'm wondering how long it takes for someone to come in with the 'vaporware' comment, despite it being completely untrue.
Because they think they're buying a product and just have to wait a little while for it to get delivered.
I believe pre-order culture is one of the many reasons that crowdfunding videogames became a thing.
For the record: they are no longer offering refunds to people who backed the game 3 years ago & decided they want their money back. They will still refund you within 2 weeks like any other platform, the terms are more forgiving than Steam’s.
Literally no other platform or product would let you have a refund after using it for multiple months/years.
I am glad I was able to get a refund last year. I backed this game from the very start (gold ticket nonesense and all). Delay after delay, uncontrolled feature creep and drastic game-play changes is what ultimately "killed" the game for me. I still hope the game turns out well enough though. Whether or not I'll buy it depends on what the end product is because at this point, I don't think RSI even knows what that will be either.
That's fine. But IMO if you give someone money to help them make something, whether you get that money back if you ask for it 4 years later is up to them, not you.
As much as I don't agree with them removing the option to refund your purchases, you're a fucking idiot for spending this amount on an unreleased game that's been in development for years, you're enabling them to do this shit.
Like someone said in the comments.
If you hand over $4,500 for a game you don’t need legal help, you need mental help.
I'm actually perfectly fine with that. It's a backed project, obviously its not some pre-order or actual project. It's ultimately all a gamble. You either get it or don't, plain and simple. When I put in the submission for refund, I honestly expected to get denied due to the time frame. I was genually surprised when a few weeks later, they sent the confirmation email. My literal thought process at the time was "it would not hurt to try and put in a request. If it happens, neat, if not, I just need to be more cautious of kickstarters".
Welcome to America, where consumer protections are nearly nonexistant because MUH FREE MARKET.
It's something a lot of people really don't understand. They just view it as pre-ordering, which means when a lot of kickstarter projects start to go bad they 'demand' a refund because they won't get the game. People don't take this stance with early access games, which i find odd. I don't think i've seen anyone go "__ early access game isn't done, so therefore you've actually given me nothing"; you're paying to be able to get access to the game before release and get a look at the development, not simply buying a finished game....the finished game is the one thing you actually aren't buying because it might not even get finished.
Reading some posts on this topic elsewhere the "The game isn't done, so i haven't got my product" aspect factors into this lawsuit so again taking the view that it's just pre-ordering, but the judge agreed that enough of the contract was fulfilled:
<div class="reddit-embed" data-embed-media="www.redditmedia.com" data-embed-parent="false" data-embed-live="false" data-embed-uuid="a2a10518-8a1c-45e3-ad4c-60062738630a" data-embed-created="2018-07-18T13:02:23.415Z"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/8ynrel/i_lost_in_court/e2dqgrm/">Comment</a> from discussion <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/8ynrel/i_lost_in_court/">I lost in court.</a>.</div><script async src="https://www.redditstatic.com/comment-embed.js"></script>
By being provided access to the game - even if it's not the finished game - you've been given what you paid for, as you weren't buying just the finished thing. When you back a crowd-funded game, you're entering a contract where you agree that you might get nothing at all, there might be delays, things might go wrong etc and that by pledging you're perfectly fine with that possibility. You're explicitly told that you might not get anything, if you aren't happy with that idea don't say you are by backing it.
Apparently during the suit CiG gave the analogy of donating to build a church (A church is a building that donating towards isn't going to be strange, it's not like you'd donate for a new office building or something...but of course, I've seen people elsewhere are using their comparison try to make them look bad) and that's a good comparison to crowd-funding - you wouldn't voluntarily give money to a project that hopes to build a church and then demand your money back when something goes wrong, you've willingly given it away to be used towards that thing.
What i find the strangest about this situation is that this person is physically unable to play FPS-style games, i can perfectly understand why he'd want a refund...but why would he then give them $4500 for a game he can't play? His posts and quote in this article suggest it was SQ42 that he was interested in - the single-player campaign - but none of the ships and pledge options are for SQ42, they're all for the persistent universe side of the game, something he's said he wouldn't be able to play.
The FPS and character-based gameplay and all that wasn't something added on later, that was always there right from IN BOTH SQ42 and Star Citizen from the start, that much is clear from reading the reddit AMA and letters Chris released as the kickstarter was going on, along with the videos and other things showing you weren't going to be just a ship in the the game, but a character.
You can't and that wasn't what happened in this case, he couldn't get a refund from because of the ToS. Their isn't really a law that garuntees a consumer a refund on digital goods so it defaults to the ToS.
Hes kinda being an idiot anyway, you can sell that stuff on the grey market for far more than what he paid if its the LTI versions.
His particular case was that he kept giving them money and then he wanted all of his money back for one section of the game that he can't play, whihc under the current build plan and TOS thereof is a third of the games playpsace-content. If he had given the money all at once and then RSI annoucned that the FPS section of the game was mandatory he would gotten his money back, but that's not what happened.
Star Citizen makes me sad...
It's feature list is basically the game I always wanted, the updates and videos on development are detailed, usually interesting and if nothing else bugsmashers is a great insight into the world of professional games
programming...
And yet the better it looks the deeper this odd sense of dread builds in my stomach like I just KNOW its going to come crashing the fuck down after coming so close to being "The one game"
I've not spent a penny on SC and do not intend to till it's released because it feels too good to be true, even if they have an update every month affirming nearly every feature I ever wanted it just feels like its getting closer and closer to exploding horribly.
in the US you can waive your right to sue. look at the federal arbitration act. one of the most egregious legal abuses of power that actively go against the constitution, but it was considered constitutional by the current ruling supreme court.
fun fact: it's legal for, say, a doctors visit to have in its agreement "you agree indefinitely to pay any and all costs to everyone who wants money from you due to a doctors visit. if you default on this or declare bankruptcy, you agree to pay all of our costs for hiring a collection agency and you agree to pay all of our costs for suing you even if we lose."
what a wonderful country
Good thing I'm in the final stages of my refund. Getting out of this con asap.
$50 says you buy the game on release when half the planet is playing it.
When it releases in 2030
I have $200 wrapped up in it, I feel increasingly nervous that I should get out while I still can.
I honestly don't know why everyone is nervous, it's progressing marvelously in my opinion.
Here's hoping that if the guy has $4500 to spend on a virtual space ship, he has enough to take this to claims court.
TOS should never let you waive away your rights.
Somebody get me an optimistic rating.
Yes, TOS shouldn't waive away your rights - but it's a crowdfunded game, it isn't a pre-order. He specifically backed something knowing full well it might not even happen, and that by backing it he was accepting that possibility and outright accepting that aspect as part of what he paid for. He gave them money for access to the game in its current state and access to future updates, and he's recieved those things, so he's had their side of the contract fulfilled to an extent. Why should he still be able to get a refund this long after when he's been provided with that and with it being crowdfunding development and not simply a pre-order?
I'll survive paying $50 knowing I'm getting a full product rather than the $30 I've spent. The whole paywalled store shit is what finally made me go through with it. It shows where their priorities lie and the game will be a mess on release with people flying armies of massive ships instead of you know, earning them and my PC can't run it so I'm getting fuck all out of it. I refunded my pledge for KC:D too since I couldn't run it but I'll eventually buy it down the line. It isn't a matter of money.
The intent of only showing the complete ship package to $1000+ people was specifically to avoid making people think you're supposed to spend that much to get a "complete" game, and those complete ship packs were only made available due to request. If a bunch of people who have already given you $2000 on average ask you to let them give you $20,000 each, would you really say no? But at the same time you don't want to add a $20,000 option to your store for everyone else.
There's a lot of valid criticism for SC but that and this refund thing have got to be some of the stupidest things I've ever heard related to the game. You're letting someone who has a vested financial interest in sabotaging the game manipulate you into being angry at a decision that was meant with the very best intentions.
There won't be people flying armies of massive ships unless they paid a ridiculous amount of money for them, and if they did that then that's fine, they supported the game as a mid level investor and so can get some cool toys out of it. Give it a year of game time and various organisations will be rolling with an entire in game earned fleet. It's all good.
I just hope they remove the shop on release when people start buying copies of the game to reduce the pay to win aspect a little.
I started my refund process a year ago it was just that I put it on hold to see where it was going. A last chance of sorts. Me refunding has nothing to do with what happened to this guy beyond the fact that I am not happy where with it is going. Again, if it becomes the most amazing game of all time and game development ceases globally since nobody will ever stop playing SC, I'll happily get it.
Just out of curiosity, what were you expecting?
I haven't noticed much deviation from their initial promise.
My primary problem is the scope of the game. Sure add more content with more funding but considering they basically added so many more elements to the game, scaling it up in every direction just screams feature creep and over promising to me. Had they just focused on making a solid spaceship game then they would have been done long ago, but all this exploring entire planets by foot and shooting mechanics and this and that have just bogged down the game, combined with their constant begging for money by releasing ~limited~ stuff and a billion packs. I like paying for a game and receiving it, this just feels like a glorified F2P scheme to me.
Ultimately if they pull it off, great, but we'll see about that.
In my opinion I think that this is the beauty of this game.
I have never been into space combat sims, always been an FPS and strategy guy. If I wanted to I could play this game and never once sit in a cockpit, but I could command my own starship, gunned and flown by real players.
I could even play and never even set foot in a space ship once I'm on a planet, potentially living on one world forever.
Fucking fantastic, my thoughts and prayers are with the developers.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
