Blizzard to offer compensation, refunds for poor service of Diablo 3

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Pantlegz

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2007
4,631
4
81
I can see the # of refund requests skyrocketing now. If I bought a game and had to play the demo for 3 days, I'd demand a refund for sure.

I think you only have to play the demo for 3 days if someone sent you a starter edition then you upgraded to the full version of the game before the end of those 3 days.
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Here is the latest pile of fail from Blizzard, I would make a separate thread just for this, but I don't want to raise any more hackles...

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/06/21/buy-diablo-iii-digitally-now-play-full-game-three-days-later

So you buy the game and you can't play it fully because of a waiting period. Let's all defend this because Blizzard is incapable of having proper security in place.

WoW digital upgrade has been the same way for a long time. I believe the reasoning was to prevent successful carding/stolen cc used to digitally upgrade. The 72-hour period is the maximum amount of time needed so they can be sure the charge goes through without any issue. Just think about RMAH and how bad it is if these stolen accounts are activated if only a couple of days.

Also, in reality it's very rare that you actually have to wait 72-hours. Most of the time it takes less than 24 hours.
 

gladiatorua

Member
Nov 21, 2011
145
0
0
Your answer is for them to offer a refund for the 2 days it was unstable? And that it doesn't even have to be a stability issue on their end? Should car companies be forced to offer full refunds on manual transmission cars because your dumb ass bought one and then realized you couldn't drive it until you learned two days later?
If people are dissatisfied with Blizzard service they should be offered a refund on a request. It was Blizzard's idea to make their service vulnerable and, in some cases, unusable. They should be responsible for their own design decisions.
No, the issues were the game sold much more than expected and the servers were hit much harder than they expected. Access was limited for the first TWO days. Nobody forced you to buy the game on release day. A massively anticipated release has a few hiccups? Well, tough shit.
And whose fault is this? Explain everything to users. Gives some meaningless freebies to those that were affected, apologize. And give refunds to those that ask for them. The number should be minimal. Invent some kind of clever system to lower the number of refunds even further. Whose job is that?
The 72-hour period is the maximum amount of time needed so they can be sure the charge goes through without any issue. Just think about RMAH and how bad it is if these stolen accounts are activated if only a couple of days.
And whose problem is that and why legitimate players have to care and be punished for things that have nothing to do with them?
Blizzard wants to find cheap and easy way out? How nice.
 
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shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
I wanted to play this just for old times sake (loved the N64 one), but after hearing how bad it was I never did. It is now $10 at Walmart near my home. I may pick this up just for kicks.

The reason DNF shot down in price so fast is most people hate it.
But yeah, play it anyway just to see how bad a top of the line game can be these days.
 

diesbudt

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2012
3,393
0
0
That article bothered me. Now, there's no "shill" or "fanboyism" at work here, but rather that it feels like something I would see on one of those Mainstream Media networks (Fox News, CNN, etc.) that simply report whatever negative thing they see. The issue is that IGN is a news website, and they fail to actually do any investigative journalism to find out why it's like that.

How can you form an opinion with only a smidgen of the story?

What's even sadder is that reporting "Why?" doesn't even take any investigative journalism because World of Warcraft's digital copy is the same way. Fortunately, as an old WoW player who has run into this, I can tell you why Blizzard does it: gold farmers and hackers. The wait is there because the aforementioned people would use invalid (possibly stolen) information to purchase accounts. The information would fail days later, and the accounts would be revoked. However, the hacker already got to use them for a few days, which is good enough for them.

If Blizzard doesn't do this, you get more spammers and gold farmers in games, but if Blizzard does do it, people can become inconvenienced in other ways. It's sort of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.



What's interesting is that you mostly listed MMOs there, and maybe that means I should add a number four in my list: "The Next Best Effect". I'd like to think this effect is mostly present in long-lasting games (hence why MMOs were mentioned), because people do want new stuff, and if you mix that with the possibility of #3 in the list, you may end up getting a bit of hysteria over the two combined.

Although, I do think SWTOR is a decent example of user-based hype, which I would mostly attribute to Bioware being on the project. It wasn't uncommon for me to see, "Bioware is making it, and they make great games!" However, I'm not terribly surprised that this game is floundering. I wasn't impressed after I tried the beta. It's crazy how companies try so hard to "be the next WoW", but they don't even bring enough to the table. They think some gimmick like adaptive storytelling (i.e. slightly more interactive leveling in a MMO) will help them succeed. :rolleyes:

Vanguard just sounds like a bit of #2 and #3 though.

It didn't help TOR how amazing KOTOR I, II was either. Granted I said the very minute I heard the next installment was going to be MMO, that it would be no where near as good as a single person game this series has been.

And now Elder Scrolls is working on an MMO.... Can we just leave the popular single player games as is and not try breaking their charm???
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
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It didn't help TOR how amazing KOTOR I, II was either. Granted I said the very minute I heard the next installment was going to be MMO, that it would be no where near as good as a single person game this series has been.

And now Elder Scrolls is working on an MMO.... Can we just leave the popular single player games as is and not try breaking their charm???

That would go against good business practice. Why sell a game for $60 and be done with it when you can sell it for $60 and add on a subscription fee to catch the suckers?
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
106
Damn.. Why do we have such retarded laws in the US? I wish I could return my copy of this piece of garbage. My character is only like level 7 so I qualify for a full refund in Korea.
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
8,443
124
106
They already made a lot of people angry with the recent IAS nerf to existing items. I'm sure the TOS covers their legal ass but that definitely won't lessen the hate they rightfully deserve.
 

Anteaus

Platinum Member
Oct 28, 2010
2,448
4
81
Damn.. Why do we have such retarded laws in the US? I wish I could return my copy of this piece of garbage. My character is only like level 7 so I qualify for a full refund in Korea.

The problem isn't retarded laws it's the lack of them. The law in general only addresses copyright protection. There are no digital consumer protections other than what has been traditionally extended to us at the point of sale. There is no oversight as to whether your adding getting what you pay for. I'm not talking about value, but actual advertised features/content in relation to what is actually delivered.

In fact, if you consider the EULA at face value, the terms in which you can use these products are incredible narrow and in some cases oppressive. People have said that EULA is rarely 100% enforceable in all states, but it hasn't been tested. The Sony lawsuits did help bring some of these issues to light, but that was hardware and isn't completely applicable.

We need some sort of digital consumer bill of rights to deal with these issues directly. The EULA needs to banished in favor of a singular set of rules that can be applied to all software equally, with specific provisions dealing with software designed to provide functionality to hardware (firmware, OS, etc)
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
And whose problem is that and why legitimate players have to care and be punished for things that have nothing to do with them?Blizzard wants to find cheap and easy way out? How nice.

This protects legitimate players just as much as it protects Blizzard. Spammer/scammer/gold farmers with a valid account with full access to the RMAH can do a lot of damage in 3 days.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
That would go against good business practice. Why sell a game for $60 and be done with it when you can sell it for $60 and add on a subscription fee to catch the suckers?

Yup, from purely a business standpoint its MMO or nothing.
 

GWestphal

Golden Member
Jul 22, 2009
1,120
0
76
If you have all the original packaging, contents and the original receipt, Blizzard US will refund you if it is postmarked within 30 days of purchase, I assume the process with digital copies is even easier. I just sent my copy in today (day 30) after finally hearing back from customer service. Hopefully in a week or so I'll get a check in the mail for $59.99. I can post the address if anyone needs it.
 
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georgec84

Senior member
May 9, 2011
234
0
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I tried Diablo 3 starter and while it was enjoyable, I found the game to be way too dumbed down and simplified. Compound that with all the DRM, 72 hour delay bullcrap, etc., and I can't fathom why anybody would want to support Blizzard in the future.

I mean, you buy a game and they lock you out of most of the features for 72 hours? That's like walking into Gamestop and paying for a game, but they say come back in 3 days and you can have it.

If gamers are upset with all these silly tactics, they need to speak with their wallets. But seeing how well these games sell despite being laden with nasty DRM schemes, it seems that indeed people have spoken with their wallets and the verdict is that any opportunity to play a game is worth the nasty tactics the publisher enforces.

It's like how much people complain about Origin, but they buy Origin exclusive games without hesitation.
 

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
8,443
124
106
I tried Diablo 3 starter and while it was enjoyable, I found the game to be way too dumbed down and simplified. Compound that with all the DRM, 72 hour delay bullcrap, etc., and I can't fathom why anybody would want to support Blizzard in the future.

I mean, you buy a game and they lock you out of most of the features for 72 hours? That's like walking into Gamestop and paying for a game, but they say come back in 3 days and you can have it.

If gamers are upset with all these silly tactics, they need to speak with their wallets. But seeing how well these games sell despite being laden with nasty DRM schemes, it seems that indeed people have spoken with their wallets and the verdict is that any opportunity to play a game is worth the nasty tactics the publisher enforces.

It's like how much people complain about Origin, but they buy Origin exclusive games without hesitation.

The thing is people are dumb with their wallets. In PS2 era and before, console games are expected to run flawlessly out of the box, now even those are infected with the "ship now patch later" syndrome because people keep buying them without realizing they are the very cause for supporting such practices.
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
561
126
The thing is people are dumb with their wallets. In PS2 era and before, console games are expected to run flawlessly out of the box, now even those are infected with the "ship now patch later" syndrome because people keep buying them without realizing they are the very cause for supporting such practices.

Expected? You kidding me, games of the old era had more bugs than current ones - from memory card wiping issues on the PS2 to full system lock ups on the N64.

The difference is back then due to a lack of super internets, the bugs weren't commonly known and discussed on forums like they are today. Back then someone ran into a bug, they'd tell their friends and if it was an exploit like crashing your car into a wall in Twisted Metal 2 and going through to become invulenerable, they all used it for fun.

Nowadays first bug someone notices it's reported on forums and the QQing starts how QA issue has gone down the toilet, and day 1 patches and blah blah.

Deadlines existed long before this generation of games. IF you guys followed gaming closely in the pass, you'd have learned the easter eggs and bugs/exploits most games had, like unlimited Turbo/Boost in Blitz just from tapping the button versus holding it haha. Ahh good times.
 

damocles

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,105
5
81
Damn.. Why do we have such retarded laws in the US? I wish I could return my copy of this piece of garbage. My character is only like level 7 so I qualify for a full refund in Korea.

Wish i could too. I just can't believe Blizzard put out a game this bad.

Oh well, serves me right for buying on faith.
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Wish i could too. I just can't believe Blizzard put out a game this bad.

Oh well, serves me right for buying on faith.

There have been numerous reports of successful refunds in the US. If you're feeling that strong about it, you should contact Blizzard.
 

damocles

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,105
5
81
There have been numerous reports of successful refunds in the US. If you're feeling that strong about it, you should contact Blizzard.

Trying. Blizzard customer service is pretty crap. They said I couldn't have a refund because the game is outside the 30 return policy - yet i bought it less than 30 days ago