"Elite: Dangerous refund policy detailed after offline support dropped"

[kane_magus]

(EDIT) And here is the Rock, Paper, Shotgun version. They seem to be a bit more willing to take Frontier to task over this, as opposed to PC Gamer, which just seems to be more interested in reporting as is, rather than editorializing about it. And the comments under there are just as negative to this overall as they are at PC Gamer, which is nice, though there are still a few idiots trying to defend the indefensible there as there are under the PC Gamer article (probably the same idiots, it wouldn't surprise me). (/EDIT)

"Those who have already been playing the game online in the Alpha and/or Beta phases, regardless of whether they backed the project via Kickstarter or purchased access to Alpha and/or Beta through our online store, are not eligible for a refund."

So, essentially, if you're someone who has actually played the unfinished game, such as, let's say, one of those people who were colossally idiotic enough to pay $150 to play the game early[1], then you are apparently shit outta luck for getting a refund if you wanted one now that Frontier Developments has revealed that they've been lying to you all along about including an offline mode, which might have been the main/only reason you backed them in the first place.

I hope someone files a damn class action lawsuit against these assclowns, I honestly, truly do. Then again, they've probably got one of those horseshit "you can't sue us" clauses hidden in their EULA. So completely glad I dodged a bullet by not backing this shit. Also glad that I didn't go for the higher-tier "pay us more and we'll let you test our game early" tiers on the KS projects I have actually backed in the past as well, or that I usually completely ignore the beta invites and such even if that sort of thing was included in my pledge level.

I didn't even bother to read the comments under this one, but I'm sure there are still idiots down there even now trying to defend the patently indefensible.

[1] - Remember the days when testers actually got paid to test games and didn't have to pay to test them? We're living in bizarro world now.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

You tell them you will buy their plain cake, but only if they put icing on it, and then then they say, okay we guess we'll put icing on the cake even though we wanted our cake to have no icing on it, and then you say okay, then I'll pay them for this cake after all. Then they say, hey, if you pay us a bit more, we'll let you eat a slice of this cake, to try it out and see if it actually tastes good and to let us know what we can do to improve the taste of our cake, and you were then dumb enough to pay them for that slice of cake with no icing on it, with the understanding that you'd still be able to buy the cake with icing on it later. But then after that, they say no, we're actually not going to put icing on this cake after all, and we're also not going to give you your money back that you paid for the whole cake with icing on it, because you ate that extra slice of cake with no icing that you paid extra for.

In that case, no, you weren't "blackmailing" them into putting icing on the cake. You were simply informing them when they tried to sell you the cake that their cake was inferior to a cake with icing on it. They had the option then to say well, fuck you, if you don't want our cake with no icing on it, we'll sell it just to people who enjoy our plain no-frills cake. But oh, wait, there aren't enough people out there who want our shitty icing-less cake. So what they did instead was the straight up lie and say yeah, we'll have icing on this cake, just so that everyone who wanted icing on the cake would pay for icing on the cake, even though they never had any intention of ever putting icing on the cake.