Denied a refund for this league supporter pack

You got what you paid for. Do your mtxes work? Is your title and/or badge well-fitted to your forum profile? Yes? Great. Enjoy. Is the game you paid absolutely nothing to play working? Sometimes? Well, as I said. You get what you pay for. I'm surprised there's a refund system in place at all for completely optional support pack purchases. GGG are not at all obligated to do even that, given the fact that it's almost impossible for your purchase not to work exactly as intended and I'm willing to bet if you bothered to read the ToU you'd find a dozen clauses clarifying just how much they don't owe you. Dig a bit deeper and you'll see something even more interesting: you don't even own those mtxes you've paid for. When the server goes down, that's it kids. All gone. Technically you've just paid for exclusive access to them for the duration of the game service. Sooooooo -- yeah. If you're supporting for any reason other than you really like those mtxes or you still believe in GGG's ability to deliver the game you want to play, you probably want to reconsider that. Support is not a donation and GGG isn't a charity, but it's not a proxy 'purchase of the game' either, even though most people do like to rationalise it that way. 'There are worse things I could be doing with that money' is just another way of not-saying 'there are better things I could be doing with that money'.

Both true, but only one of them forces you to confront the issue.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

You got what you paid for. Do your mtxes work? Is your title and/or badge well-fitted to your forum profile? Yes? Great. Enjoy. Is the game you paid absolutely nothing to play working? Sometimes? Well, as I said. You get what you pay for.

Just to clarify, broken interactions between character mtx and skill mtx (or default skill vfx) happened to me more than once, and if those conflicting mtx are not from latest series, your chances of getting them fixed are 0. Absolutely none of visual bugs I emailed to support or posted in bug reports here were ever fixed. At best I managed to refund bugged purchase after some stress.

Asking for refund based on no other reason than not liking the league balance is too much, agreed. But GGG had also slacked on paid content more than once, and player frustration is understandable.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

You got what you paid for. Do your mtxes work? Is your title and/or badge well-fitted to your forum profile? Yes? Great. Enjoy. Is the game you paid absolutely nothing to play working? Sometimes? Well, as I said. You get what you pay for. I'm surprised there's a refund system in place at all for completely optional support pack purchases. GGG are not at all obligated to do even that, given the fact that it's almost impossible for your purchase not to work exactly as intended and I'm willing to bet if you bothered to read the ToU you'd find a dozen clauses clarifying just how much they don't owe you. Dig a bit deeper and you'll see something even more interesting: you don't even own those mtxes you've paid for. When the server goes down, that's it kids. All gone. Technically you've just paid for exclusive access to them for the duration of the game service. Sooooooo -- yeah. If you're supporting for any reason other than you really like those mtxes or you still believe in GGG's ability to deliver the game you want to play, you probably want to reconsider that. Support is not a donation and GGG isn't a charity, but it's not a proxy 'purchase of the game' either, even though most people do like to rationalise it that way. 'There are worse things I could be doing with that money' is just another way of not-saying 'there are better things I could be doing with that money'.

Both true, but only one of them forces you to confront the issue.

Spoiler

Also, you think the state of PoE is bad? You should see the full-price version of Wolcen on PS4/5. Now THAT crash-happy, visually-broken piece of shit should be refundable and delisted, and before any of you smarties ask why I did it, have a think about what I've put into PoE and how much I enjoy providing rueful reports for those who can't afford to make the mistakes I can and do.

I feel you misunderstood my post, so let me clarify. The MTX-s work beautifully, and I do quite like them still. However, the MTX-s are an accessory to the game, and the game itself is where the issues lie, more specifically this particular league. I won't dive deep into everything wrong with the league, as there are many, many people going in depth why this league is such balls. The point is, since this is a League Supporter pack, and this league is subpar on all counts, including server stability which renders the game actually unplayable at times, I wanted to withdraw my support as I did believe in the GGG's ability to deliver the game I want to play, but boy did they prove me wrong.

Now, I'm not saying they are legally bound to refund me, though after a glance on the NZ customer protection laws, they actually might be, but my point is that their policy is one of the worst refund policies I've ever seen, and they never mention it anywhere, not in the process of purchasing the pack, nor in their ToS, which I did in fact read.

I am not sure I understand the last part of your post, but I assure you this is not about "I could have used the money for something else", this is about "You did a poor job and you don't deserve the support". I would literally be fine swapping it for a non league related pack, as I do love this game very much, just like all of us here. Just not this poor excuse for an expansion.

Regarding the "never preorder" comments, they are absolutely true. I never preordered anything before, and I most certainly won't be doing so in the future. I just didn't think a game I have 1500 hours in could disappoint me so much so suddenly.

Either way, money was spent, lessons were learned, it's a shitty situation and a shittier refund policy, but at least I save money from any future purchases I won't be making.

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VoidUnleashed wrote:

Well they're definitely not getting a cent from me again if this is how they handle refunds due to their own fuckup, both league content and server issues related.

The one critique I would offer - you took the time to censor your name from your email; you could have extended the same courtesy regarding (or even just cropped out) the name of the individual member of staff who happened to respond to you. They're doing so as a representative of GGG, bound by that company's policies, and not in a position to make the decision themselves.

I did think that was poor form on your part.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm surprised there's a refund system in place at all for completely optional support pack purchases. GGG are not at all obligated to do even that

I dunno... I'm not sure what Tencent_GGG are up to these days - but it used to be my impression that GGG's business model was earning, and subsequently monetising, good will.

Lately it's seemed - to me, at least - that they still plan to do the latter, but not the former. You don't need me to point out that such isn't sustainable, so I'm curious what their plan is. Or perhaps the people who matter just don't really care anymore, having already cashed out some time ago.

If I was running a single-game studio the financial strategy of which was "we'll do lots of stuff and some people will pay us literally thousands a year just because they can, and choose to" then I think I'd be incredibly generous when it comes to refunds. It doesn't make sense in that context to be money-grubbers regarding a single purchase if it means burning the customer forever.

If you want to charge hilariously high prices, you need to back that up with quality customer service. I live in the Republic of Ireland. Apple has no shops here, and their closest are in the UK. (Did you hear that the EU now has 1 GB of free space?) Apple's prices are... well, legendary. But they pay any and all shipping costs, cover any Brexit-related expenses, and if I ever want to return any item for any reason (or no reason at all), they pay for the return shipping, too. I could cite other examples. Games Workshop are also outrageously expensive, ship things from the UK, but at least do things the Apple Way™ in addition to charging Apple Prices™.

GGG are making available individual purchases priced at $480 USD, but looking for any excuse they can think of to decline refund requests. Speaking as a former CM... the optics aren't great.

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VoidUnleashed wrote:

The point is, since this is a League Supporter pack, and this league is subpar on all counts, including server stability which renders the game actually unplayable at times, I wanted to withdraw my support

I think this is a fair and salient point.

GGG absolutely will discuss a league and in the same post specifically ask that you consider supporting it by buying a pack. Their store page also does precisely the same thing. They directly present and frame the purchase of a pack as optional financial support of a league when it suits them to do so (happy, fluffy marketing) but then change their tune when it no longer suits them (to paraphrase: no, sorry, you weren't making an optional purchase as a show of support, you were just buying MTX which work, and which you have already used - refund denied).

This strategy is not going to be making them very many friends in the community. I've dropped thousands of euros on Path of Exile (and even hundreds on its forum) in the past. I'll never approach even 10% of Foreverhappychan's level of support, but I feel perfectly entitled to sit back, play the game for free, and say "eh, I've done my part." I've no reason to want to do that, other than how GGG have treated me and their other customers as of late.

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Sarno wrote:

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VoidUnleashed wrote:

Well they're definitely not getting a cent from me again if this is how they handle refunds due to their own fuckup, both league content and server issues related.

The one critique I would offer - you took the time to censor your name from your email; you could have extended the same courtesy regarding (or even just cropped out) the name of the individual member of staff who happened to respond to you. They're doing so as a representative of GGG, bound by that company's policies, and not in a position to make the decision themselves.

I did think that was poor form on your part.

Lately it's seemed - to me, at least - that they still plan to do the latter, but not the former. You don't need me to point out that such isn't sustainable, so I'm curious what their plan is. Or perhaps the people who matter just don't really care anymore, having already cashed out some time ago.

If I was running a single-game studio the financial strategy of which was "we'll do lots of stuff and some people will pay us literally thousands a year just because they can, and choose to" then I think I'd be incredibly generous when it comes to refunds. It doesn't make sense in that context to be money-grubbers regarding a single purchase if it means burning the customer forever.

I completely agree about the poor form, I was doing it in paint, one image on top of another and I was having cropping issues, and it slipped my mind as that is an alias anyway, though it was a shitty move by me.

This other part though is exactly my point. I decided to support them on good faith, and I didn't even consider the possibility the refund could be denied as this looks to me like a lose-lose situation. I know people can say "how are they losing if they just got your money" but I can assure you I would spend much more over time, and this is not just about this case but their policy as a whole. It is a fact that once people spend money once on a game they are much more likely to do so again. It is precisely situations such as this one that make them reconsider.

Personally I'd love the "support staff" to either reinsert the images or give a description of why they were removed. I despise censorship, to me that's just a sign of corruption.

Regarding the refund, I would also advise you to look into your country's laws. At least in Sweden you are entitled to a refund regardless of the company's policy.

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Simple2012 wrote:

Personally I'd love the "support staff" to either reinsert the images or give a description of why they were removed. I despise censorship, to me that's just a sign of corruption.

Regarding the refund, I would also advise you to look into your country's laws. At least in Sweden you are entitled to a refund regardless of the company's policy.

They notified me that they don't allow screenshots of correspondence with their support in the forum posts.

Regarding country laws, trust me when I tell you I have better chances tweeting at NZ government than contacting anyone in my country officially. It is what it is.

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Simple2012 wrote:

Personally I'd love the "support staff" to either reinsert the images or give a description of why they were removed.

I mean, the quote box in post #2 literally contains links to them on Imgur…

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HanSoloDK wrote:

Edit.:
"funny" that this thread was moved to "feedback" section. I don't see this as feedback but then that's just me.....

They mentioned that they moved it in the message as well. I said it was fine since I won't be getting any help from them anyway.

I do think this might be valuable information for people in the future, but who am I to judge...

Re broken mtxes: eh, pretty sure they're the exception, not the rule. And in a proper business set-up, Support/Customer Service are there for precisely that reason. I recall one of my mtxes had a huge box around it for months. Technically not functioning as intended, but certainly not something I felt warranted much more than a report and moving on. There is a fairly big gap between 'Support' and 'Visual Effects' in terms of function.

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I tried to look into what precisely we are paying for when we 'buy' microtransactions for a Game As Service and the funny thing is, there is no clear answer. Even now, it's sort of a frontier in terms of the consumer/service provider relationship. General consensus is it's basically like a one-time payment rental. Someone compared it to renting shoes at a bowling alley -- I don't mind that comparison, although there is a bit more utility to bowling shoes than, say, a giant fucking demon that pops out of your character for no reason now and then. It is in the alley's best interest that you use those shoes so as not to damage their lanes. There is, really, no clean precedent. All I know is the most drastic thing you can do with your mtx 'purchase' is ask GGG to remove your access to them permanently. That they can do. If you are so inclined. That aside, all you can do is use them or not use them for as long as the service is offered.

Things get murkier when the purchase includes a physical component, which is part of why GGG do that only at the upper ends and even then, nowhere near as frequently as they used to (I imagine covid affected that, but also a more general issue of physical goods as part of a support pack being much closer to 'a purchase' than simply 'turn on mtx X for account Y'). Because there is a digital component to every support pack purchase, it's probably still very difficult to refund a purchase of one based on the physical component.

And then there's the messiest one of all: collaborative services. The opportunity to design a unique or even a monster for the game crowned only the most prestigious (read: fuck-off expensive) supporter packs and were only really offered when the game needed every cent it could get. Some people waited years to get their item in-game; several were deeply unhappy with the result. But because the pack simply said (and I'm paraphrasing because it's been a decade) 'work with GGG to design a unique item for the game', as long as GGG provided that they've met their end. Rest assured they really did go way out of their way to accommodate the supporter's vision and desires but in those cases where the supporter was unhappy, they weren't really obligated to do much at all. The whole thing was an insane drain on GGG's resources which is why when they introduced newer, more self-aware versions of design collaboration, they limited it to a form submission and an item type rather than simply letting the supporter email them with crazy ideas. And believe me, some of them were crazy. So instead of saying to a high-end supporter 'draw a picture for our book', they presented them with a picture of their own that fit the existing book and said, 'now colour this in as you see fit'. Smart. Boring, but smart. And it still made the oodletonnes of cash, based on how many Div Cards there are.

AND since it's all somewhat pre-cooked, much less chance of a supporter being unhappy with the result. Remember, kids: someone paid $800US to design The Carrion Crow. And by all accounts, they're happy with the result.

Despite a few naïve stumbles early on, GGG have been damn near impeccable with how they've handled support pack sales and fulfilment of commitment. More importantly, they actually learned to stop offering certain ones when they no longer proved financially viable, replacing them with watered-down alternatives that still draw the flock and their desire to throw large amounts of cash at what they love.

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Sarno: *shrug* Fucked if I know, brother. All we know is, much like the Cylons, they do have a plan. I have my proverbial popcorn ready for July. I feel like literal popcorn for a 'full reveal' for a game I have no intention of playing would be a bit much.

I will never not miss the Kiwi GGG. And that's funny, since to my knowledge they STILL mostly employ locally, almost certainly to their detriment. I don't get that at all -- it's not like anyone still sees them as some sort of local indie studio. Maybe that's just for Customer Support (which makes sense -- few things piss people off more than outsourced CS) but AFAIK their calls for employment via this very site stipulate one must be either in NZ or willing to move to NZ for any GGG position. And they insist on holding their convention locally, which again makes so little sense to me given where the vast bulk of the players are. Hell, to my knowledge they've never actually had a kiwi gateway -- last I checked, they were relying on the Australian one. Demanding the majority of their attendees fly to them seems a wee bit performative and hubristic at this juncture, if I'm being honest. Logistically it's great for GGG but in my experience of conventions, usually the bulk of attendees are local or at least from the same country. MAYBE Exilecon draws mostly local Exiles but...I somehow doubt that. In its expense and inconvenience, it is less a sharing of the love and more of a pilgrimage undertaken by only the most faithful. Or, if you're an Australian Exile of some means, it's more like 'well, we love New Zealand anyway, might as well go'.

Damn, now I'm curious as to the make-up of Exilecon's attendance in terms of nationality/origin.

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re the symbolism of a 'league' support pack: it's a nice ideal that you buy a league support pack to support a league but really I see it all as nothing but marketing and labelling. A convenient combination. Just one more illusion in this world of illusions, Exile.

You are not supporting anything as precise as a league when you buy a league support pack. You're just inserting a coin into a vending machine. Not all of those coins go to whomever makes whatever that machine is vending. As long as you get what you chose, that is it. That is the extent of your interaction. You can dress it up any way you wish, or buy into their spin and marketing, but your coin is gone and it's in a machine far more complex than the vending machine. That machine does not care whether you bought League Cola or Block Cola or even just GGGold Cola. It only cares that you put a coin in.

Thank you for your support, [insert customer name here]. It really means a lot to us.