Changes to Valve's return policies, a warning about a fake Proton GE website, and issues surrounding game preservation. The changes to Valve's return policies are criticized for potentially allowing companies to abuse advanced access and return windows. The fake Proton GE website is highlighted as a potential risk for users, with advice given on how to safely install Proton. The issue of game preservation is discussed in the context of the ESA's refusal to support libraries preserving games, with a call for legal action to protect digital rights.
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00:00 - Steam Change Controversy
09:11 - Warning Possible Proton Scam!
11:31 - Game Preservation takes a hit
in the age of digital games preordering makes no sense, the store is not gonna run out of games
I mean, you could potentially download the game beforehand, which can be helpful if you have a bad internet connection. Personally I want to play fully patched games so I generally wait to purchase games until they are in a good state. :) But that's literally the only reason to pre-order.
@@PixelShade Sure, if you want to jump on the hype train. I just wait at least 6 months and get it for half the price with all the patches...
@@samuelschwager This is the correct way of buying games.
A digital store that's copy/pasting the base copy of a game will NOT run out of the game. Steam won't run out of keys, and data bandwidth. Pre-ordering is fakking stupid!!
I agree that it makes no sense to preorder (presumably that’s why companies keep coming up with dumb ways to artificially add value to the preorder with preorder bonuses) Technically digital store fronts CAN run out of “copies” by running out of game keys - which happened to steam before so it’s not just theoretical - but the publisher would be able to easily “print” more copies by issuing more keys
Simple answer is for consumers not to buy the game on day 1. Might be a hot take, but if you can't restrain yourself from doing so, that's wholly on you.
Exactly I never never never never pre-order or buy games on day one. I did that with fallout 76 and learned a hard lesson. The only next game I bought day one was elden ring and that turned out to be a good decision but you have to pretty much say no to 99.9% of them
Ppl gotta stop giving these greedy companies money. I haven't bought a triple a game in years. Especially if its single player if ykyk. F*ck em all imo. Ubisoft specifically is at the top of my sh*t list.
The only right answer is for Valve to update their agreements for hosting a game. If company A hosts their game on Steam, they're not allowed to update the monetization structure without offering a full refund to customers who bought the game if they don't like it.
Agreed. If it causes refunds to increase, the obvious solution is to include the true monetisation model in the Advance Access window - ie be honest upfront...
I’m curious why you think this should be the case. If I play a thousand hours of a game and then the developers add in micro transactions, why am I owed a refund?
You make a good argument, but I feel like that doesn't really happen, usually the micro-transactions get added in on release right after reviews have come out.
@@collinvictor703 because if company A convinces you to buy their game, there's a set of criteria they give you as a basis for the transaction. If they later go and update that criteria, it's making changes to an arrangement that you already agreed upon with your money. Obviously, if we're only talking about cosmetics or ADDITIONAL content, that's different. No problem with that, as it's a completely new agreement which doesn't infringe on the first agreement.
@@NerdNest I suppose that part of my premise is similar to what you expressed in your video. The first day somebody plays the game is the day it's released, and "release day" is a false term. If we're looking at it through the lense of early access being just another way of saying post-release, then this occurs all the time. It's just perspective on phony definitions of early access and release dates. You're definitely right in essentially saying that the issue is that publishers use the terminology as a premise for making abusive changes.
Seriously people need to stop with the fomos, this why games developers keep doing it, doesn't matter how much people complain about it on social media. They keep doing it because there is a profit margin for them.
Being able to play a game "early" is nothing but the ACTUAL release date being paywalled off. It's scummy. I honestly don't play games when they come out and usually wait for a sale since my backlog is big to begin with. It doesn't seem to matter if I vote with my wallet. Most people don't seem to care anyway. Blame the gamers at this point. I can't blame a company for making extra millions and billions in extra revenue even though gamers complain about it. Thank you for bringing that point up. Thanks also for bringing up that boycotts don't work. Never forget the infamous picture where there was a steam group that claimed they were going to boycott modern warfare 2, the 2009 one or so, but most people in that group were playing the game on release day. Gamers don't have a backbone.
Easy solution - DO NOT PRE-ORDER GAMES!!! I have been guilty of pre-ordering 3 or 4 times and have regretted it every time. Eventually the games I pre-ordered were patched enough to be playable and enjoyable, but no more pre-orders for me.
Would be nice if Valve forced a publisher has to denote if a game has micro-transactions
It's not that decent return policy, when games that WERE playable on Linux, like Battlefield 5, which got patched by EA and no longer works....Makes me feel scammed, and I get EXTREMELY salty when I feel scammed, absolutely NO one wants to be even a thousand miles near me when I'm salty
I have refused to preorder games for years now. Keep spreading the word!
One of the options to combat the early access and refunding problem is stronger consumer protection laws. You actually mentioned it at the end of your video (the ACCC ruling on refunds for Australia). The most important part of the ruling is that Steam and games in general cannot be exempt from Australian Consumer Law. Specifically, if a product or service has a "major problem", then it can always be refunded within the reasonable lifetime of the product. Specific to this case is " has either one serious problem or several smaller problems that would stop someone buying the product if they knew about them beforehand". Thus, if the developers/publishers rug-pull with a patch which drastically alters the deal you entered, you're entitled to a refund, regardless of time. So, at least us Aussie's will be alright :D With so many publishers doing this now, I wouldn't be surprised if we see this law tested again very soon.
@SenorRaiden here. I was referring to Tekken 8 with the refund window. They pretty much added MTX and Battle Pass that wasn't advertised on release when I bought it for around $110 USD for the base game and Season Pass 1. They waited until after the initial refund window after the release to do this and I feel that I wasn't getting what I paid for. I feel like Early Access games require a bit more nuance and flexibility on the customer support side when it comes to refunds, as it's more of a known risk on both the customer and consumer ends. That being said, Valve needs to take a hard stance on protecting their customers as POLICY, NOT EXCEPTION, from a big AAA game release that decides to rug-pull on long-time fans on their 10th major game in the series. I'm pretty much done with AAA games now. There's more than enough good retro and indie games that I will ever be able to finish in this lifetime, and I don't constantly feel ripped off.
Yeah, pre-orders really need to stop. But I think reviewers need to require the publishers give them access to the Day 1. And if it's not ready then they need to get the Day 1 notes.
I do boycott a lot of companies due to their shady practices even if it doesn't make a dent. I save money regardless and, if most continue their practices, I would gladly jump to another hobby. It might be me today but a bigger slice will be out over time for sure.
Why blame the publishers? It’s the buying public that needs to stop paying more to get it early, so Ike any business they cash in on that nuance a lot of people have.
Why blame people who wants to pay more? Why blame publisher that enjoys more money? Seems win for both parties.
Because the publishers are the ones with marketing budgets. Yes, I agree that consumers bear some responsibility, but the FOMO doesn't come out of nowhere, does it? When was the last time time you saw a movie without a marketing budget making hundreds of millions of dollars?
Do you blame the crack dealer, or the crack addict? I blame both
@@plastikloser But one clearly has way more power than the other
I think a good solution is Valve requiring the cash shop be added to the game lets say 24 hours before its playable by anyone. gives transparency without huge potential for abuse.
Patience is everything in gaming. The more you want to participate in games as a social event, the more you are taken advantage of. Some publishers like Ubisoft or 2K are so borderline criminal, that it even makes no sense to play later, since they will always find a way trying to nudge you in their stuff or block you out of the experience as a whole otherwise.
I think customers need to learn which stores and platforms support keeping games for a long time, like steam and it's important to support this kind of stores. On steam you can usually keep your games always, even if they will not be sold anymore and disappear from the store, you can still play them! Of course there are exceptions like multiplayer games when game developer shut down the servers. But usually on consoles you can not keep your games if you move to the next console, like from ps3 to ps4. And when game developers like ubisoft announces that players should get used to not own games, then I would not support them anymore. Which is easy cause I usually don't like their games. Also I remember when sony discontinued to sell movies and already bought movies from users just disappeared from the platform.
On PC you have to edit the files to get the extra content for AC2, Brotherhood and Revelation as the server that checks the game for DLC is now down. I buy my games on GOG now, it even has some Sony games.
I'm very surprised you haven't got more subscribers, you have one of the most balanced and nicest video gaming channels. And it is best not to pay for pre-release games, I've even been burned by pre-release free to play games. Farlight 84 was great, I played it a lot and spent money buying skins, items, etc... Eventually they released fully and totally changed the game and it became something else almost entirely. Finally spot on, game preservation is a huge issue. I think we need game archives much like we have movie archives.
Thanks for the info. I'm a big fan of your NerdNest podcast. I appreciate all of the work and the others on the podcast put into it. Cheers.
I really don't buy new AAA games at launch. I have a huge back catalog to play through which includes retro games. Just waiting a year or so, you get all the patches and usually dlc for a really good price.
Just want to say, you rock and I'm loving the channel. Let's GROOOOW!
I bought star ship troopers extermination in Early access, because my brother talked me into it saying" we should get it even though it's not perfect yet because then we'll support the developers and it'll just get even better" . So unfortunately since then now hell divers 2 is out and starship troopers hasn't really gotten that much better so I'm sure I'll never play it and just wasted $30.
Best Steam Deck channel there is. I see you hitting bigger as the Deck grows. The podcast is killer too.
The issue about preserving older games is not a new one. It is a repeat of similar issues with books and films. There were a number of books from near the beginning of the 20th century that were printed on wood pulp paper. Wood pulp paper does not have an indefinite lifespan, and some of the companies with copyrights on books refused to reprint old books because they wanted people to buy their current releases. There are a number of books from that time period that are now lost because all of the copies have disintegrated. Similarly, companies would not make new prints of old films and the old ones could disintegrate in storage (besides the problem of spontaneous combustion of cellulose nitrate based film, which sometimes led to the destruction of whole warehouses of films before they stopped using it).
For the everyday consumer never buy a game until it has been out for a few months, wait until you have an idea of the whole picture. Anyone who isn't a content creator that preorders a game these days then deserves to deal with the crap that comes with.
People have instant gratification problem, it's mental. Just wait for the game to be released officially and buy it after few days. All of those problems will disappear.
Maybe if companies stop putting pre-order items in the pre-order offer and cutting it off for life after release then maybe we would stop pre-ordering. No extras just the base game.
But no ge has good pre order bonuses. It's all crap skins and crap content. Is that worth it to suffer from fomo?
There could be boxes that reviewers can check at the time of review , that would say if micro-transactions were in this game , I would score it 40% lower. And then if that happens , their score would automatically update , and the reviewer would get a notification , so they can do a revised review if they wished to do so. There could be different boxes to check for different post-launch additions , and different percentage reduction options for them to choose from.
But microtransactions of say buying a cape for my character that doesn't alter gameplay, is vastly different than say spend $10 for this quest. Or Spend $10 for unlimited fast travel.
I'm planning on picking up Manor Lords tomorrow, even though it's only early access. In this scenario however, I want to support the creator and even though it'll be janky at first, I want to give support for the effort so far. I had this same approach with Baldur's Gate 3 when it released early access and have been over the moon with the results. Unfortunately, these are exceptions to what seems to be an increasingly apparent rule.
For those viewers who are unsubscribed, i highly recommended it, especially for those who are Steam Deck mains like myself lol Bill is one of the best youtubers who has great Deck info and games
I almost never pre order games.. Ive been burned by CoD too many times doing that. Now i just wait until a year after games release and get it on sale. most games nowadays don't resemble their finished version on launch anyways. (bugs, crowded servers, patches) I find that playing a game post launch is much more enjoyable.
Enjoyed the video start to finish. "Love you longtime Bill."
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="187">3:07</a> Oh hey, job icons. Out of curiosity, do you often play FFXIV on the Steamdeck?
I'm already a subscriber. Had to double-check. Lol Yeah, don't pre-order.
We’re having transition screens now, nice!
What do we mean by "adding micro transactions" in this case? As in, if you had advanced access, played for 10 hours, then a mtx store gets added with new stuff, why would it make any semblance of sense that a customer should get a refund? I feel like that's different from blocking stuff that the customer might have already bought, or closed off progression that was previously free. Bottom line is, unless you're comfortable with losing your money, don't EVER spend it on a future gamble.
I agree preordering is stupid and we shouldn’t do it, but I do think advanced access makes a lot of sense. It’s a non-functional benefit and developers have to come up with some way to keep up with insane inflation.
ONLY game I bought day one in the last 10 yrs was Elden Ring. If your standards are really really high then pre order might be OK once in awhile but if your doing it every time just because you "can't wait" , then you're just taking a gamble and paying a premium for your lack of self control.
Concerning the stop killing games campaign, If they're trying to force companies to preserve games like Bill suggests, I'm *100%* against this. You should not be able to force companies to keep games going. Especially when they're draining the company's resources. That's a sure way to kill any small and new game companies trying to get into the industry. If the campaign just wants to stop companies from going after their fans for creating solutions to keep games alive after original companies stop supporting said game, *I'm all for it!* I do believe that we should preserve games, but I don't think it should be forced on people to do so.
Thanks for the video!!
I only games on release day. No pre-order.
I bought Darktides advanced access and played for 50 hours with friends and realized I absolutely hated it even though Vermintide 1-2 are some of my favorite games. First game in my 12 years on steam that I refunded, so glad I managed to do that before this change. Of course this could been abused but with how a game can be very different at release compared to what reviewers experienced and wrote about I think we need better refund policies for new games since we kinda need to protect people from themselves, seeing as we'll never manage to convince people to stop pre orderning.
Semi hot take, I don't think you should have gotten a refund in that situation. Unless I misunderstood your post, the product didn't change in a way that made you dislike it, it just took you a long time to come to that realization.
@@Fernando-ek8jp Well the reason I refunded was cause it was unfinished and the few updates they did didn't fix anything. After release the only thing they added was a cash shop and the game is still unfinished to this day.
@@emiliosanchez4610 I'm not saying that it was a good game. My pushback is: did it become less finishes after 10, 20 hours?
@@Fernando-ek8jp It became painfully obvious after 20-40 hours that most of the "endgame" content just wasn't implemented and the game had no replay value. You have to understand I have almost 2k hours in Vermintide 2 and that game on release had tons of features that made the game have a grindy but replayable game well after 100+ hours. Darktide after about 20 hours is the same game as it was 50 hours in. Realizing that it wasn't getting better at that point and me not wanting to put in several hundrered hours into it. The fact they didn't fix anything on the official release but focused all their time on the cash shop instead made it an easy refund.
@@emiliosanchez4610 Yes, I get not wanting to keep playing a game. I am not calling you out for not wanting to spend more time or money on it. Do you think it would make sense if you could have played hundreds of hours, devices you weren't willing to go to the thousands, and then get a refund?
I dont see any comments about your tech talk about proton, lol. Only thing I would avoid is saying API but just say proton translate Windows calls to something that works on Linux. Like Vulkan is not Linux exclusive (you can use it on Windows) but the DirectX to Vulkan translation does help making Windows game work on Linux (with hardware and drivers that can handle Vulkan but you would also need that on Windows). Then the real nitpickers can say it is GNU/Linux, lol.
Ubisoft removed The Crew recently...
early play,.... why would pay money for a few days... Best move Valve can be is to not have pre-release count in hours.
2 hour limit is horse shit regardless. I spend 2 hours alone modding, and adjusting graphics settings. 3-4 hours seems fair.
i dont think the people who purchase the games are the same ones who scream boycot, sure, some people do that, but the vast majority dont even know there is a boycot canpaing happening or dont care or an game can make more money selling micro transactions for a few players than selling more copies of the game.
I already enjoy game sales meaning other people payed more to play earlier. I don't mind other people paying even more to play earlier.
The answer is really simple, STOP pre-ordering, PERIOD, why on earth would anyone agree to pay first for something they can't use for a while? let it release like normal, watch the reviews and make an informed decision. Do NOT become an early adopter/beta tester. let it cook for a week or two, trust me, you will more times be glad you didn't pay for some products. it is exactly because of pre-ordering that many games are ridden with bugs at release because they all want that cash infusion asap. Quality control is not part of the roadmap for most publishers.
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="790">13:10</a> thank's Ross Scott, creator of Freeman's Mind.
if an game is offline, let me retain an old version of the game.
I never buy deluxe/etc editions of games. Why would I pay 30 percent or more of the original asking price to get a skin and 3 days early access? Heck I don't even pre order anymore. I almost did for dragons dogma 2... But I held out
My favorite game is Hades on the Steam Deck OLED. Waiting for the 2nd to come out. Just beat Katana Zero which is unbelievable. My legion go I am playing Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse on PS3 which is a blast and a hidden gem
corporations should have zero wiggle room.
Pre-orders are ALWAYS a valid option for physical games and those who *don't* want to spend release day downloading games. People can argue all day long for people to not do pre orders, but it's gonna fall on deaf ears because arguments won't remove their justified reasons for preordering.
The justification of being so impatient that they're willing to pay to have a worse experience.
@@Fernando-ek8jp It's their money and time. They would put their self interests above some strangers online interest. For example, I don't care what people online think about pre orders. If I want to ensure I get a physical copy on release day, I'm preordering. I've experienced enough times where I drive to the store to pick up a game and they're sold. Preordering ensures that I *never* go through that again.
You've conflated Valve's rule changes to Early Access refunds with the new ”Advanced Access" label.
i pre-ordered TEKKEN 8 Ultimate Edition just because i love the franchise and thought that TEKKEN 8 is going to be that game for years to come and what i would sink my time into until recently they added item shop that threw me off and now they added a battlepass TO A FIGHTING GAME. I now lost all hope for AAA games they are not worth it. NONE OF THEM. i wish i could refund the game.
Hey Farva, what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
Damn. I didn't know Steam did returns. Could have gotten my $3 back for Alone in the Dark the new nightmare.
Only if purchased directly on Steam, of course. It's a big downside of buying Steam keys from other places. You can't refund those.
pre orders make no sense to me
yeah, its a sucky situation indeed.
It's called have common sense... we all know which publishers scam us every time. The reviewers know and should automatically knock off a few points due to the publisher having a bad track record.
But the review is a review of the game, not the publisher.
@NerdNest if the publisher keeps doing the same thing over and over again they deserve the negative consequences. The reviewer owes it to the customer to review properly, which does mean they should be losing out on the day 1 clicks/views to give a proper review of the game the customer gets if they need those day 1 clicks/views to stay in business that means they are badly running the business. Really ideally people would start using their brain and just not buy games from these publishers until months later when they are discounted and all the BS is out in the open. Thanks for the reply and the great videos!
Why so much accent on sales day? Company may change month after release, should Steam allow refund than?
AAA+A games are typically garbage. I just don't buy or play those games. I play older games, retro games, indie games, whatever game that doesn't force DEI or cash shops or stuff like that.
Don't be a coward a stop buying the games. It do not matter what others do, if enough people do it they will need to pay attention.
The fact that the Steam Deck contains NO physical media isn't enough of a red flag for you people? 🤭
I think you’re focusing way too much on micro transactions for steams refund policy change. It seems to me that the point of the change is to prevent people from buying a game, playing it all the way through within a few days, and then returning it for a refund before it actually releases. Companies can add monetization at any time, so that (while scummy) shouldn’t be a factor in the refund policy for preorders.
Yeah, I talked about this in the video, I said people abuse this, and that's why Valve is making the change, BUT, publishers also pull rugs out from under consumers all the time, so now they get to abuse this.
What Steam should do is refund people who get FUCKED by companies breaking the game, and have those companies refund Steam themselves as well.
Never had a problem with steams 2 hour rule sure some games take way longer to feel out but yeah alot of people try to play the entire game and then ask for a refund. I personally think after last year early access is more about profit then actual gaming maybe if it was a month or two I could understand but not 5 days. An yeah I'm always skeptical about buying a deck through anyone but steam lol. Kinda like my experience buying so called unlocked phones just to find out months later it's still on contract or was reported stolen by the person who sold you the phone lol scams be real
I feel like I'm having a deja Vu lol
Invite Liam to the podcast
80% of PC releases in the past 5 years have been completely Busted at Launch, so you're only shooting yourself in the foot for supporting Greedy companies by paying more for a Broken product they won't fix until Launch (if you're Lucky)
If a game is single player I don't care about pay to win
Proton was Glorious Eggrolled :-( not nice!!
nothing wrong with letting people play early... Who cares if it counts towards return, you are playing it aren't you???
Steam did the right thing.... If someone is afraid of micro-transactions then just have patience and wait until the actual release....
its just like video card prices, there's always more dumbasses willing to pay 3X the price just to have that 4090, its the same with games and cheat subscriptions, theres a reason there are so many shit games and so many cheat sites.
If any channel deserves 100,000+ subscribers, it's this channel -- click that subscribe button!
People are so annoying too, you are not FORCED to buy items in some games. I get it when make the game pay yo win but i have seem the same behavior on free games people expect developers and publishers to make no money out the and also they are the most demanding communities out of all. To finish it, if you can play a game and finished without buying anything, you shouldn’t be complaining, if the game is hell of bug and you dont like it, returning it cause most likely the game will be fix after who knows how many updates for you to feel comfortable so return it or just dont buy the game, thats why there is hundreds of gameplays online.
Why blame people who wants to pay more? Why blame publisher that enjoys more money? Seems win for both parties.
Because it incentivizes publishers to engage in practices that other consumers don't want to participate in. We're literally seeing it play out with The Crew. People were ok with buying games that require online connections even for single player, now the publisher feels like they can just stop everyone who legally purchased the game from playing it ever again.
@@Fernando-ek8jp don't participate. Developer needs money, some people eager to pay extra money to feel special. Shutting down servers without providing alternative is breaking sold product. That's totally different case.
@@sergeykish Don't confuse publishers with developers either, now THAT is a totally different case. Pointing out the issues with publishers being able to break games while charging more, however, is the precise case we're talking about.
@@Fernando-ek8jp publisher can't change game like "adding microtransactions" without developers. I already enjoy game sales meaning other people payed more to play earlier. I don't mind if other people pay even more to play even earlier.
@@sergeykish I don't know if it's a language thing or something else, but I would hope that you understand that developers work for publishers. As in, the publishers tell the developers what to do. If a developer studio just chooses not to, they get dropped because they'd be breaching a contract. The publishers are the ones making the decisions and taking in the extra profits, not the developers.
yo
People reading the comments: help this gem of a channel hit its next subscriber goal
So the whole point of the video can be condensed down to "theres nothing we can do about it so cope"
I think your WRONG about the early access issue, throwing up your hands and essentially crying out, "What can we do? (cue Bruce Hornsby 's The Way It Is)." Boycotting AAA publishers won't hurt Valve - plenty of indie titles that Valve themselves publishes. Your coming off sounding like a shrill corporate shill. But thanks for the Proton scam warning and solution to avoiding the scam.
Ayyooooo