Well, that didn’t take long. After drawing overwhelming criticism from disenchanted players for its shoddy quality and misleading marketing, Earth: 2066 has been dealt a final blow by Valve. The company is pulling the game from its early access program and offering customers who paid $US19.99 for the poorly received game a full refund.
Earth: 2066 originally launched just three weeks ago. Billed as an open-world post-apocalyptic first-person game, it hit all the right notes to get gamers excited. Once the thing came out, however, it was universally panned by critics and irate players alike, many of whom took to Steam and Reddit to express their frustration not only with being mislead by the game’s original promotional materials, but believing that they could trust in Valve’s service itself to protect them against shelling out cash for subpar material like this.
Valve didn’t respond to the concerns that this has raised for many gamers about the legitimacy of its Greenlight program. But a Valve representative said in the announcement that while the company allows developers to “make their own decisions about promotion, features, pricing and publication,” the service “does require honesty from developers in the marketing of their games.”
Refunds will be available for all Earth: 2066 customers until May 19, Valve said.
[via Polygon]
Comments
14 responses to “Valve Pulls Controversial Game From Steam For False Marketing”
But, is the refund coming from Valve’s pockets or is the developer giving up the cash?
I am guessing Valve is managing the financial side of the system as well and probably have agreements to ensure that they can facilitate refunds like this.
The developers (if they have received any money yet) will have to pay back their share, but not sure who would probably absorb things like credit card fees
If it’s only launched 3 weeks ago, I’d guess Valve probably hasn’t paid the dev yet so can just hand the money back.
My guess would be out of Valve’s pocket, and Valve will pursue the developer for the costs.
edit: my reply was to @thatteemo
Thank GOD for Jim
Oh come on! I just saw the trailer and it looks near identical to the gameplay videos. Anyone stupid enough to buy this game does not deserve a refund.
It always amazes me when I click on a game’s page, watch a terrible trailer, scroll down and see that the game was Greenlit by the community, then can’t help but laugh when I read the overwhelmingly awful reviews by people who bought the game so I can only assume helped Greenlight it.
Is there an achievement for clicking “Yes” a certain number of times on Greenlight games or something? Do they get a trading card?
One of the tasks for Steam’s “Community Ambassador” badge is to vote for something on greenlight. It doesn’t say you need to vote yes, but it could account for some votes.
About damn time, the dev Muxllewhateverthefuck made no attempt to hide the fact it was a scam and it was confusing the hell out of me why Steam wasn’t putting a stop to it.
Now you’ve done it Valve, now anyone that buys a game with a poor rating will want a refund.
Look at quality titles like Unearthed or Adams Venture, or even retail titles like Ride To Hell: Retribution. I believe that got awards for being the worst game ever.
Do I want refunds? No. Do I demand refunds after watching a movie that was crap? No. Grow a set of hairy nuts Valve, the game is Early Access for a reason. If some idiot invested and didn’t like what they got, they should let the developer know so they can improve it. If they don’t well guess what – you paid to be a beta tester.
While I agree in principle that the concept of caveat emptor seems to be lost on a lot of people, there’s a certain onus on the developer of a title not to be deceptive or dishonest with their product, and steam as a distribution platform to screen faulty or defective merchandise. How legally responsible they are to issue refunds is something I guess you could dispute in the various territories where the game was distrubited, but as a general PR/goodwill/customer service gesture offering refunds is not unwarranted, or unprecedented. I believe steam has previously offered refunds for Duke Nukem Forever (which was panned across the board despite being… basically functional, and The War Z (which was a sad attempt to cash in on the popularity of Day Z by throwing out a buggy shell of a game with vague promises to make it work “later”).
I’ve personally learned my lesson on early access from buying Towns. I still like the concept, but if they never actually get the game to start working then I’m out $15. Oh well. Towns, at least, deliveres what it promises. Just not very well yet.
The War Z was removed from Steam not because it was a bad game, but because the screenshots were false and the description was misleading. Even though the steam description said the game map was x size, the game map turned out to be x/4. Steam doesn’t care if it’s a bad game, they only care if the description is misleading or if they can no longer turn a profit.
EA gives you a refund for it’s digital games. Lol
With enough beta testing the sky is the limit for this game!
But who will advance Crosshair technology now?
While I think it’s depressing this kind of trash can make it onto Steam, it’s good to know the community gave it the smashing it deserved. I think there’s something to the idea of community-curated storefronts after all.