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Sonic Forces Thread

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Blue Blood, Jul 23, 2016.

  1. ashthedragon

    ashthedragon

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    Geez, this is like ordering some food at a restaurant, eating it fully while getting paid for eating there, and then asking for a refund because the meal was bad ( and saying it is because you thought it was McDonalds while it was Burger King). And calling waiters autistic as a cherry on top! Sonic or not, this is pretty sick and immoral, being basically a thief and gloating about it.
     
  2. Nostalgia

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    For fun today I made a Hedgehog Avatar and created Boom Sonic since I had almost all the right pieces. As I was playing with him I got to thinking that he fits perfectly into the Avatar. The Avatars have dimensions similar to characters from the Sonic Boom universe and the wrist grappling hook thing in Forces is essentially the enerbeam from Boom. It makes me wonder if at any point Boom Sonic was set as the third character and eventually was changed into the Avatar. The interview mentioned that they were thinking of including a third character prior to coming up with the idea of the Avatar. It just seems like a very unusual coincidence.
     
  3. Tiller

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    Steam's store policy allows you to refund in a limited 2 hour window of playtime to help curb crappy asset flip games and broken ports that ended up in the store. If you ask me the system is working as intended. :specialed:

    + - But seriously I know its a Sonic game and speed running is one of the points of the game but you can easily blast through the entire set of of Modern Sonic's on your first try. There is absolutely no substance to any of the levels and the most time consuming thing you'll do is screw around in the avatar customization menu. It doesn't matter what reason he gave for the refund since your first few usually go through with no questions asked.  
     
  4. I know that you're like half-joking on this, but Forces' quality and length has absolutely nothing to do with this.

    He publicly posted on Twitter beforehand that he was going to buy and stream Forces. Then he bought Forces, streamed Forces (and monetized it), and then contacted Steam Support, and lied, saying that he bought the wrong game. He did this during the stream after finishing the game. If that's not abusing the refund policy, I don't know what is.

    Aaron's response, since it wasn't linked yet: https://twitter.com/...943546663714817
     
  5. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    Yeah, being an asshole transcends your opinions on games. Either buy it or don't, don't cheat developers out of money just because you refuse to take them seriously.
     
  6. Laughingcow

    Laughingcow

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    ...I see no problem with this.

    Sonic Forces is still Sonic Forces at the end of the day. Still Sonic Team not learning shit, still just using the Sonic brand to move mediocre products. So what if some asshat got a refund with questionable methods. That doesn't make Sonic Forces less of a bargain bin turd.

    You can try to take some "moral" high ground here except there ain't. On one side is Sonic Team, the other is an asshat streaming, no chance of me giving a shit about either.
     
  7. Zephyr

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    I dunno, as someone who's worked in customer service, the idea of someone lying to get a refund is annoying, no matter how shitty the product is.

    But I think most people are rubbed the wrong way because he lied to make money. Which, well, is sorta the norm in the world today, but that doesn't make it morally laudable. Also not losing any sleep over it, though.
     
  8. Tiller

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    Doesn't really matter. Is it a dick move? Absofrigginlutely. Is it well within the means of the refund policy? Yeah, pretty much. Unless you abuse the refund system through refunding a ton of games, an odd game or two will go through without issue. It doesn't really matter what someone did with it or their intentions. You can pretty much jot down anything and get a refund no questions asked.
     
  9. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    In my opinion, this is just scummy.
    You get a game, stream the entirety of it (while making money out of it), and then refund it by lying to the customer service, all of this while boasting about it online.
    It doesn't matter if it's not illegal, it's just wrong. No matter the game.

    What a fucking snake.
     
  10. Sir_mihael

    Sir_mihael

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    It's a tough one. Although I mostly disagree with what's happened, this sort of thing really depends on how it all went down.

    If the guy was legitimately excited to play a decent game and felt let-down by the quality of Sonic Forces, then I could understand. I can imagine there are probably people out there who paid money for Forces who now wish they didn't

    On the other hand, if the guy bought the game knowing full well it was already trash, and played it with the full intention of streaming and refunding it for being trash, then I can't sympathise with that so much.

    Like with anything, the 'D.B.A.D' (Don't Be A Dick) policy will be a big factor in whether people are on your side or not :v:

    Also on a larger scale, I feel things like this might hurt legit consumers in future who get messed around by Steam trying to stop people taking the piss.
     
  11. Amnimator

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    Abusing or lying to wiggle your way past the refund policy is scummy, but there's another issue past this. Steam gives full refunds if you've clocked less than 2 hours of total gameplay time. This game sits at around 2 hours 20 minutes with cutscenes. Cutscenes are 40 minutes long. The point I'm trying to make is that if someone wanted to be scummy and intentionally buy the game to get a full refund only once they beat it, they wouldn't even need to lie to get a full refund. If you skip the cutscenes, your first play through can easily sit under the 2 hour mark, and Steam (and as a result, SEGA) would be obliged to give you a full refund. Maybe with cutscenes if you're good enough. Some can indeed say it's Steam's refund policy working as intended. It was either put up with this, or not release on PC at all. I'm sure SEGA knew this already, possibly incentivizing them a bit more with Denuvo. It sucks, but what does this say about the product itself? The fact people can experience all there is within the refund window.

    If someone were to ask me what Sonic game to buy for PC, I'd still have to say Generations. No intrusive DRM, more content, modding community for even more content, and all in all a better bang for your buck. Reminder this whole cheesing the refund system wasn't really an issue with Generations PC.
     
  12. RetrospectGreg

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  13. Dark Sonic

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    Well the product at hand is certainly questionable, but it was the fact that the guy lied about it that's scummy. He knew what he was getting into, he wanted to stream a shitty Sonic game and that's what he did. But then he said he "bought the wrong game" and lied to get a refund when he damn well knew what he was buying. That's not right.
     
  14. MiSHiKiS

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    My problem isn't that he refunded it. Even if he did beat it, but still came out dissatisfied, I think that's personally okay. You wouldn't feel the money was worth it. But it's the fact he got donations from the stream but still acted as though SEGA owes him his money back when him playing it earned him more money than if he didnt. Thats real scum shit.
     
  15. Sir_mihael

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    Yep. I think even without his reasons for the refund - by his approach, he knew what he was paying for and got exactly the kind of entertainment out of it that he and his viewers were expecting. No-one got mis-sold or misinformed, which is the one of the main reasons Steam refunds exist.

    I know it's a horrible comparison, but I feel it would be like taking your friends to all see a horror movie - except it's more like an unintentional low-budget B-Movie, so everyone laughs and has fun at how bad it is, the only kicker is that everyone KNEW it was gonna be bad before they even went in. Finally everyone leaves the theatre and demands a refund for their ticket because "it wasn't a scary movie and the writing was shit". Or in this case, saying "I paid for the wrong movie, sorry".
    (Don't think about it too much, like I said it's a shitty analogy, I'm sure there's a million better ones)

    See, I wouldn't mind if it was this, but it sounds like the dude was fully aware of what it was, and probably came out quite satisfied that he got to laugh at a Sonic game with his streamers.
     
  16. LordOfSquad

    LordOfSquad

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    Lots of moral grandstanding going on up in here. No one really loses out from this guy doing this. The devs themselves were already paid (and will probably still be kept on for the next garbage Sonic game because loljapan), and neither SEGA nor Valve are hurting from one guy doing this. None of you should be concerned about the welfare of a corporation anyway. If SEGA gets hurt from Forces overall, they deserve it.
     
  17. Sir_mihael

    Sir_mihael

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    I definitely agree, but for me it's less about defending any faceless corporation (that certainly doesn't care about me :v: ) and more just the logic of the whole thing, regardless of what the product is.

    If someone was selling Big Rigs, and you bought Big Rigs, knowing full well it was Big Rigs, for the sole purpose of streaming and laughing at Big Rigs, did exactly that, then got a refund on Big Rigs it because "it's Big Rigs". I'd say something doesn't 100% add up.

    (replace 'Big Rigs' with Bubsy 3D, a shiny pebble, fidget spinner, etc..)

    Also as mentioned earlier, I feel like this might get Valve to be more dickish with refunds in the future if more people started doing the same thing.

    *apologised for the excessive use of the word Big Rigs
     
  18. Sonic Warrior TJ

    Sonic Warrior TJ

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    I got my Honor Roll Achievement. Took advantage of today's mission bonus to get my other wolf to Triple Honors and it unlocked. So that's eight total now, with two wolves maxed. Oh well. At least I didn't have to max all 15, or just seven of one gender, or anything stupid like that. Maybe Sonic Team was just super adamant we use the male wolf because it's the one on the box? Eh, whatever.

    BTW, a great way to gain EXP is to just replay Space Port over and over during a mission bonus. I'm not really the speed running type, but with the Drill Wispon I've been getting right around 1:39. I wish I could map the standard attack to the X (on XBONE) button though. It's annoying having to repeatedly hammer the trigger to use the drill. I know I can remap buttons for the console itself, but then Modern's Boost would be right trigger, and ew.

    And I guess to appear as if my post is relevant to the conversation at hand, I agree with the folks who believe it was a dick move for that guy to plan out his purchase/stream/return in advance.
     
  19. Mastered Realm

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    Digital sales have many advantages to corporations, but, one of the sole advantages of the customer is the ability to do that.

    He didn't cause any harm to SEGA or anything like that. Not even a product was unsealed...

    You see, when you 'buy' a digital game, you actually 'rent' the 'right to play' that game. He just gave up that, under Steam's own policy. His only mistake was to lie about wanting another Sonic game, he could have written another personal excuse.

    It's NOT like buying a sandwich and eating it fully, because that sandwich is yours to keep and you can't return it to the same condition after it's eaten.

    The guy may be an asshole but he's 100% under his right to get a refund.
     
  20. RikohZX

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    Well, Steam's standards for refunds are 2 hours played, or 14 days of ownership, with a pre-order not counting until release towards days accumulated.
    People find excuses all the time to try to cheat the refund system, and sometimes they're lenient about it, but whether or not he's legally or morally 'right' doesn't mean much to the broader view of people having to deal with an inconsistent system that breaks its own rules.