Steam pay now policy

[MaxCiv]

THanks for all the responses, quite a lot in fact. Clearly I made a mistake by preordering from Steam, wont make the same mistake twice. What I am worried about is that they might charge me again for this. I have asked them for a receipt but they have not responded and I think that no responsible company would take money up front like this until the goods have been sent, or released in this case. If nothing else let this thread serve as a warning to others who preorder from Steam. They dont exactly make this very clear in block letters before ordering do they.

When you added the preorder to the shopping cart, the full amount was showing before you cheched the checkbox to agree and then pressed the submit order button. What more do you want them to do? Put a flashing banner with font size 36 saying "BTW the amount you see in your cart and that you agreed to pay by cliccking the submit order, will be charged now".

As for the receipt, make sure the mail addressed you used to register your Steam account is a valid one and check your spam setting on your mail client. Every time I bought anything from Steam in the last 8 years, I also got a mail detailing the transaction almost immediately.

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[tom2050]

What more do you want them to do? Put a flashing banner with font size 36 saying "BTW the amount you see in your cart and that you agreed to pay by cliccking the submit order, will be charged now".

Yes. Something like that would be nice. Some dealers charge the amount in the shopping cart when the product is shipped for pre-orders. It is nice to know which they are doing before they do it.

 

[eireksten]

Every time I bought anything from Steam in the last 8 years, I also got a mail detailing the transaction almost immediately.

Not that many years, and not more than about 5 purchases, but otherwise the same for me. I got receipts by mail soon (immediately the times I actually checked) after purchase.

I've prebought Civ5. I got a receipt immediately, and the game has also been added to my account (the "install" is of course still disabled though). I'm hoping my prebuy allows me to predownload the game to avoid the rush of people doing so at release.

 

[tal13sin]

The benefit of pre-ordering is you get the game on your machine, all downloaded ready for release, where usually any big game release on steam will result in a large number of people all trying to download at once.

Having said that, when the game is released, you still need to connect to steam to get the encrypted game decrypted which can still cause problems due to the volume of people trying to unlock their copies too.

I've done both before and it can be very frustrating on release night. Pre-ordering was slightly less frustrating though

With regards to refunds, I know if I got a copy from Game, they would only accept it back for a refund if it was returned unopened, not if I opened it, installed it and realised it wasn't as good as I had hoped or didn't work with my graphics card. Point is, steam are no worse at refunds then anyone else.

Steam receipts are in the form of an email so as already recommended I'd check your spam settings.

 

[Senethro]

What I am worried about is that they might charge me again for this.

Theres absolutely no way you're going to get charged twice.

 

[Tony.Uk]

When you added the preorder to the shopping cart, the full amount was showing before you cheched the checkbox to agree and then pressed the submit order button. What more do you want them to do? Put a flashing banner with font size 36 saying "BTW the amount you see in your cart and that you agreed to pay by cliccking the submit order, will be charged now".

As for the receipt, make sure the mail addressed you used to register your Steam account is a valid one and check your spam setting on your mail client. Every time I bought anything from Steam in the last 8 years, I also got a mail detailing the transaction almost immediately.

I verified that this is correct, and not in my junk mail, but never got a receipt! I suupose as long as it appears in my games list it does not matter too much.

 

[Senethro]

If you're not getting the email then theres a problem. If ever you lose access to your account, without a working email address for it you may not be able to recover it. We've already had people moaning in another thread how them losing their password, their email and their receipt means its somehow Steam's fault that they lost access to their game. You don't want to be one of those guys.

 

[deanej]

It's possible whatever runs the mail service has their own spam filter that's preventing it from ever getting to you. In that case, the only thing you can do is get another email address.

As for myself, I've never pre-ordered a game before. The only time I've even bought one at release was when BtS came out (and I didn't have a credit card then, so pre-ordering was not an option).

I prefer the way pre-ordering works on Amazon anyways. You don't get charged until the item ships, and you get charged the lowest amount the item costs between when you order and when it ships. So if it costs $50 when you order it, drops to $45 a month later, and then rises to $55 when it ships, you'll be charged $45.

 

[Methos]

Unless there is a compelling reason to preorder, eg. a substantial discount, people who preorder are idiots.

I believe the problem here is Steam deals with pre-orders differently then most companies. In fact, Steam is the only company I've dealt with that charges you when you make the pre-order, rather then when the item comes in, or is being sent/downloaded to you.

The games you buy from steam are labeled as "subscriptions" in the user agreement. They can cancle your subscriptions at any time for any reason, and you get no refund. Doesnt mention preorders specifically, however it was rather large and boring so i could have missed it.

Thanks. I'll have to look into it further, but based on what you've said, I'll only buy products from Steam if its really cheap, or the only way to get it on my Mac.

 

[Model Citizen]

You don't own any video game that you purchase, you are only buying a license to use that copy of the game. It's not like Steam's method of 'subscription' vs 'license' is much different. Sure they can cancel your 'subscription' remotely, but honestly if this kind of thing happened even a fraction of the time they would lose all of their customers and their business would fail. Since there are millions of people still buying games on Steam it doesn't seem likely to happen.

If you buy at the retail store and lose your game disc, or it gets scratched or broken, what do you do then? Go back to the store and ask for another copy? At least when you buy from Steam the game is tied to your account and can be loaded and played on any computer you use. I don't get how Steam is the bad guy here, for selling people something they wanted to buy? And like many people have said already its very easy to return your pre-order and get your money back.

 

[deanej]

And if you take proper care of your disc, it won't get lost/scratched. Honestly, most of the problems people have with CDs are caused by a lack of organizational skills and/or not knowing how to properly handle CDs (such as - never ever touch the bottom of one or set it somewhere other than a disc drive outside of its case, etc.).

I first got SimCity 3000 over a decade ago. If it weren't for the fact that I gave it to my cousin four years ago, I'd still be able to install/play it if I wanted.

 

[Methos]

Yeah, I recently found some old game boxes that still had the 3.5" disks in them and they still looked in great condition. I recall searching through the box hoping to find the old Zork games, but alas, they weren't there. I can't recall if those were on 3.5" or 5.25".

I'd rather have the disks, then deal with a company. Remember, even if the company goes under, or is bought out, I still have the disks. One can't be certain if that happens to Steam.

 

[Drakarska]

You don't own any video game that you purchase, you are only buying a license to use that copy of the game. It's not like Steam's method of 'subscription' vs 'license' is much different. Sure they can cancel your 'subscription' remotely, but honestly if this kind of thing happened even a fraction of the time they would lose all of their customers and their business would fail. Since there are millions of people still buying games on Steam it doesn't seem likely to happen.

If you buy at the retail store and lose your game disc, or it gets scratched or broken, what do you do then? Go back to the store and ask for another copy? At least when you buy from Steam the game is tied to your account and can be loaded and played on any computer you use. I don't get how Steam is the bad guy here, for selling people something they wanted to buy? And like many people have said already its very easy to return your pre-order and get your money back.

Not entirely true bro. If I go out and purchase a game ( shiny cd included, tyvm) and get that nifty piece of paper called a reciept, I own said disc. I may not own the actual "game" that they invented, but i do own the copy that they put on that disc. Which means I can legally pop it on my comp, not have to worry about installing a 3rd party unwanted software, worry about having to update constantly, figure out if the PTB's are gonna get miffed and cancel my acct, or a host of other "possible" scenarios. If i want to give, sell, whatever with my purchase, I can. Without having to go through a bunch of electronic hoops and EULA's to do so.

It's all perspective. You see it one way, someone else see's it another.

 

[White Elk]

I'd rather have the disks, then deal with a company. Remember, even if the company goes under, or is bought out, I still have the disks. One can't be certain if that happens to Steam.

Yep, thats how I roll as well. Loss of software due to theft, fire, or flood still feels as if its in my hands. Its up to me to take care of the game. A commercially motivated gatekeeper on the other hand, puts my use of the game totally in their hands. I don't trust that they will/can keep the servers up for my use. I don't trust that network congestion won''t prevent me from completing one of steams numerous and persistant internet validations. I don't trust that down the road they won't require me to pay more to play a game I already paid for. I just don't see any reason to give my control over a game to someone else. steams persistant validation and control, only makes sense to me for a free game. Civ5 is not a free game. I won't do it!

 

[arstal]

I believe the problem here is Steam deals with pre-orders differently then most companies. In fact, Steam is the only company I've dealt with that charges you when you make the pre-order, rather then when the item comes in, or is being sent/downloaded to you.



Thanks. I'll have to look into it further, but based on what you've said, I'll only buy products from Steam if its really cheap, or the only way to get it on my Mac.

Look up Gamersgate, they have Mac stuff. Won't have everything steam has (no Valve games), but selection on other stuff should be just as good if not better, since they did it first.

Better company then Valve to boot.

 

[tom2050]

You don't own any video game that you purchase, you are only buying a license to use that copy of the game.

This is only the industries attempt to gain more control of a product than even could be considered 'legal'. They want it to be that software is a product that is 'rented' with them being able to control when, where, and how you use it.

In reality, you purchase and own the software and everything with it, except for the intellectual rights to the data. They are intentionally muddling the waters of what is legal for them to do.

 

[FrantzX]

I got a receipt in my email for my preorder of Civ5. All this fuss because the internet ate an email.

 

[tom2050]

It's crazy you have to pay for it now and get nothing for several months. Not even a discount.

It's almost like a Kmart Layaway plan, pay the store until you pay the full amount, then get the item. At least with that, you actually get something immediately when paid in full.

 

[Senethro]

You get the pre-order bonus, the map pack and you can pre-load the game.

 

[deanej]

You know, some of us actually like the process of putting the disc in the drive an installing the game. To bad those of us can't get Babylon or the map.