The Shrine

I've noticed that if you have a typical discussion on the Internet where some guy bought some stuff and then tried to refund it, and then either failed or got his account banned, generally speaking people are overwhelming in favor game company. Now, without arguing over whether this is right or not, this attitude seems to make little sense. Do people side with game companies out of some sense of justice of getting the money they deserve? If that was the case then piracy shouldn't even be a problem. Besides, this argument rarely changes even if you're talking about something that's obviously broken. It'd obviously be quite impractical to have a number of Internet trolls speaking positively for company compared to the number of people that may have one time been screwed by such policy, or even just guys who wants free stuff. It's certainly not grounded in anything based on the real life counterparts, since in real life you can return all kinds of stuff for no or minimal cost even though the good here may have diminished by the fact you're used it some and they generally at least have to repackage it, versus games that are pretty much all digital these days so the cost to process is much less if not free.

The only thing I can think of is some kind of victim mentality, like 'I once wasted $50 on some bad game so you shouldn't get your money back either', and disguising that as some kind of 'game companies deserve their money'. I don't see how it can possibly be a bad thing if there's some kind of universal common sense laws regarding how you can refund digitally purchased goods, including DLCs and in game currency. If anything, I think it's probably more likely companies actually keep their money if you don't have to assume you'll always get ripped off so that you either pirate stuff (where applicable) or go nuclear and do a chargeback. I guess you might have to actually have infrastructure to support refunding especially when we're talking about in-game purchases, but it's certainly nothing groundbreaking for any company of respectable size. Maybe in game currency is somewhat tricky to handle, but from what I can tell just allowing people to go negative mostly solves it. E.g. you bought $1000 of stuff, spent it all, and then refund $1000 then you end up with -$1000 of game currency which prevents you from doing anything with them until you somehow earned enough. A determined person would've definitely chargeback that $1000 anyway so it's not like you're losing more for letting that person stick around while effectively locked out of any future activity that requires premium currency for months.

The same reason people were asking if more games should have limited runs after Nintendo announced a limited run of their Mario game.

People are stupid.

At least that I can see some people thinking it'd be a good thing.

This is like the Torchlight 3 reviews where people are bashing the guys that left a negative review because the server is down and you can't play the game at launch. Or something that starts off terrible but people tell you that it gets better while not disputing the fact that it is terrible at start and you need to waste more time/money on whatever it is so you can be fully informed.

I was also following some Indie game with a Chinese dev and they had a beta test going on for like a few months and they suddenly realized that the English version of the game doesn't work at all, as in you can't even start the game, which is what the English players have been trying to tell them for the last two months, and some guy is still like 'thanks dev for your great game looking forward to play the English version'. To be fair, that guy might be just a dev posing as a fan since all the real players kind of figured out this wasn't going to work if you can't start the game.

I find there are basically 3 types of fans (and I am going off the Nintendo fanbase) - the rationals, the self-centards, and the fanatics.

The rationals - they would approach the situation as saying that it’s something that the company really needs to improve upon. Fix that stuff.

The Self-Centards - they generally think that what businesses do should revolve around their whims. They might look at people wanting a refund and, as you say, respond with “You don’t deserve one, this happened to me before and I didn’t get one”

The fanatics - pretty similar response in this situation, except their rationality is that if you want a refund you’re heretic and an enemy of the fanbase.

I’ve been in all three groups, and now recognize how annoying some fan tendencies are.

On a side note relating to Nintendo fans. There’s always division.
For example, recently Xenoblade Chronicles DE, there was a large group yelling at people for not being real fans because they refused to call it a “Remake” - these are what I consider the fanatics.

For the self-centaurs - their big argument right now is that Nintendo owes them a launch schedule for the next 2 years. Meanwhile Nintendo is tightening their marketing efforts, announcing their own titles as little as 1 day in advance of launch. But usually in the 2 weeks to 3 months window. They will announce third party games longer in advance. This tightening trend has been going on since Kimishima and Furukawa took over Nintendo. Older and more business savvy Nintendo fans applaud the efforts (I’d say they mainly fall in the rational group, but most rationals don’t really care all that much about marketing and just take what they get), but the self-centaurs see themselves as big victims in the current situation; they aren’t getting that 2-3 year schedule outline they think they’re owed.

I think these people are more like the conspiracy theorist that assumes there's some evil plot out there and you can't fight it. If you see anything to do with unfair contracts in general you'll again often see people respond like 'you signed away your life there's no hope just be glad they didn't take your firstborn too!!!' which really isn't how the law actually works.

I remember an article of an economist who lost all his bags on a trip and decided to sue the airline company, and he wrote in his column that all his readers told him he was doomed but he was determined to get at least his baggage fee back since clearly the bag didn't arrive at the place it was intended to so he shouldn't have to pay money to lose his bags, and he actually got his $75 back or whatever by going to a local court. He also wrote that studies show that monkeys are unwilling to hurt themselves even if that allows you to hurt another monkey, while humans are the only species that are willing to hurt themselves if it means your enemy also comes out behind, and even though it cost him a lot more than $75 to get his $75 back, he showed the airline companies that he'll not take their abuse like a monkey. I guess most people do behave closer to monkeys than humans, but if we always acted like monkeys then we'll just keep on get ripped off by corporations. While I'm not going to be the guy trying to get my $10 back at all costs too, at least I support the guy who has a chance to make things better for the rest of us obedient monkeys!