Spoke too soon, Steam gives me a refund

So, I guess I complained too quickly. I sent this follow-up message to Steam just before posting my blog post earlier today:

Steam won’t offer a refund even when the software in question doesn’t work properly? I’m sorry, but that isn’t how it works “with most software products.” You can usually obtain a refund if the software doesn’t function as intended, as is the case here.

I guess if this is the way Steam is going to operate, I’ll just be purchasing my games from somewhere else from now on.

Not much of a threat considering how much business Steam probably does on a daily basis. However, less than an hour later, I receive a follow-up message from Steam. Much to my surprise, a full refund was currently processing, accompanied by a reminder that this was a one-time customer service gesture, and that future purchases would have to adhere to the outlined agreement.

Which is perfectly fine, I say. Unless I buy something else from them that doesn’t work. Until then, however, they’ve just managed to retain a customer by breaking their own rules and making me happy. Good for them! Guess I’ll call off the dogs.

Steam doesn’t offer a refund even if the software doesn’t work?

Update: apparently, they do! Read here for an update to this story.

I finally purchased Puzzle Quest a little while back on the recommendation of pretty much everyone on the internet, including a couple of friends and at least one co-worker. I figured rather than pick it up on the Wii, I would instead get it on Steam so I could download it onto my laptop and play it over my lunch breaks at work.

Man, was that a mistake.

Now I’ve got a pretty good IBM Thinkpad laptop. I checked the system requirements for the game and I more than met and/or exceeded every aspect of the recommended specs. I thought I was good to go. I downloaded and installed the game and ran into issues immediately.

Evidently, there’s a known issue with some laptops where the mouse will do this strange “rubber banding” thing. When you attempt to move the mouse in a certain direction, it will bounce rapidly back and forth in the general direction you’re moving the cursor, but when you stop, it stays rooted exactly on the spot where you left it. It’s an issue that’s been out there for a few months now, and there’s several threads on the topic on Infinite Interactive’s tech support forums, with absolutely no response from the company at all on the problem.

One workaround for the problem was to hold down on the right mouse button while you moved the mouse around, and that certainly did work, sort of. My hand cramped up after doing it for just a few minutes. It was tiresome and sucked a great deal of the enjoyment out of playing the game. I tried changing my mouse settings. I downloaded new drivers. I changed out the mouse several time. I even re-formatted my laptop. Nothing worked.

Finally, I got sick of holding the right mouse button and sick of no one at Infinite Interactive even bothering to care about the issue. I no longer wanted it to work properly, I just wanted my money back that I wasted on something that I can’t play. I sent a support ticket to Steam to request a refund. This was the response I received.

Hello Nathaniel,
Thank you for contacting Steam Support. Unfortunately as with most software products, we will not offer refunds for purchases made online as outlined in the software license – please review Section 4 of the Steam Subscriber Agreement for more information.

Steam Subscriber Agreement
http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=subscriber_agreement

And it’s in there. No refunds. That’s it. No recourse. My game doesn’t work properly, but neither Infinite Interactive nor Steam care one bit. They got their money, I’m just some poor loser who probably should have learned a lesson from this. I’m not sure what the lesson is, exactly. Don’t buy Infinite Interactive products? Don’t buy anything off Steam?

I think I might just go ahead and follow both of those lessons in the future. But the massive FAIL here is all on me, unfortunately.

“We all agreed that we really don’t know what will happen in the future”

I live in a small town in the middle of Iowa. Part of being in a small town means you have a little book club consisting entirely of little old ladies that get together once a month to talk about whatever it is little old ladies read and discuss.

I don’t know what possessed the little old ladies in my small town to read “The Children of Men“, but I have nothing but the utmost respect for them attempting to read something that is borderline hardcore science fiction. I suppose the accompanying book club report in our town newspaper could give us a pretty good idea of how they fared.

Yep, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

Could Des Moines be a web 2.0 hotbed?

A while back, Jesse Stay (FriendFeed | blog) asked a question on Twitter (which I, of course, responded to on FriendFeed, as did many others). It was a simple question:

Just curious, if you had one city in the U.S to live, based on affordability and web 2.0 networking potential, where would you live?

I tossed in a second to the response of “Des Moines, IA” from fellow local tweep Andy Brudtkuhl (FriendFeed | blog). It was a knee-jerk response based almost entirely on the fact that I love living in the Des Moines area, and I feel as though there’s a lot of potential hidden here that no one has felt is worthy of tapping into because, well, it’s Des Moines, Iowa.

I thought the conversation was over until Jesse pinged me a reply on Twitter asking what web 2.0 businesses have come out of Des Moines.

Wait, what? You mean I actually have to qualify my answer? On the internet? I didn’t think we had to do that sort of thing these days. In fact, I don’t recall ever having to do that.

Jesse had me cornered. So, I naturally turned to my tweeps. I asked for a list of web 2.0 products and/or companies that got their start in Des Moines. We came up with the obvious SmartyPig.com. Someone mentioned offhand that the developer of the Jabber/XMPP protocol came from Iowa. Someone else asked if we get to count Chris Pirillo (FriendFeed | blog) since he’s an Iowan. Hmmmmm… We scratched our heads for a while. That was about all we could come up with. Nothing substantial had really had its roots in Des Moines. We were pretty much utterly devoid of interesting web 2.0 products.

I felt compelled to respond to Jesse. Even though the answer wasn’t necessarily what I would have liked to give, he deserved a response. The answer was, unfortunately, Des Moines had been the home to very little by way of web 2.0 products.

That’s when I realized: we may be short on product, but we make up for it with our people.

I have yet to find a more dedicated and engaged group of social media enthusiasts outside of the Iowa demographic. And while these people may not be creating web 2.0 startups out of their garages, they are definitely heavily involved in the web 2.0 universe – far more than I ever thought a remote village like Des Moines could ever possibly be.

We have a tweetup group that gets together periodically to talk shop. One of our tweeps has started an online business selling Twitter ID cards to other regional tweetup groups. We have people voraciously working with Iowa-based corporation to understand social media and begin to create an online identity and voice. Co-working? We’ve got that. Jelly? We’ve got that, too. An online-conscious patent and trademark lawyer? Sure! Someone posting their life online? You bet. Web consulting? There‘s several. Social media consulting? Only the best. There are hundreds of us on Twitter, FriendFeed, blogs – you name it. Maybe it has something to do with the vague feeling of being a million miles away from the epicenter of everything cool and interesting that forces us to co-exist online in these social communities. Maybe we’re all looking for the next best thing. Maybe we’re each secretly building the next best thing. But whatever the reason, there is a presence there that amazes me every time I dip my toe into one of our numerous social circles.

The fact is, despite the massive gravitational pull of tech talent towards Silicon Valley, the next big thing may not even come out of California. It might come out of Seattle, or Minneapolis, or Tempe, Arizona. It depends on where the focal point of talent, passion, and just plain luck manages to get drawn together, fire on all cylinders, and successfully strike online gold (I’m well aware of how atrocious a mix of metaphors that was).

It could happen in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Or, it could happen in Des Moines, Iowa.

Igarashi and Capcom show a horrendous lack of (Castlevania) Judgment

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Castlevania Judgment is going to be a tremendous failure. I can say that, under the premise of it being nothing more than my opinion, but it is fact. Or will be, once the game is on shelves. Maybe the game itself will be a miraculous marvel of gaming engineering. The unfortunate truth is that no one will know, because no one will bother to buy or play the game.

Igarashi has already pointed out that he doesn’t think ‘core’ third-party games do well on the Wii. That would presumably also include his OWN ‘core’ third-party game. Why would he put forth any semblance of effort into making this game if he already believes it doomed to failure? Especially when he can just re-skin the levels and characters from his last couple of DS Castlevania games and make a brand new DS Castlevania game that will sell tremendously well at next to no cost.

Also, I’m finding it difficult to recall–or even Google search–ANY fighting games in Konami’s prestigious history. There probably is at least one, but the fact that no one seems to know about it does not bode well for that title–or Castlevania Judgment.

The inevitable fallout from Judgment’s eventual fall from grace will be that Igarashi and Capcom will–in unison–point at the failure and proclaim boldly “SEE! This PROVES that ‘core’ third-party games don’t perform well on the Wii! We told you!” And then they’ll sneak away, cackling with glee, and plan the fourth and fifth DS Castlevania games, which will be near-identical re-creations of the first DS Castlevania game, but labeled as BLUE VERSION and WHITE VERSION.

Can you hear that sound? It’s me; crying.

Tor.com launches! Scifi geeks gain a(nother) home

As if there weren’t already enough places for geeks to hang out online, another challenger approaches! Popular science fiction publisher Tor has re-launched their website as a mini scifi geek social network, and I have to admit, it has an excellent set of initial features and offerings.

First things first: here’s my profile. It will be added to the sidebar just as soon as I get a chance to re-install Flash on the computer and create a new fancy button (a story for a later time).

So, what is there to see and do on the new Tor.com site? Plenty. The main focus of the site appears to be a multi-author blog with contributions from leading names in the ever-clashing world of geeks: John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Irene Gallo, Bruce Baugh, Patrick Nielsen Hayden – great content, which looks like it will be updated often.

And what else would you expect to find on a literature site? That’s right, free stories! Already a couple of short stories by John Scalzi and Charlie Stross have been posted, with the promise of more on the way. A great marketing tactic to get newcomers interested in purchasing the long form fiction: get them hooked on the free samples. Really looking forward to seeing more of this in the future.

Besides literature, there’s also art galleries featuring creative works of some utterly phenomenal science fiction and fantasy artists. Amazing work to be found here.

The profiles are another aspect of the new site. A bit boring if you’re already used to filling out profiles on other social networks, but it’s a nice way to connect everything together in a central dashboard. Especially nice is the ability to bookmark specific sections of the site for referencing later. For instance, I’ve bookmarked both of the posted short stories to get to when I have a free moment, as well as a gallery of artwork that has been modified into traditional computer wallpaper. Slick. I can also point people directly to my bookmarks. I think we have a winner.

Want a photo gallery? Well, even if you don’t, it’s in there. So you get to either use it, or ignore it. It will likely come in handy for showing off photos from geek conventions of you posing awkwardly with semi-famous writers and bloggers. Not that that ever happens. To me.

The message board system is a wonderful invention, probably because it reminds me so much of how FriendFeed works. You can go in and create separate threads, just like in a regular message board. However, comments can be posted on blog posts, stories, or even the individual art pieces. All comments everywhere on the site are coalesced and fed into one location, making following conversations damned simple and satisfying.

So far, I’m definitely enjoying the new redesign, even though I haven’t had much time available to do anything more than poke my head around the various features that have been implemented. I hope to actually participate soon, and look forward to seeing the site evolve over time as people begin to settle in, make friends, and enjoy geek conversation.

Getting back on track

I know this blog hasn’t exactly been a “flood” of “nerd” the past few days, and I apologize to regular readers for the lack of content. I’ve spent the past few days buried at work, sans-internet at home, and acting as temporary single dad to my two boys while the wife visited her mother. It’s been crazy, but I have a lot of things to talk about, and will get to doing that very soon. Maybe. We’ll see. I dunno. Check with me next week.

Rainwave: streaming video game music has just gotten better

I missed giving Rainwave some much-needed attention in the past couple of months, which is an especially grievous crime given the fact that so much has happened to the service recently.

What is Rainwave? It’s a service that streams music via an ogg vorbis stream from seven generations’ worth of excellent video games. Not only that, but the website is a slick presentation of style and functionality. Create an account and you can interact with the sites fellow users. For instance, during each song, three choices are displayed for the next song. Each member can vote on their favorite, and the song with the most votes gets played. You can also request playtime for your favorite song from Rainwave’s extensive collection of video game music. It’s an amazing system that works perfectly and provides great music and ample entertainment.

I first mentioned Rainwave back in June of last year, just after it was launched. Since then, the site’s creator, Robert McAuley, has acquired popular streaming video game music site Ormgas. Ormgas was a site that streamed music from the enormous (and growing) library of video game remixes hosted at Overclocked Remix. Now, all of that music has been transferred to Rainwave and has been available for your listening pleasure since the end of June.

Due to the fairly drastic difference between the two libraries of music, they are available under separate streams.

Nintendo failed miserably today (but they will still make tons of money)

Nintendo’s E3 press conference was this morning. My co-worker and I got the opportunity to watch it over our lunch break. And let me tell you, I want that hour back. Here’s a list of what they announced (plus my quick thoughts on each in bold).

  • New Animal Crossing for the Wii. No.
  • We Speak microphone for online chat to be introduced along with Animal Crossing. Has potential (but it all depends on whether or not they actually use it in more than just this one game).
  • Wii Sports Resort (otherwise known as Wii Sports 2). Minigames. Sigh; I suppose.
  • Wii MotionPlus add-on to be packaged with Wii Sports Resort. Has potential (but once again, it all depends on whether or not they actually utilize it in more than one game).
  • Recipe cookbook? No.
  • Grand Theft Auto for DS? No.
  • Guitar Hero on Tour for DS? Plus a sequel already? Double no.
  • Wii Music. Heavens above, NO.

The alleged announcement that Nintendo promised would make us core gamers happy never arrived. Kid Icarus? The next Zelda? Another Metroid title, but in a different style? No. None of the above.

Oh, wait! What’s that Reggie? You know what the core gamer should be excited about coming from Nintendo? Please, we’re all ears!

As I wrapped my chat with Miyamoto, I ran into Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America and asked him: “What games should the hardcore fans be playing later this year?”

Reggie quickly replied: “‘Grand Theft Auto‘ on the DS and ‘Animal Crossing‘ on the Wii.”

Let me repeat that: Reggie thinks Animal Crossing is a hardcore gamer title. Really, Reggie? Do you actually think that? Could it have gotten lost while being translated to English from the nebulous language of marketing bullet-point sheet? No? Hmm.

Luckily there’s still some hope that some third party publishers will be pushing out some quality content this year, because it’s painfully obvious from today’s press conference that Nintendo doesn’t care about its core anymore. They want more of that sweet casual money that has launched them back to the top.