Probably because you can test any car for as long as you like from within the game itself. If someone doesn't bother before purchasing then... well... that's their fault.
Did you buy something using Steam Wallet funds? In this case it might be possilbe to request a steam refund if there is less than 2h of use but I have no idea if that is possible with raceroom shop items not purchased on steam´s web. Doesn´t hurt to try but I wouldn´t get my hopes up. As mentioned above, you can test drive cars for free on the F2P tracks before buying the but paid tracks can´t be tested. Did you buy the F1 2022 and didn´t like it? I just tested it and it´s not for me.
No, in-game purchases are excluded from Steam's refund policy. Steam even says it on a page where you confirm the payment. But you can't test drive a track. I think it's a legit question.
Am I missing something here? People could just buy stuff as they need it and refund it directly afterwards. Doesn't sound like a valid business model to me.
1) Steam offers refunds and they're still in business. Only a few percent of purchases get refunded if I remember correctly. 2) There are many ways to limit the refund feature so that people don't abuse it. 3) Refunding also brings some money because people are more willing to buy content if they know they can refund it in case they don't like it.
Indeed in some countries you have 14 days refund on online purchases,, but I agree that in this case it is too open to abuse like buying something for a competition. Really being able to test any car on a variety of tracks is a fair compromise - perhaps the only unfair part is when you buy something and the day after there is a sale or new content comes out and your pack doesn´t include it.
--- Of course there are possible problems. But in order to say "no, this is a bad idea" it's not enough to point at these possible problems, you also need to provide arguments that these problems can't be solved or mitigated. And you guys surely didn't do that. Ways to counter the abuse of buying for a competition and then refunding afterwards: 1) You're only eligible for X refunds over the last X months. For example, 3 refunds per 12 months. 2) You don't get your vRP right away, but only after a certain (quite long) period, maybe a month. 3) Like on Steam, you can only refund if you used the content for less than X minutes and bought it less than X days ago (these don't have to be 2 hours/14 days like on Steam or Epic because you're not checking out a whole game, but only a few pieces of content). 4) You're not getting a competition prize if you don't own the content anymore.
Steam and Epic, the two biggest PC gaming markets, offer refunds. So it's not just "some countries", it's basically a norm in PC gaming. Upd: Xbox store also offers refunds on similar terms.
You are only considering premium comps, what about private leagues etc? I am all for consumer protection but really sometimes it goes too far - a free to play game that allows you to test cars before you buy them is more than fair to judge if you want to buy something and people on here will know how I am critical of many things, including the micropayments system and charging for multiple rehashes of the same content. Buyers really have to take more responsibility unless the product is faulty or not fit for purpose or as described.
I wasn't considering anything, I simply addressed the only case of abuse you actually mentioned. And what's with them? I think even the rules I proposed above will be enough to cover most cases of refund abuse, but if you come up with a good counter-example I'd be glad to hear it. Again, you can't test drive a circuit. You think test driving cars is enough? As someone who bought several tracks only after I tested them during free weeks, I think the ability to buy a track and return it if you really don't like it would also come in handy. And what exactly do you mean by that? "If you bought something, own to you decision and accept losses if you don't like it"? That's a mature position, yes. However, if I'm not sure if I will like a circuit enough to justify the price, this position leads me to not buying it. With an option to refund it, I'll be more willing to try it anyway. The thing is, refund doesn't take away my responsibility because this option has to have certain limitations, but it adds another argument in favor of "buy it".
That´s the exact type of buyer profile I would block on Ebay in heartbeat! You already mentioned Steam don´t refund in game purchases and they probably have their reasons so why would publishers do it? Would steam readily refund them THEIR commission? In the case of RRE one could argue that any purchase using vrp should be refundable as the money used to buy the vrp is already in RRE pockets and there is no commission to steam, so it would just be using it for a different outcome but you´d need protocols, people to supervise etc etc and we have seen many times on this forum people complainng about transaction incident tickets not being followed up on.
Oh, is that where you're coming from? But how similar your business on Ebay is to R3E store to apply the same principles? To illustrate there is indeed a difference, I heard some developers even used refund as a reason for not putting out demo version of their games. As in, they expect you to buy the game and refund it if you don't like, instead of playing a demo. I'm pretty sure the reason is simply because it would require addition layer of communication between games and Steam, and what's even worse is that each game would require individual approach since all this back-end stuff works differently depending on a game. Steam offers refunds to games and DLCs because it has information about playtime and it has ability to grant and revoke licenses. And that's what R3E store has, too: it has all the information about how long each piece of content was used and it can grant and revoke licenses for them. Of course, as any new feature, it requires resources to implement and it's an argument against it. Do you mean something like, a support ticket was posted but there was no response and the player comes to this forum? I wouldn't call it "many times" at all... It's like a couple times a year?
Exactly, given the low number of players the game has and incidents reported, it doesn´t seem worthwhile creating and Amazon esque returns protocol for the marginal gains it might represent. I´d say the only case I can remember where a refund would be legitimate due to something not right with the DLC was with the electric cars that couldn´t be raced against AI. I don´t know if that ever got fixed or not but it´s an example of a defective product or a limitation that was not described to the buyer before purchase and which could not have been discovered in test drive mode. Perhaps the oval tracks not being supported was another but I think the made it clear when they were released and they were extra layouts - not the core product.
electric cars were fixed a while ago i believe ; and the unsupported bit about the ovals was more you wont get a full ai experience or oval setups as such Andi
It might not necessarily be as complicated as that. Battleborn, for example, had a refund option for any item you bought for premium currency (and non-premium currency too). I don't think it was manually approved by anyone at the company, it was made as simple as possible - a button in your purchase history, right inside the game. Also this option wasn't there at release, so it's possible it was developed later. Upd: Anyway, whether it's worth implementing or not, is not for us, players, to decide and it wasn't my point. I only addressed this misconception that digital refunds are some kind of an alien idea and will kill your business.