UPDATE: After declining to trouble-shoot the issue as described below I was offered store credit, a result which I'm perfectly happy with. While I still feel the initial response left something to be desired, I thank the GOG support rep for being flexible on this matter as well as being so quick in their response.

UPDATE 2: According to the support rep standard policy is to offer store credit as part of the initial response as an alternative to trouble-shooting, since people have different levels of tolerance to the amount of trouble-shooting they're willing to do (the rep forgot to include this in the initial response, as they've understandably been a bit swamped with the sale going on). I must say I'm very pleasantly surprised by how this was ultimately handled, and would also like to commend GOG support on the professional and courteous matter in which they responded.

*Original post removed as I now believe much of it stemmed from a simple oversight that resulted in me taking the tone of the response in a very different way than was intended. I feel leaving up my original complaint would be unfair to GOG in light of this. If one of the GOG staff also wishes to change the title to something less negative (such as "Customer support experience" I'd also be fine with that).

Not good at all.

I understand the need for GOG to require the customer to jump through a few hoops in order to get a refund (update graphics drivers, install as admin, provide a DXDiag report, maybe even reinstall the game itself). If they didn't, I'm pretty certain the whole thing would be abused severely just with people that don't like a particular game and want their money back (after playing for hours or through the whole thing).

But some of those requirements are extreme. You shouldn't have to reinstall Visual C++, .NET Frameworks, or DirectX if you already have the latest versions.

And you shouldn't have to go to outside (the developers') support either. GOG sells the games, they should support the games or contact the developers themselves.

As Tauto put it: "Not good at all".


*edit* And in a case of a game like this, where it seems there are known crash issues that apparently haven't been solved over several patches, there shouldn't even be a question about refunds.

If the things suggested had been known fixes for known issues I'd have been happy to try them, but as I mentioned this isn't my first rodeo, and I can recognize a copy-paste laundry list of generic "tips" with no clear relevance to the actual problem. I'd also made it clear when I first contacted support that this was a widespread and longstanding issue, so it's not like they didn't have this information when drafting their reply.

I disagree with the others. PC gaming have always been about tricky busness. Their refund policy does say you need to do your part to have your cake. There is nothing you can blame on them in this case. And if the customer service comes back after your shameless complaint in this thread, that will just prove again that they are more than great.

Made it bold on purpose. I agree 100%. This is the alpha & the omega of after sales support; never let the customer seek elsewhere for help. Fortunately, my experience with GOG support was excellent when I asked for help and I hope that's the case for everyone here.

Yeah, this is similar to phoning a customer help line and having to listen to front-line drone #34875 read through the scripted list of customer service responses. I think overall that GOG's customer service and commitment to customer satisfaction is stellar and have seldom run into a company as good. But in this case, where there are cosistently reported crash issues that haven't been fixed via patching as well as sending back a canned reply... it just isn't a good situation. And I disagree that the complaint is 'shameless'. That's a bit harsh, IMO.

Store credit refund would be the quickest, easiest solution, if you didn't absolutely need the cash. When i requested to refund all my Beamdog titles, due to me getting offended beamdog ruining a classic series and attacking their paying customers and Baldur Gate's dedicated fans, GOG immediately processed my request.

But maybe because it was the first time ever i asked a refund? Or that i already own 185 games? I don't know.

Still, if you are not interested in cash exclusively, try asking politely for store credit. Lasts for 1 year, too.

Good point. If they'll refund for an (IMO) asinine reason such as that, they should refund Darrk for a game that actually doesn't work properly.

(Although it occurs to me, BrAdLeY7: did you actually initiate a DL of those games before requesting a refund?)

I have never tried to invoke that refund policy, and like you I am unsurprised that it is shotgun debugging rather than anything tailored to the problem at hand. As I said in another thread, if your problem cannot be solved by a comprehensive FAQ, it likely cannot be solved by support. You might find some commiseration (but no solutions) in Gog.com support (What you think of it)?

I found this:
https://www.gog.com/support/website_help/money_back_guarantee

Step 6 does, in part, state:
"We will get back to you with what we think might help fix your problem. If we can't get it working together, you will get your money back."

Then step 8:
"8. What if I don't want to bother with trying to get my game working? All I want is my money back!
Our top priority is to help you get the game working, and this means that we will require some cooperation from you. We won't ask anything extravagant, or super time-consuming, like a system reinstall, but if you absolutely refuse to try anything, we won't be able to determine whether the problem can be fixed or not, and won't be able to issue a refund.
This is especially relevant if there are some glaring issues with your computer, like DirectX faults, or drivers that are ancient, or even missing."

While all this seems fair, anything after step 3 in what you posted, may seem excessive for some people, especially if they are unsure what other conflicts may arise from taking those steps, or if the reinstall fails.

I would be interested if others agree or disagree.

PC gaming may have been a tricky business a decade ago, but that really isn't the case these days (this has been the first time in years that I've run into an issue like this, but maybe I've just gotten good at avoiding the bad actors for the most part). As for doing my part, I can almost guarantee I spent more time looking into the issue before contacting support than support took looking into it before sending that reply. Now, if they come back with a good lead on what the issue might be and a fairly quick series of things to try with a good likelihood of fixing it, then that's great (although they really should have lead with that), but these days I'm really not willing to put more of my time into fixing a game than the game is worth, and in this case that's about 15-30 minutes of my time.

If you want to call my view on this "shameless" (or anything else for that matter), then go right ahead. I'm not really looking for any kind of resolution to this at this point, just wanted to share my experience so that others here can take it into account when making their purchasing decisions.

EDIT: Also, just for reference, I've been a customer of GOG since almost the beginning, have probably around 200 games in my library, and this is, I think, the second time I've felt the need to contact GOG support and the only time I've asked for a refund.

Asinine, huh? Well, asinine people have nothing further to say. Over and out and good luck. I for once try to help someone and your typical forum asinines call me asinine again.

P.S. What was done to BG is a sacrilege. Furthest away possible from "asinine" reason.

You'll note that I said IMO. And yes, IMO, the reason you give for wanting the refund is asinine. All this hyperbole and angst about destroying BG and all the other dramatics... it's silly. IMO.

Dramatic much?