sigh. Once again you admitted you clicked the download, it doesn't matter if you stopped it or not you attempted to download the game. Simple as. Are you one of those people that buys something you can't afford use it for a day or so then return it because "it's not what I wanted"? Because thats what you just did the digital equivalent of. Sorry but it's true you clicked the damn button!
For all GOG knows you could have clicked them all cancelled it asked for a refund then RESUMED THE DOWNLOAD.

To be fair to GOG it is not so much a lack of technical prowess nor laziness, it is part of their business philosophy to be as thin and unobtrusive as possible. They don't track button clicks or keystrokes, they don't even store your credit card info. Even the GOG downloader is optional and a fairly new addition.

@OP

One thing I just can't understand - why do you need Alan Wake *with Steamworks*?

Why do you think Alan Wake on GOG (DRM-free) is worse than Alan Wake on Steam?

After all, you still had this game, and as I noticed in your posts, you are not one of those people "No Steam, No buy".



But I do think some people were a bit too militant in this thread.

Either the average gamer does not "care" about DRM, or is simply not aware that it is possible to buy the game even without the DRM.

The seed is sown. Now the ignorant ones at least start pondering the plusses and minuses between buying a game either here or Steam, as they know about the possibility.

Ps. If the same had happened on Steam, you can be sure Steam would have refunded absolutely nothing. If anything, they would have just banned the person from his account and all his Steam games.

Sorry GOG, but making an exception for this guy was the actual loss of integrity here. You bowed to epic whining instead of sticking to your clearly stated and otherwise evenly enforced policies. This guy was clearly the one in the wrong here, not you, but now you have completely validated his position that willful ignorance and erroneous assumptions are valid grounds for a refund. For shame GOG, for shame.

One can always try it by buying a Steam game and start downloading it, and then contact Valve for a refund (and complain about it in their forums of course). I'm quite sure no refund is coming.

Let's not forget about making the thread title explicitly point out perceived lack of moral standards, later posts insulting anyone who disagrees and initial claims that he didn't know the game he bought on Steam was not redeemable anywhere else ;P.

Well, I'm glad GoG is going to work things out for you.

That said, I addressed your initial post in my first post; I ignored the fact that you tried to correct the matter because you had already started downloading something, which basically made trying to correct it a moot point, which many people had pointed out, as did I.

I'm sorry if you took it as "berating", but, as someone else said, once you explained your point, that should have been it, but by constantly trying to reinforce your points despite all the information being offered, it came off like foot-stomping.

I like this site because the people in the forums are generally heads above other sites where people just call each other names and act stupid; and if it is done here, it's usually in good fun. Getting responses that aren't what you would like really isn't trolling or berating or putting down; it's trying to get you to see something in a different way.

I can see why you would want a refund, but I can't see why you'd unnecessarily attack both the site and the users. That is the reason people lash out at you, not because you wanted a refund but because you attacked the site and the users in the very first post you made. If you had posted the OP in a civil way most replies would have been civil as well.

So, uh...can't you just download the game, install it and play it? What is so necessary about it having to be activated through Steam that you can't just play the game you bought?

Oh and to answer others' questions about knowing if the files finished downloading (if it hasn't already been answered), there is no way to know they finished the download. The only thing you know from a web server stand point is that someone started a download not if they finished it or not.

GOG did nothing wrong in this scenario.

Missed . :( :p

I read TET's reply some hours ago, and came back now to offer drawing a line under this issue and starting fresh. And then the first thing I see is another "I'm right! I'm right!" post from you. :(

GOG did go over and beyond duty (and broke their own policies) to correct a mistake that you made. GOG basically laid a red carpet in front of you. Firek mentioned only one single thing which can be seen as a disagreement, and that's his statement that he doesn't see GOG's sticking to their rules as "no integrity".

And in your reply, instead of simply being glad that GOG doesn't seem to take offense for being insulted that way, you feel the need to keep on harping why you see the thread title as justified. Even now. Even after GOG did exactly what you wanted.

It's hopeless. :(

I don't know what to feel. I'm not sure bowing to the guy with the complaint was the best option, but for sure some people here were being real @$$holes. I think the best thing would have been to offer an apology for what he was going through, but to say that no exception could be made, and to suggest he download and enjoy the game.

...

I dunno. The thread title probably could have been better.

Nah, not really. I understand why it may seem to you that GOG may have "given in to whining" or something like that, but I don't think that's happened. What happened was that GOG stripped away all the bile and all the bad emotions from this thread, looked at the issue underneath, and decided that (a) there was very little doubt that the game indeed had not been downloaded, and (b) that they therefore could make an exception and grant a refund. The refund was granted independently of the whining, not because of it.

Amerika did not download the full game, and if that can be proven to a sufficient degree, then there's a basis for making an exception. GOG didn't _need_ to go that far, but they did; it's pretty good service. The fact that Amerika felt so entitled to getting a refund, and flung around accusations about GOG's integrity, could of course be held against him, but GOG decided not to. Which, again, is pretty good service. The fact that Amerika apparently sees this as justifying his whole position, instead of realizing how incredibly well he's being treated by GOG's support, is a bit sad - but, again, it doesn't necessarily void the basis for a refund _if_ the not-downloading of the game can be proven.

Personally, I would have acted differently. In the shop that I'm co-running for a decade now, you can question everything - you can criticize my work, my behavior, my prices, all that is the customer's prerogative. But criticize my integrity and things get ugly. You get a friendly explanation first, then a stern warning next, and if you keep doing it for the third time, you get a shop ban. There simply _are_ boundaries as to which amount of insults a businessman has to endure from his customers. Thankfully (for me), only four of my customers in over a decade have tried to argue in the way that Amerika did here. Thankfully for Amerika, GOG seems more forgiving about that particular type of insult than I would have been.

This is my third try at posting this, hopefully it works this time...

I disagree. The only reason GOG even took notice of this issue beyond the response that support had already given was because Amerika whined in such an epic fashion. Had he not bothered to come to the forums and publicly insult them, this would have been a closed issue. All they did by caving in is invite even more overly entitled tools to take advantage of their good nature. They set the rules and policies, but they are only effective and meaningful when actually enforced. By allowing this... person (I'm actively trying to not be insulting)... to get his way, in spite of clearly being the one in the wrong, they are only weakening their position when something like this happens again in the future.