I didn't want to be racist about this, but don't you think this might be a... cultural thing ? As far as American insults go, being morally corrupt seems to rank lower than being unattractive, unsucessful or even unintelligent... AFAIK.

Well, that's speculation. :) I think we have a rather special case here: A user did make several mistakes when buying a product, he did try immediately to undo them, but due to (reasonable) technical limitations, these attempts couldn't succeed, and even a standard support person couldn't help.

At this point, the matter needs to be kicked up the chain, as Orcishgamer said before. Personally, in such a situation, I would have replied to support and said: "I understood what you are saying. I do believe that there is a reasonable basis to make an exception here, for the reasons I already stated. If you are not in a position to make such an exception, then please put me in contact with someone who can." After getting that post, Firek and his superior could have gone over the data just like they did yesterday, and would have arrived at the same result.

But as I said, it's speculation. Unless you or I know an actual comparable case (and I don't), we can't tell whether the polite/constructive method would have worked to. Personally, I believe that it would have, but if you choose to believe differently, I'm afraid I don't have the hard data to convince you.

I don't think so. GOG has made it clear that they grant the refund because due to Amerika's immediate reaction, there's little doubt that he indeed didn't download the full game. Such cases are rare. Of course, they _should_ be treated the same way in the future, even for people who don't rant in the forum about it. ;)

Dunno - I guess it could be, but then again, there's too much variation inside the group of European shopkeepers, and inside the group of American shopkeepers, to make such a generalization useful, imho. I'm probably among the more old-fashioned ones. ;)

Given the type of reasoning that lead to the verdict of GOG having "no integrity", I tend to believe that it doesn't take a non-American to feel offended by it ... but I can't really argue that point without dissecting Amerika's argumentation again. I don't think TET would approve of this, and since I respect his domestic authority here, I'd rather not do this and drop it instead. :)

Not speculation, that is what happened (have you been reading the same thread?). Why would GOG have bothered to address this within the thread itself if the thread isn't what brought this to their attention? If this was resolved outside of the thread's influence, there was no reason to even post in here, they could have kept everything in PMs and/or e-mails. They addressed it publicly because it was brought to their attention publicly through Amerka's insults and whining.

Now, the "what if" scenario you present is pure speculation, so as long as we are speculating on what never actually happened, I would suggest that the polite route would have led to the appropriate conclusion: a heartfelt apology from GOG for Amerika's confusion over the policies he never bothered to read, but no refund.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. We only have Amerika's word that he didn't download the whole thing and even if he didn't, GOG's policy has always been "you start the download, your'e stuck with it". They made an exception to that policy for no good reason here, other than to shut up the whiner (there is no mention of whether or not the download finished or Amerika's response time from GOG, only from Amerika himself). They have set a new precedent that others will be able to use against them in the future.
Well, "American" is not a race, so you aren't being racist in the slightest. You might over-generalizing things a bit, but that's not inherently racist either.

It pains me to see people like him get their will.

GoG, stop letting yourself be taken advantage of.

Hmm. I thought that part of the above paragraph was in contradiction to Firek's post. Then I looked up Firek's post and noticed that he had edited it after I read it. The passage that I'm basing several of my arguments on is now missing.

I'm now unsure what to think. In my eyes, the removed passage actually would have prevented the slippery slope that you're afraid of, because it implied that this was a rare and special case (for technical reasons). If you never read that passage, then I can absolutely understand why you're arriving at a different conclusion. However, Firek might have a good reason to remove it, so I'm a bit hesitant to rephrase it here from memory.

I guess we really have to agree to disagree. Under these circumstances, I understand that you find my argument unconvincing, but I can't really do much against it. Ah well, at least we've brought a bit of regular GOG discussion quality back into this thread. ;) I've always appreciated these forums as a place where people can discuss differing opinions respectfully, and are actually able to agree to disagree without holding a grudge. :)

I can relate to the OP.

I bought a game a couple of months ago from another site and nowhere did it say anything about DRM. So when I discovered I needed to activate the game, I had the same sinking feeling as the OP.

I suppose I should have tried to get my money back, but it was easier to just download a... ehm... thingymajig to remedy the situation.

Which is kind of funny. It was easier for me to get rid of DRM than it was for the OP to add it back.

There's no such thing as a "race", it's a relic of the early XX. century nomenclature. Being "racist" nowadays means singling out an arbitrary trait and making inductive judgments based on it (most likely using stereotypes). "Sexism" is a type of "racism" in this sense and "racism" is an umbrella term for justifying prejudice through logical fallacies (as outlines above).

I think that the best option here would be to give him the money back but permaban him on GOG as well. Anything else will either hit GOG's reputation (as the guy would probably start trashing GOG on other forums) or encourage more of this entitled whinning we've seen in this topic.

If OP keep his words, he'll come back here and bought some stuff.

There most certainly is such a thing as race, it is a category used to differentiate humans with specific genetic traits, usually associated with a common geographic origin. It has both legal and scientific definitions associated with it worldwide. What you are describing is not racism, but bigotry. Racism is a form of bigotry, just as sexism is. That is the "umbrella term" that pretty much all forms of prejudice fall under, not racism.

Note to GoG: Pay no attention to people like Cogadh and others who complain about you refunding the guys money because he made an honest mistake. You may have lost a sale with him and while I agree with him about his OP then he did sound like the type that probably will not come back even after you making things right. But fear not, GoG, because I have been on the fence about Alan Wake and the sequel but because you treated him fairly despite his less than stellar way of handling himself then I will now purchase the 2 games here. So good job GoG and thank you for being so understanding and not just abide by the RULES as if they are written in stone.

I was fairly certain it doesn't, not since the 1930s...

I do suppose that there is a distinction between not being informed about DRM and not being informed about the lack of DRM?

I'm not certain what you are referring to, but the concept, idea, legal and scientific definition of race still very much exists today. Some of the labels associated with specific races have changed, like almost no one uses the English word "negro" to describe someone of African descent anymore, but that doesn't mean that the race itself no longer exists.