Back at the start of this month I decided to take a break from debugging some code and have a quick de-stressing blast on Team Fortress 2. As I loaded the Steam client, the "updates" window popped up what seemed to be a bargain - Fallout 3, half price just for that weekend! That'll be fun, thinks I, and cheap too!
 
It really didn't turn out that way.

I never got to see the game in action at all. I mean, I got to see the menu - loads of times - but after "Start New Game", all I'd be seeing is my own desktop. All the more galling, I'd get little messages popping up telling me "Phlamethrower is now playing Fallout 3", taunting me. I would have liked to have been playing Fallout 3, too.
 
There are, alas, two main problems with buying games from Valve via their Steam client:

1. They don't support games they don't write
2. They don't do refunds

The first point is kind of understandable - if they didn't write it, they probably don't know enough about it to help get the game running. On the other hand, most developers just develop games for delivery on shiny disks, whereas Valve would be the experts on Steam itself - so if the problem was to do with a corrupted download, you might expect at least a "delete the cache and re-download" raindance. You could also argue that most first line support is done from a script these days, so it's not so hard for anyone to support a product - but that's an arguement that could cut both ways (if anyone can do it equally well, why hassle Valve?).
 
What I got was a stock response telling me to go to their support page and follow a link to the developer's website. Which didn't work. So via Google I got to the Bethesda forums, which gave a link to a Microsoft download to fix the Live software. That link didn't work. After thrashing around on my own I went back to Valve, who finally gave me a link that did work, to Bethesda's generic support contact form. Guess what? It didn't work. The email server seemed to be rejecting mail from the web server.
 
In the mean time I'd been reading the Valve forums, and it appeared the game has problems on a certain operating system - there was a long line of "me too!" posts from Vista users. I followed a number of suggestions - updating .Net, my video drivers, Live; disabling software such as ffdshow; even installing a hack to disable the game's Live component completely - all to no avail. Needless to say, the game didn't exactly take my mind off that debugging quite as much as I'd hoped.
 
The only option seemed to be to take the game back to where I'd bought it, and ask for a refund. Only, Valve don't do refunds.
 
Actually, I didn't know that at this point of the proceedings, mainly because Valve didn't bother to answer when I informed them I couldn't get through to Bethesda. After ten days, I sent yet another request, pointing out that this level of service didn't bode well for future Steam purchases. It was only then that I found out about their refund policy:

Please note [...]
that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refundable

There are a number of problems with this. It's well established that very few people read "shrink-wrapped" contracts, which makes their enforcability somewhat dubious even in the States. In the UK I should be protected by laws such as the Sale of Goods Act - if a product you've purchased is "unfit for purpose", you're entitled to a full refund, which trumps any amount of small print. I purchased the game in the UK, and prices are all in pounds sterling, so don't UK laws apply? The problem is I just don't know - the company is obviously American, and on further inspection it appears the "store" is hosted in America too, despite detecting where you're accessing it from and using your local currency. I'm not even sure I purchased the game, or if I'm just renting it in some way - and come to think of it, what happens if Valve go bankrupt and their servers go offline?
 
Whatever the legal technicalities, you would expect if a game doesn't run at all, you can just go back to the shop you got it from and ask for a refund. True, some people might abuse this by playing the game and then taking it back afterwards, but here Valve is in a somewhat unique position - they know exactly when I purchased the game, exactly when I first started saying I had problems, and in all probablility when I connected to their service to actually play the game. None of that really matters however, because in retail most stores would probably just give the money back anyway, just to keep the customer sweet. But I had a game that didn't work - never got past the title screen, likely it never would - and I was expected to just write the money off.
 
I should come clean and say that, for dramatic effect, I snipped the ends from my previous quoting. The line that informed me of the refund policy reads in full:

Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refundable -
this refund was issued as a one-time customer service gesture.

So I did get back my money eventually. So all's well that ends well, right? Well, not really. This time I got my money back. But what about next time? The only reason I got a refund might have been because my message slipped through the cracks for 10 days - or they might refund anyone who makes enough noise. Whereas if I just buy games on shiny disk from a bricks and mortar shop (or a "proper" online shop like Amazon), I'm pretty certain of their refund policy. And that, if it does work (as is most often the case), the game will continue to be mine in the future.