March 7, 2011 at 08:11Why I always bought Valve products and why I will not make this mistake anymore
Disclaimer: This post was written by me as a private person. This post has nothing to do with my current job.
Games are quite an important part of my life, but not too significant. I devoted a lot of time to game development. Now I don’t take much time for games and want to use the best. Of course I’m not shy about paying for what I enjoy.
Over the past 5 years I have watched many games, but those for which I would like to pay were in the minority. Paying for a game that bothers after 10 minutes is pointless. Such developers rely only on advertising and uninformed buyers.
Therefore, I highlighted a specific list of developers who I am ready to pay money for their work. Because it gives me pleasure. These included Valve. Half-Life was a masterpiece. And Half-Life 2 is also a very good product. As soon as a new game from Valve came out, I knew that I needed to buy it. It's not that I could not download the game from torrents. I could. But I wanted to support the company. And still, most of my friends play pirates - I like the game - I pay for it. And I will hope that they will release a version for Linux;)
That's how I lived until recently. By the will of circumstances, I managed to move from Moscow to the states. Well, after some time I wanted to have fun and play the masterpiece game Half-life 2. Having logged in to Steam, I found out that the game I bought was regionally locked. What to do? Write to tech support of your favorite company, of course. He wrote, but they answered me that they would be happy to help remove the game from Steam so that I could pay them again.
Hm. I already paid them. And ready to pay in the future. For example, Portal 2 will be released soon, I did not think for a minute that I would not buy this game.
I wrote all this to support that I will not pay twice for a product that I have already bought. Even if it costs now only $ 10. I honestly paid for it. And a lot of money.
After the response of the support, that they cannot help me, and if they could, I need confirmation of my purchase - I was desperate. All that I believed was ruined. Now I knew that unicorns did not exist and they would not be butterflies. Portal 2 I would not buy, most likely.
But still, I respected the company that made HL, CS, HL2 ... I redirected all traffic through Russia to bypass the check to the regions and could enjoy Half-Life 2 again. For this I needed firewall Winows 7 and SOCKS 5 proxy on Debian Lenny in Moscow.
I honestly wrote about this in a support that I found a way to play, but still I want an official solution.
And what would you think. They tried for a long time to confirm that I am me. What exactly did I pay for their games. And then they deleted my purchases that were made from the territory of Russia. So that I can buy their product again. How condescending of them !!! I told them more than once that I had already paid and I just want to get mine. But it did not help.
Now, after such an attitude, you start to wonder if there are unicorns?
UPD I’m not happy that I shared my problem with Habr - I watched two for how they pour karma, although it may have earned it;) But I still didn’t hide it in drafts.
In the comments, they asked for screenshots of correspondence with the support. Here they are . For English do not kick much. I know there are a lot of mistakes.
Games are quite an important part of my life, but not too significant. I devoted a lot of time to game development. Now I don’t take much time for games and want to use the best. Of course I’m not shy about paying for what I enjoy.
Over the past 5 years I have watched many games, but those for which I would like to pay were in the minority. Paying for a game that bothers after 10 minutes is pointless. Such developers rely only on advertising and uninformed buyers.
Therefore, I highlighted a specific list of developers who I am ready to pay money for their work. Because it gives me pleasure. These included Valve. Half-Life was a masterpiece. And Half-Life 2 is also a very good product. As soon as a new game from Valve came out, I knew that I needed to buy it. It's not that I could not download the game from torrents. I could. But I wanted to support the company. And still, most of my friends play pirates - I like the game - I pay for it. And I will hope that they will release a version for Linux;)
That's how I lived until recently. By the will of circumstances, I managed to move from Moscow to the states. Well, after some time I wanted to have fun and play the masterpiece game Half-life 2. Having logged in to Steam, I found out that the game I bought was regionally locked. What to do? Write to tech support of your favorite company, of course. He wrote, but they answered me that they would be happy to help remove the game from Steam so that I could pay them again.
Hm. I already paid them. And ready to pay in the future. For example, Portal 2 will be released soon, I did not think for a minute that I would not buy this game.
I wrote all this to support that I will not pay twice for a product that I have already bought. Even if it costs now only $ 10. I honestly paid for it. And a lot of money.
After the response of the support, that they cannot help me, and if they could, I need confirmation of my purchase - I was desperate. All that I believed was ruined. Now I knew that unicorns did not exist and they would not be butterflies. Portal 2 I would not buy, most likely.
But still, I respected the company that made HL, CS, HL2 ... I redirected all traffic through Russia to bypass the check to the regions and could enjoy Half-Life 2 again. For this I needed firewall Winows 7 and SOCKS 5 proxy on Debian Lenny in Moscow.
I honestly wrote about this in a support that I found a way to play, but still I want an official solution.
And what would you think. They tried for a long time to confirm that I am me. What exactly did I pay for their games. And then they deleted my purchases that were made from the territory of Russia. So that I can buy their product again. How condescending of them !!! I told them more than once that I had already paid and I just want to get mine. But it did not help.
Now, after such an attitude, you start to wonder if there are unicorns?
UPD I’m not happy that I shared my problem with Habr - I watched two for how they pour karma, although it may have earned it;) But I still didn’t hide it in drafts.
In the comments, they asked for screenshots of correspondence with the support. Here they are . For English do not kick much. I know there are a lot of mistakes.
