Universe at War weekend deal fail

 

Update: After long fight, I did get a refund (second time in my life)!

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So, this is like the first game I bought since February on Steam. I was happy that finally something I would want to play was on weekend deal and for a decent price of 4.99€.

After few hours of downloading (over 5GB), I finally launched my brand new game.

First the screen goes black…for whatever reasons after pressing ALT+TAB few times it finally launches with SEGA logo and everything. It’s all good, nothing to worry about.

Then after few seconds of watching the damn ads a window pops up, with a question ‘would I like to update the game?‘, so yeah first I thought ‘shouldn’t Steam version of the game be patched already?‘, but knowing how stupid Valve’s policy about 3rd party game is it’s kind of obvious that some games aren’t patched to their latest versions.

Anyway, I press YES. Game closes, my browser opens with a link to the patch (.exe file), and after 1 second…we have a 404 error.

OK, shit happens, I started the game once more, pressed NO on the update popup, logged in to Games For Windows Live in the game, entered my CDKEY (for some reasons most of people who got this game got their CDKEY too short lmao, mine is fine), then GFWL updated the game (with some progress bar that didn’t even move a thing).

After downloading it game closed again, and self-updater turned on, the game updated and opened again.

I played like an hour of the campaign, and suddenly this appeared:

OK, this happened 8 times now, plus the game sometimes goes into black screen.

Just to avoid stupid questions, no my system and hardware are both fine. Even tested this on my other PC.

So you think what did I do next? Well, I contacted the lovely Steam Support.


Hello Bartek,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

Technical support for this title is handled by a third party support department – please follow the link below for instructions to contact the support provider for this title:

Title: Universe at War: Earth Assault
Link: http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1178-WNJM-4299

Please let us know if you encounter any difficulty contacting the support provider for this title, or if you have any further questions.

Then my response:

Hello Jacob,

This product is defective and the money I paid for it should be refunded or the game should be fixed.

And:

Hello Bartek,

Thanks for your response but this doesn’t fix my problems. I figured it out on my own to install the xliveredist. The game is still freezing, crashing and ‘black screening’ from time to time.

As with most software products, we will not offer refunds or exchanges for purchases made online as outlined in the software license – please review Section 4 of the Steam Subscriber Agreement for more information. The refund you received was a one-time gesture as should have been outlined in the refund message.

Steam Subscriber Agreement
http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=subscriber_agreement

We will make an exception for pre-ordered games if the request is received prior to the release date.

Few other messages and in the end:

Hello Bartek,

I am sorry but we cannot assist you. Please contact Sega support at http://www.sega.com/support/index.php?id=hp_topnav&lid=support&lpos=tnav_strip& to resolve your problems with the game.

So in the end I’ve uninstalled the game and lost 4.99€. Yay me!

By the way look at my original Steam Forums thread about the prices, it’s grown so big!


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18 responses to “Universe at War weekend deal fail”

  1. Sesam Avatar
    Sesam

    This is the first game that actually bluescreened my system, right after completing the first mission.

  2. Zuko Avatar
    Zuko

    Error: Abnormal Exit Detected.

  3. tkossak Avatar
    tkossak

    the error message is the same as here: http://i42.tinypic.com/90ys61.jpg

    translating into english is sth like this: “Connecting to LIVE is not possible. Used Windows Live ID might belong to region, where Live is not available.”

    i tried to login with UK/US account, switching windows firewall/antivirus, giving administrative rights to steam and the game and nothing works. I asked for help on steam game forum…

  4. glubbar Avatar
    glubbar

    Another Game For Windows Live, heh?

    I set myself a rule, to avoid buying ANY game that uses GFWL!
    You should do the same. Check the game specs before buying. If it uses GFWL, just don’t buy it!

    Oh and, what does the error message say exactly?

  5. tkossak Avatar
    tkossak

    First i had problem with language (polish instead of english).
    Then the game wasn’t patched (i thought steam should do that)
    Then i had – and still have – problem with loggin to GFWL (even with UK/US account)…

    Next time i will think twice before buying sega game again (if i will buy any at all, surely not when they have mandatory GFWL).

  6. Black_Hand Avatar
    Black_Hand

    i said im patient, ive seen worse games, when it comes to stability.

  7. H3llsp4wn Avatar
    H3llsp4wn

    Why you don’t contact SEGA? Valve is not supposed to support 3rd Party Games…

  8. Black_Hand Avatar
    Black_Hand

    so many mistakes…lol sry. i hope its readable :)

  9. Black_Hand Avatar
    Black_Hand

    GFWL is stupid. why the hell do i have to be in USA, or UK or whereever else. im czech, why PC ppl should be punished, if all problem about countries are related to XBOX. nevertheless after little brain surgery im american. cdkey is fine. but crashes….crashed like 20 times so far.
    but im a very patient person. i made to the second masari mission, so no real deal for me, the game itself has quite a few original elements, and i planned to buy it in a few days as retail, but retail cost 2-3x mores than during this discount. the only thing i miss is the soundtrack, which is supposed to be in retail version. i just love hierarchy part.
    one last thing should be mentioning of somewhat nonresponsive acheivments recognition/upload. my first achievment was that one about blowing up all legs on a walker. i passed it in a first mission of masari, even though i clearly did the very same thing before, as a novus. similarly campaign completion acheivments dont work too. and i AM playing on normal, so no problem there.
    still i consider it a pretty good bargain. as i said it is quite original in some cases.

  10. Rad-86 Avatar
    Rad-86

    my cdkey was alright.. tho, after 3 times LIVE showed patch progress bar FULL and nothing happening for 1/2 hour.. igave it up and downloaded 2 patch files from german 3rd party download site.. about 90MB!! OMFG at first, now lmfao… its a good game, but steam support for it will probably never come.. tho it seems no other updates are coming, so why not update the game to latest version and never touch it again..

  11. Zuko Avatar
    Zuko

    FCUK Steam become a ninja ;)

  12. Freyar Avatar
    Freyar

    Well, as far as the GFWL live patching stuff goes, it’s been like that for every single Windows Live enabled game since they came out. Even The Club handles patches that way (despite it actually being broken, so you have to manually patch if after live downloads the replacement files.)

    As far as the fixing the serial.. did you get ahold of Sega for a new one? Or create a ticket specific to that issue (not bundled with the technical issue)? Just some things I’d try as well.

  13. frantic Avatar
    frantic

    Seems like you lot just have bad luck with Steam, mine is perfect. Right CD Key, no crashes no nothing, working fine like everything else I have bought from Steam.

  14. stranded Avatar
    stranded

    It does work for me too, but crashes randomly (after few minutes, or when I activate the Steam overlay) with an error window.

  15. netlork Avatar

    The game works fine to me, but the serial is wrong… FAIL!! XD

    Well, now is time to wait the fix :(

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