‘No Man’s Sky’: Steam, Sony, And Amazon Begin Issuing Refunds, Regardless Of Play Time [Updated]

Update: The lack of clarity on No Man’s Sky refund process has left many folks frustrated. Earlier, some users managed to the refund from Steam without many issues and posted about the experience on Reddit and NeoGAF forums. What appeared to be a no-questions-asked refund drill actually had a few caveats that weren’t clarified and communicated clearly on Saturday.

Following the sudden surge in refund requests, Steam seems to have updated No Man’s Sky page, stating that the standard refund policy applies to the game, and no special exemptions are available. Previously, no such disclaimer existed. On the other hand, Sony is reportedly asking folks who bought the game to run some tests first to troubleshoot the game’s performance, reports IGN. Once Sony verifies in-game technical snags, the refund request passes to the next step. In all fairness, folks who ideally have clocked two to four hours and faced justifiable technical glitches can have a word with the respective stores for refund eligibility.

The original article begins below.

Hello Games’ woes with No Man’s Sky for PC continues to bother gamers as well as its developers. In the meantime, Game Revolution reports that Steam has quietly started accepting refund requests from the PC users regardless of the play hours. Following that, even Sony and Amazon U.S. is issuing refunds to the buyers irrespective of the play hours clocked, reported Gadgets 360. The game is available via Steam, Sony, and Amazon for $59.99.

Launched on PC earlier this month, thousands of Steam users who paid for No Man’s Sky weren’t happy with the game’s performance and stability. Earlier this week, Hello Games released three patches and shared the details in lengthy release notes on the Steam Community forum.

Patch notes here for PC. Three patches released on Steam and GoG which fix the most common issues reported: https://t.co/LqwbQPXQjj

— Hello Games (@hellogames) August 23, 2016

No Man’s Sky is a sandbox-style, space exploration game set in a massive universe that procedurally generates worlds. Starting off as an explorer, drift in the space exploring new planets and trading items from your inventory. The game features 18 quintillion planets to visit and explore. That sure makes it feel tedious, and of endless scale. In fact, you might end up spending an entire lifetime exploring every nook and cranny of each planet. However, the same idea might be transfixing for those who love such games, reports Vox.

The word about Steam offering a refund for No Man’s Sky spread via Reddit. A user named whaaatcrazy posted, “Just heard on a random twitch channel they’re giving the refund, so I gave it a shot even though I tried the day it came out, AND HOLY S**T IT WORKED.”

Steam’s official refund policy states the following.

“Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours.”

When the game launched on Steam in mid-August, over 220,00 players were actively playing No Man’s Sky. That number has dropped to roughly 15,000 players this week, reported PC Invasion. That’s a massive drop that puts the game developers in hot water.

PlayStation 4 users were infuriated over Sony’s archaic cancellation, and refund policy, according to Eurogamer. As per PlayStation Store’s official documentation, the user can request for cancellation within 14 days of the purchase. However, the caveat here is that user must not have initiated the download or streamed the game.

To our surprise, even Sony is now issuing refunds to the PlayStation Network accounts. The biggest fear among PS4 users is that Sony will give them the money back but will block the possibility of purchasing a digital copy of No Man’s Sky at a lower cost again in future. However, Sony assures it won’t be the case with this game.

Amazon, who sold digital codes for the No Man’s Sky, is also accepting refund requests from its customers and most found that the live chat was the fastest way to get it.

Some gamers are already posting about their success with refunds from Steam, Amazon, and even Sony’s PSN on the NeoGAF forum boards.

General grievance among the gamers is that No Man’s Sky doesn’t work as advertised in the trailers and promotional materials. A massive Reddit post that listed all the missing features promised by Sean Murray, Hello Games founder, got deleted but has been archived on a website amusingly called One Man’s Lie, as per a Steam Community post.

Hello Games has already released five patches for the PlayStation 4 version of its game. The game developer plans to fix the crashing issues entirely in coming weeks.

Patch 1.06 fixes 90% of crash issues for PS4 is in testing and will release this week

— Hello Games (@hellogames) August 24, 2016

In case you plan to keep the game, there’s some more bad news for you. The game developers hinted that you might have pay for its DLC in the future, according to the Inquisitr. Certainly, the paid DLC will include a lot of content and new features that might lead to additional development time. But you know what that means. Meanwhile, you can check out the new Experimental Branch thread on Steam Community boards which gives a lot of workaround for the existing issues to the PC users.

The trailer of the No Man’s Sky made it look like a dream come true. However, its release gave a taste of the reality with several crashes and bugs. Thankfully, Sony, Steam, and Amazon are refunding the money to only eligible buyers, who justified technical issues, of the No Man’s Sky.

Those troubled with the game and are facing issues getting your refund, voice your experience in the comments section below.

[Image via Hello Games]