Support NeoGAF

[OsirisBlack]

Over the years I have had several technical issues with several games and their payment methods. When you play long-term games (MMORPG) you are bound to run into some bs sooner or later.

Who has been the best in assisting you with technical issues?

For me personally, the best has been Square Enix customer support. Lost the CD key to a twenty-year-old game no problem what's the address you used to register the account? Oh, there's something missing in your inventory after a server change let us check. Fixed.

Nintendo would be second in my own personal experience followed closely by Blizzard who were helpful as hell through the early WOW years.

The worst and by far has been Steam support. I mean the absolute worst ever. Love PC gaming to death but their support is light-years behind everyone else. "Hey you all charged me three times for the same game." Steams automated response "Please submit a ticket" Call the steam support number (425) 889-9642 the automated response (you arent talking to a person when it comes to steam) "please visit us online and ..... submit a ticket" You submit a ticket (Three days later) "Your query was not exact what was the issue?" ....... "You overcharged me." their response .... "We're sorry please submit another ticket."

Just wow.

 

[lh032]

I feel like besides first world countries like US/UK/europe, most of the other countries were sideline.
Customer service is near non-existence for other developing/third world countries. You dont really have a proper way to reach the customer service, especially when there is no physical service center in the said country.

Hopefully in the future there is an actual regulation for these company to provide actual customer services.
I think the government or regulators not taking seriously on gaming company's customer service for now.

 

[Winter John]

Sony. Treat us customers like absolute shit. One time I contacted them to get a refund for a game, think it was 7 days to die. It was completely broken. It was Cyberpunk level fucked. Anyways the guy made it seem like he was doing me some massive favor. Kept on about it being a 1 time thing and how they wouldn't normally do it, and that I was never to ask for a refund again. Patronising little fuck. Thanks to that dumbass I've spent a lot less on Playstation games.

 

[Majormaxxx]

I find xbox to be quite bad.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Haven't really had any issue with customer support the few times I had to deal with them. It's all been a pretty smooth ride whenever I had to refund a game or a service, or get a broken console fixed. I've dealt most with Sony, but I've had a couple of run ins with MS and Nintendo too. So I guess everyone's alright in my book.

 

[ReBurn]

Depends on what I've needed. On the hardware support side Nintendo and Microsoft have always been great for me. Sony has always been terrible. When my DS Lite hinge broke Nintendo took care of it no questions asked. Microsoft treated me really well with RROD. When my PS2 got disc read errors Sony charged me $139 to fix it after saying it was my fault it broke. But they paid me back after they settled the class action lawsuit. When my PS3 got YLOD Sony told me they couldn't fix it under warranty because they didn't have a comparable fat model to replace it with, so they offered me a discount to upgrade to a PS3 slim. So my options were keep a dead system of pay a $129 upgrade fee and get a greatest hits game tossed in for free.

On the software side Sony has been better to me. Twice they've refunded me for things that didn't go as planned snd didn't give me a hard time. Microsoft support was way worse.

 

[Putonahappyface]

I find xbox to be quite bad.

Sony is worse from my experience.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Both Sony and Nintendo seem inflexible when it comes to refunding digital game purchases and subs. MS, on the other hand, is quick to refund these things, at least in my experience.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I’d say Sony is pretty bad sometimes myself. They can be good though, I messed up a psn card a while ago and they replaced it within 12 hours which was nice.

Square isn’t good either. I had to deregister ff14 from my ps4 when I went to a pro and it wouldn’t work at all and I couldn’t get it to work. It is retarded to tie an account to hardware. No idea if that has changed though so maybe it’s not fair anymore.

Steam is pretty solid.

To me, the best of the best is Amazon though. We had a computer desk show up at the start of Covid that had a few minor scratches on it. We sent them a message and we’re expecting like 10% off or a swap or something. Nope, 100% refund and keep the desk. This was not some cheapo desk either. I was blown away. I forgot to cancel my audible account for a few months (but was still using the service for the things I bought a while ago) and they refunded them all. I’ve always been
Impressed by them. My wife is a pretty big customer for them though so maybe that is why.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Best - Valve

Worst - Sony and Nintendo

 

[Fuz]

Blizzard had an excellent customer service when I still used to buy Blizzard stuff.

Worst - oooh boy, where do we start?

 

[azertydu91]

Honestly most of them are pretty good and bad....
Let me explain , I've had to deal with a lot of support teams and most of the time it is not the policy of the company that was problematic, it was the individual I was talking to.
I found out that usually about 1/8 of them is actually either willing to work or competent enough to do its job.
To give you an simple example that I found to be representative of most support (at least on the phone).
I had trouble getting paid at a company that I did a short internship.I needed to make 8 phonecalls until someone fixed the problem.
Most of them asked me random administrative papers or prooves that I worked there, some told me I might be paid in a few months others never.
But that 8th guy was competent he saw that I worked there asked me for nothing else ans told me that my payment would be put as urgent ans that I would get it in about a week...2 days later I got paid in full and even had an apology mail.
I've had similar experiences with various support teams or retailers...
Except for Amazon they always solved my problems withtin a week top...I've had no experience with Nintendo support team so I can't tell about them.But so far perseverance always paid.

 

[Rykan]

Best: Blizzard. Okay to be fair, it was a fairly simple request and I rarely have to use customer service so there's not a whole lot of competition. They fufilled my request rather quickly and service agent was friendly. The only annoying thing is that I was required to upload an ID before I got to ask my questions, which is a bit of a hassle and not something I'm comfortable with

Worst: Ubisoft. I've had to contact them twice and both of them have been fucking terrible. Once I felt like playing Assassin's Creed 3, which I had purchased years ago on steam during a sale. So I download the game through steam as usual, but of course Ubisoft requires the crappy uPlay launcher. So the launcher opens up and it asks me to add a CD key code. Okay no big deal, I don't care. I see that the game is added to my uPlay account, so I figured it's good to go. I try to open the game through steam and..uPlay asks me to insert CD key again. Which I do, except now it says the key is invalid/already used. The game is actually in my uPlay account, it just won't let me launch it because it keeps asing for a CD key.

So I contact Ubisoft support and they kindly tell me to fuck off and contact Steam support instead. What? How is this Steam's problem when its YOUR launcher that is fucking up and blocking me from playing the game I purchased? I try to convince the guy that Steam did its job and delivered the game to me, but that it's your pointless launcher that is blocking the game and request them to give me a new cd key (Keep in mind this game is like what, 8 years old at this point) so I can play my game, but he kept telling me to contact steam support. What a joke.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

About worst: BETHESDA, try to contact them about Fallout 76. The game is already a mess and the support is just an extension of this mess. Even a shit on the road is more useful than them and at least have a purpose: flies can eat it.

About best:

*still searching* (barely contact any support anyway)

 

[T4keD0wN]

I dont know who has the best (EVGA and GOG are not total garbage, should be enough for the best, right?), but EA/Origin is the worst in my experience, followed by 2k.

 

[Patrick S.]

The only time I had to deal with customer support was when my EA Origin account got hacked by a Russian asshole. The EA support asked me what games I had on the account, and what my recent activity on that account had been. Luckily the Russian fuck didn’t have access to my associated mail account, so EA switched it back from the .ru address the hacker had linked to my account. All in all, the resolution of the hack didn’t take much more than fifteen minutes or so.

 

[Topher]

About worst: BETHESDA, try to contact them about Fallout 76. The game is already a mess and the support is just an extension of this mess. Even a shit on the road is more useful than them and at least have a purpose: flies can eat it.

About best:

*still searching* (barely contact any support anyway)

Best is Valve by far, imo

 

[The_Mike]

When I had a broken controller xbox replaced it no questions asked.

If you buy something on the store and it's shit, you get a refund.

It's the best service I've ever had with a company.
Oh and I accidently renewed a six months sub in wow I got refunded even after a month runtime (didn't play it at the time and suddenly saw it on my bank account.

From what I read on the Web and in here, then Sony is probably the worst.
They will do everything to not help or support you, and they will do anything for not refund you anything.

But as long as people buy it why change it if it doesn't affect your popularity.

 

[chigstoke]

I find xbox to be quite bad.

I found Xbox pretty good for me, granted it was just for a refund on PES 2020.

The chat agent asked me for my name to address me, but I thought I'd try and see if I could be daft with him, so I said my name but told him that most of my mates refer to me as Jean Claude Van Damme.
He said 'oh I see what you did there' and kept calling it me for the rest of the chat. So quite frankly I think that qualifies them for best customer support.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Xbox has been okay nothing spectacular

Sony is terrible

Never tried nintendo

Idk if it’s the industry but LG is pretty on point.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Best - Nintendo

Worst - Qdoba

 

[Drew1440]

Only one I had to contact was EA due to an Origin authenticator issue and they were excellent.

 

[Crayon]

I had never actually had to use one except for a joycon I dropped and broke just 2 weeks after launch. They did a great job, though. Replaced at no cost and turned around quickly. I actually sent both and they did the mod to increase range.

 

[Laptop1991]

Worst in the last year is Ubisoft easily, i haven't contacted support for a game for a long time now, usually fellow PC gamers have better answers and help on Steam etc, but when i did 2k were really helpful but that was 10 years ago.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Sony’s is good if you don’t bug them with stuff that isn’t in their TOS. Like getting a refund for a preorder. I’ve had great experiences dealing with them for that purpose.

The last time I checked, Microsoft had a number of refunds per account per time period. I got a refund on one item and didn’t get one on another one cause I used up my allotted refunds per year or something.

Valve is great. They can be slow at times, but refunds for <2 hours went smoothly for me. Following the TOS is just like with Sony. Ask for something specifically pointed out in their TOS and they won’t budge.

Nintendo I haven’t really dealt with. They’ve got this issue where certain email accounts (especially Microsoft domains) won’t receive emails. It’s frustrating when you aren’t receiving a receipt or a notification about an order because the verification email won’t go through the spam filter.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Microsoft is ok not great

Nintendo never dealt with them

Sony is hit and miss, currently trying to recover a psn account i made while living in spain, went to the chat, they were gonna help until they noticed my account is from spain, chat agent told me to contact sony spain and ended the chat.


Went to contact sony spain chat and they only work monday-friday for 8 hrs (11pm to 7am my time lol) so i havent been able to be there when they are actually open. Which is crazy as shit that cs only has those hrs.

 

[Drizzlehell]

All of them are utter waste of time because you can only get in touch with some useless drone that will only follow a predetermined script that's designed to protect the company's interests first and fuck you over second, and none of them will ever budge on anything. Many of them are also flat out rude, especially if it's some Indian guy. People from over there have some kind of anger management issues, lol.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Best:
Steam
GoG
Epic
Microsoft

Worst:
Sony
Nintendo

 

[HTK]

I’ve pretty much have had a bad experience with all of them. They all suck.

 

[Boots_the_God]

Never had an issue with MS support. They never make give too much detail on anything either. I feel like nothing gets resolved whenever I have to contact Sony

 

[clarky]

I dare anyone to buy a Razer product.

 

[Aenima]

I only had to use a costumer support 1 time in all my gaming life. My PS3 Fat came with a faulty HDD that died 1 month after i purchase it, contacted Sony and they even sent a currier to pick up my broken console at my home. So it was a pretty good experience.
Cant compare it with any other gaming costumer support cuz never used it.

 

[SSfox]

Microsoft

 

[Corndog]

Sometimes it probably depends on which employee you get. I’ve had good and bad customer service from the same company.

 

[Thabass]

I had to migrate an account to a new email for Origin from EA and they made it super easy. Aces in my book.
Square also is very friendly, prompt, and easy to get a hold of, no bad experience from them.
Steam is also very good from my experience.

Ubisoft was probably the worst of the bunch.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Not sure about the worst one, but Steam's support is arguably the best one.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Best: Valve

Worst: Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft

 

[LordOfChaos]

I've had great support from Microsoft but you have to actually call in with your human person voice to get it

Sony hasn't resolved much for me

 

[octiny]

Of the big 3?

Microsoft.

Of the entire industry?

Valve.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Had two issues with MS over the years and both were handled professional.

1. Xbox One X issues (first download update). Bricked my system. Although it might had been my internet. It was flakey all week (garbage Rogers Cable) and maybe during that long update maybe my connection was intermittently bombing and it messed up the update. I dont know. CSR on chatbox tried helping me for probably 30-40 minutes trying every trick in the book. Nothing worked. I returned it an got a new one at the store the next day

2. Someone jacked my browser and I was getting scam credit card charges at different stores. Now I never save passwords ever, nor do I ever save payment info on any website. I'll hand type in the info. Someone bought a $50 Xbox gift card. I called my credit card company and every place that night where I saw a fraudulent purchase pop up as I'd get email notifications something was bought. MS was one of them. Told them my card got jacked and the CSR cancelled the charge and wiped the gift card purchase no questions asked

 

[jigglet]

Depends on country. Nintendo Australia is pretty shit compared to the good stories I've heard about Nintendo America.

 

[Gobjuduck]

Steam is easy with software, never owned hardware so I don’t know how those returns or repairs go.

Xbox + Microsoft made every return or repair of hardware and software easy, except 2 cases where I waited too long to refund games. Id say they are the best from my experience. I got a surface laptop instantly replaced. My 360 was repaired quickly after it RROD.

Nintendo was decent, I got two consoles repaired, but they charged me for repair on a Wii U even though it wasnt long owned. My switch screen repair was fantastic though, because the screen was faulty.

Last Sony console I owned was the ps3. I hear their customer support isn’t great though, with few options and unreasonable policies.

Worst customer support I’ve encountered were from Activision/blizzard. Destiny 2 didn’t agree with my specific graphics card, and would crash often. But blizzard refused to refund it because I was too “high of a level” which was quickly achieved. WoW tickets would take days just for simple issues. Once I got declined to restore a character I deleted, even though it was within a couple weeks.

 

[tusharngf]

best = Steam

Worst = PSN

 

[Magic Carpet]

PSN and scratch off store cards have been the only time I've ever needed to use Customer Service. It was a colossal pain and took several days but ultimately was resolved.
So I guess that was good.

I would like to point out that the few times I've had electronic hardware issues, Best Buy was quick to either replace or refund. I once bought two harddrives for a NAS and both drives were bad, Got em replaced that same day.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I always seem to have good experiences. Admittedly, I have very good phone etiquette which seems to always go a long way.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Sony’s chat is only available during business hours. They closed a chat on me on 3 separate occasions when I asked for help due to their shitty PS Plus licensing issues and a dumb bug with the mobile app. Never got it resolved so now I’ll be stuck with the demo version of Man of Medan rather than the full version I actually claimed.

Nintendo and others may be unhelpful but they were never so rude and unwilling to assist.

 

[Kupfer]

Best Valve -
helpful, two RMAs not a problem

Worst Rockstar -
not helpful, they wouldn't credit me the GTA $ that you could pick up monthly for a while until the release of the PS5 version, even though I redeemed it every month. Not a big deal, since I only wanted to take a look anyway, but this stinginess of denying a few virtual dollars to a potential customer with an account since GTA IV has made me not want to touch GTA V anymore.

 

[Fess]

MSI customer support once said - Well good luck then - when I didn’t want to send in my graphics card for repair when their crappy gaming app program crashed and I said I thought it was a software issue - which it of course turned out to be when they eventually updated it and it stopped crashing.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Best - Valve

Worst - Sony and Nintendo

Yep, these two suck arse. I rarely buy anything digital off the Sony store.

 

[M1chl]

Best is Valve, worst is Nintendo