This thread is still going?! Seriously?! Ok ok I'm not going to read through it. Last time all I saw was humanity at it's worst. Well maybe not its worst, there was no murderous rage or anything.. but it was pretty bad. It was a sale, it happened its done its over. Everyone no matter what price point they purchased at has received more then fair value. Founders get the goodies down the road, preorders got to be involved in the beta. People who purchased by the week of the launch received a free bonus DLC even. I've been burned by many game purchases in my years. It's part of what happens. Anyone who is a fan of 4x that paid any price for this game will find they will easily reap a low cost value for their entertainment hours. $99 if you get 10 hours, just 10 hours of play thats $9.90 an hour. It would be a bit high but compare that to watching a movie in the theater and even at our worst case you still are doing ok. the more common price point of $50 at 10 hours is only $5.00 per hour Have you ever actively tried to entertain yourself with just $5 for an hour? its not easy. Me personally I'm at 259 hours of play as of this post. At $50 that cost me less then $0.20 per hour. We will just consider any future hours I log as free entertainment at this point.

That being said I've purchased more then my fair share of flops that cost $50+ and have yielded me little or in some cases no play. It sucks but it happens. This isn't a flop however. It's a solid engine with ongoing improvements. If you don't like a setting, its sometimes as simple as changing a single number to change in order to achieve your desired play. Anyways I just view this thread as insanity. Anyone who spends $50+ on a sandbox game knows ruffly what they want and in this case the game was delivered. Thats it. Once again, I'm out of this thread.

It might well have been stupid to do so, but it also would have been something else, ethical.  I realize that is considered a shopworn and unnecessary thing by many today, but some of us still value it.

Not that i don't agree with you for the most part, it was a bit of a unfortunate situation if you weren't aware early access sales happen, but why would you want a lifetime IP/steam/account ban for a 40 dollar refund? You never know if they might make something you like 5 years from now. 

I must say I was a bit surprised I could get the game half price before the game was even released, while others had alread prepurchased it at full release price. So I certainly understand the sentiment of the OP. Now you can say, that's just the way it is, but I do not think he deserves the rudeness he is getting here. I already noticed it seems the community on the Stardock forum does not handle critisism very well.

This entire situation is overblown. $10 is not that big a deal.

Do you have any idea what $10 will buy you in Venezuela?!?!?  j/k  Yeah, its a partly amount - nothing wrong to have a few discounts a year to spurt sales, thats business.  Now, the day that the sale DOESN'T go away, thats when you should be worried.....or begin to be.

All I know is $10 can buy me a meal at Burger King, or a movie ticket, or a novel.

Which says a lot about inflation in the US.