Ok - I don't know about the steam refunds policy. So I received a partial benefit. Perhaps I should get a partial refund? btw I wasn't being facetious, I just thought you picked the easiest part to respond to so I wondered if you had one for the harder part.
I have to unpack a few things to answer the whole comment faithfully. First is
the distinction between "we forbid linux users from running the software" and
"we aren't going to invest any development work on making linux APIs work".
The first one is in my view completely indefensible and should be illegal. The
second one is basically fine even though I personally dislike it.
I am mentioning this because companies use "support" as a euphemism for
both. My understanding of the situation here is that the game runs fine on
linux, ubisoft just isn't able to stop cheating as effectively. Note that both
platforms have a nonzero rate of cheating and of valid play.
Companies have a right and an obligation to advertise how their products are
designed to work and how they work best. If a shirt has a care label that says
don't bleach, and I damage it by bleaching, that's on me. Adapting this analogy
to software is dangerous and wrong, because software can be made to break for
arbitrary reasons, some of which are my own stupid fault and some of which are
just the vendor exercising power over me. If I manage to bleach my shirt
without damaging it, the manufacturer has no right to set it on fire and say
"well you bleached it, so what did you expect?". If they did, they would have
to compensate me. I view what has happened much more like "they set my shirt on
fire" than "I broke my own shirt".
Computer programs are also not really similar to physical products at all,
since physical products degrade over time and programs do not. If I use a shirt
for five years and then abruptly decide I didn't want it after all, then I've
still damaged the thing and should not get the full amount of money back for
it. The fact it's second hand also makes it harder to sell even if it isn't
damaged. But again this is just fake when applied to software, so that tips the
balance more towards refunding than normally. The situation as it currently is,
means that while Ubisoft is allowed to take away my product by saying "you
should never have been able to buy it", I cannot reciprocally take my money
back by saying "I should never have been able to buy it". I don't think there
is a good justification for that asymmetry.
