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(Rant) Don't buy Rockstar games. (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/games@lemmy.world
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Fuck Rockstar. I changed my email accounts a few years ago but forgot to change Rockstar first. This wasn't a problem. Now, after buying GTA V on Xbox and Steam and sinking a lot of time into it over two accounts, they added some mandatory launcher on Steam that forces you to login to their Social Club. Mandatory launcher calls an account that I can't unlink, triggers mandatory 2FA to an email that doesn't exist. They refuse to help despite my willingly handing over a lot of private information - their support system is as good as fake. The end result is I have sank >£100 in buying their games and they ensure that not only do I not get to continue my account on GTA V, but I have been permanently locked out and actually impossible to play any Rockstar Social - walled game on Steam.


Partial 'correspondence' of my third attempt to get help from them. Twice they ignored the support subject.

Judging by other complaints online this exact issue has persisted and screwed over players since the creation of GTA V, so at least 12 years.

I have the same issue with Activision, and here's the kicker. They're exactly the same blueprint. Same support. Same result. Same fake-ass Western names on their signature.

I feel like Rockstar needs to be continuously pressured, injustices talked about, just in case they give.

Just don't give corps like Rockstar money.

Additional:
(from Schwaggaccino • 2y ago • Reddit)

I emailed Rockstar and started a request ticket and they want me to log in to get me to reset my 2FA which is preventing me from logging in.

THIS IS PEAK CLOWN WORLD I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE ACTUALLY GOT PAID TO IMPLEMENT THIS JOKE OF A SYSTEM

Edit: For the time being it seems they have disabled all support as none of my support requests are going through, even with omitting data and using VPN multiple times.. I've had seven unsuccessful tickets and was just brainstorming how to automate the requests.

Final Edit: Thanks for your responses everyone, looks like legal is the only route. After 24h my support requests are still being auto blocked (not submitting as there's no delay before response), and I am skeptical they switched off support for that long, even if it is fake, so they just blacklisted my details I think.

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[-] Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I used to work for a company that Epic Games outsourced their support to. We were based in Athens, Greece. There were other companies receiving the same email pool on Helpdesk Bulgaria or Romania, as well as an Indian office, all supporting US customers via email.

We were paid 3.5eu / hour and our performance was micromanaged by counting how many replies we did per hour.

Hence, we had canned responses that we'd copy/paste to save time and maybe achieve a bonus for that month.

Unfortunately we ended up being shit on on reddit on multiple occasions because some poor guy misunderstood the request and a legitimate request would be promptly denied, even though it shouldn't be. The level of English comprehension varied wildly among us.

All I'm saying is maybe Rockstar actually has a way to ID your account based on IP addresses, credit card used, date purchased if you have the receipt email, driver's license etc and you're just dealing with an underpaid dude in Eastern Europe not quite understanding you.

Usually if you threaten to sue they escalate to tier 2, so you may have more luck that way and tbh I don't know about Rockstar, that's how Epic did it back in 2018.

Maybe try explaining it a different way? I dunno but good luck.

Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.

I wouldn't have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.

They can't try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.

They're asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they'd likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.

They have to do this, or anyone's account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.

[-] Flagstaff@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

Thanks for the context, which led me to downvote this post. Come on, guys; not all complaints are valid.

[-] Technologist@lemmy.world -3 points 6 months ago

It is valid to take people's money and deny them the product? Interesting opinion....

[-] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

For all we know, it's a 50/50 that the customer service guy receives back an email back from that email that supposedly is not accessible saying "WTF I have no idea what you're talking about, was my account hacked?"

But since you're that gullible - hey bro, that wallet in your back pocket is mine, I put it there when I washed my jeans. Hand it back now, I paid for it and I'm 100% entitled to it!!

[-] Wildmimic@piefed.social 5 points 6 months ago

It is valid for them to make sure accounts cannot be taken over by hostile actors, and it is valid for them to assume that you are able to notify them about email address changes in time.

Tell me, how many years did you have to resolve the situation regarding your email address before it came to this?

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

No and it is shitty to implement this new authentication system after all these years, however should they just hand over any account to some rando writing an angry email? If that were the case, we'd be reading about that right now ("Rockstar gave my account away!") instead of this.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social -2 points 6 months ago

Edit: I just saw the rest of the messages in your comment.

I wouldn't have given you back the account either in their shoes. You just claim things that anyone could claim from their point of view, they have procedures they need to follow.

They can't try your password, or see it anywhere and would never ask you for it either.

They're asking simple things that you should have been able to verify. After that they'd likely ask for IP addresses and last 4 digits of card used etc.

They have to do this, or anyone's account could be hacked by social engineering all too easy.

I honestly don't see how you can turn the blame on him. It's not his fault the support didn't ask for the right things. It's actually part of Rockstar support procedure to ask essentially public information like previous email addresses or previous nicknames. On my first try they asked the same things from me. On my second try they also asked for Steam purchase history and game keys. It's not his fault the support fucked up and didn't ask for the right things.

[-] Wildmimic@piefed.social 2 points 6 months ago

But this whole situation started with him ignoring that he didn't have access to the mail address connected to his account, and i bet that this has been this way for years, not a few days. And he couldn't even spit out one definite answer for the original nickname used when creating the account (which tells me it definitely has been years). They didn't ask for the wrong things, OP couldn't answer them.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago

The whole situation started because he was forced to make a separate account when he really didn't need one. He wouldn't have to remember any of those things if Rockstar simply let him play their games.

As for the rest, I guess all I can say is I hope it happens to you because you clearly lack the empathy to understand why this is a problem so they only way for you to understand is by having to go through it yourself.

[-] Wildmimic@piefed.social 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This doesn't happen to me because i made the mistake of not taking stuff like account creation seriously 20 years ago and i learnt my lesson, OP will have learnt his now. Since you seem to share the notion that it's not important if you lose access to an account which active software is bound to, WITH NO OTHER REAL WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU OWN THAT SPECIFIC LICENSE (you can't even be sure from Rockstar's side that the Steam account hasn't been hacked and now the criminal wants to get the GTA credentials, and Rockstar does not have an ID stored to compare OP's to), you will probably learn it too sooner or later.

That the support asked him for the original username (that's something they HAVE stored and is bound to the owner, because it was defined at account creation) to confirm his ownership (on a pretty weak basis i might add), is the way Rockstar wants to remedy those situations unbureaucratically. But OP can't give them an straight answer because he has ignored the situation for so long that he can't remember that info anymore.

The legal office of any Corp worth their salt forbids the (outsourced, but where it's inhouse the rule is the same tbh) support to login into user accounts, because that's one way to be in real trouble if your support takes over user accounts and pulls shady shit with them.

The Crew name is public information, so it's of no use to them, and sending your password in cleartext per email is either a sign of being mentally unwell or you don't care because you got it from a hack somewhere. If I were the support here, i would suspect someone other than the owner of the account wants to take over the account (no definite answer to my questions and infobombing are social engineering tactics), and go into high alert mode, which happened here.

I don't defend 3rd-Party launchers, those are unneeded trash. But as a veteran support, I have to defend them - they are not responsible for picking up OPs slack that hasn't been cleaned up for years.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago

But as a veteran support, I have to defend them - they are not responsible for picking up OPs slack that hasn't been cleaned up for years.

There's nothing wrong with defending the support, doesn't mean you need to blame OP. Support has to deal with this shit because Rockstar sucks.

Since you seem to share the notion that it's not important if you lose access to an account which active software is bound to, WITH NO OTHER REAL WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU OWN THAT SPECIFIC LICENSE (you can't even be sure from Rockstar's side that the Steam account hasn't been hacked and now the criminal wants to get the GTA credentials, and Rockstar does not have an ID stored to compare OP's to), you will probably learn it too sooner or later.

Which they wouldn't have to do IF THEY DIDN'T REQUIRE AN ACCOUNT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Also do you even realize what you're saying? You're pretty much saying OP shouldn't have bought any of the rockstar games to begin with because (if we exclude Steam) THERE IS LITERALLY NO WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU OWN THE LICENSE. When social club rolled around there wasn't even a store there, the only way to buy the game was through a third party store like Steam. That said, they will still verify against licenses bought on Steam but I'll get to that.

That the support asked him for the original username (that's something they HAVE stored and is bound to the owner, because it was defined at account creation) to confirm his ownership (on a pretty weak basis i might add), is the way Rockstar wants to remedy those situations unbureaucratically. But OP can't give them an straight answer because he has ignored the situation for so long that he can't remember that info anymore.

And that weak basis can get you nowhere because that happened to me. They asked the same things and when I gave them that information (which, before you start speaking stupid, was correct information) they closed the ticket but didn't return my account. I'm pretty sure they store game keys with the account and then verify using the time of purchase and the key, because that's what they asked the second time around and then I got my account unlocked. AFAIK support did the same thing OP and I think for that support should get shit because why are you asking for useless information when you could ask for useful information?

The legal office of any Corp worth their salt forbids the (outsourced, but where it's inhouse the rule is the same tbh) support to login into user accounts, because that's one way to be in real trouble if your support takes over user accounts and pulls shady shit with them.

Now you're talking about a different thing. OP shouldn't have given them their password because support can't use it. That's on OP. But that doesn't invalidate what I've been talking about.

The Crew name is public information, so it's of no use to them, and sending your password in cleartext per email is either a sign of being mentally unwell or you don't care because you got it from a hack somewhere. If I were the support here, i would suspect someone other than the owner of the account wants to take over the account (no definite answer to my questions and infobombing are social engineering tactics), and go into high alert mode, which happened here.

And OP here is on attempt 3 trying to fix something they shouldn't have to fix in the first place. I can imagine OP is already frustrated beyond belief. Of course he's going to look unhinged, but maybe he wouldn't be in that situation if support had actually tried to help him the first time around. Or better yet, if he wasn't put in this situation to begin with.

I get wanting to defend support but support is not to blame (except for the poor procedure where they don't ask the correct information) and OP is not to blame (for forgetting to update an account they most likely haven't directly used for year, because for the longest time once the account was made it would be linked to Steam and it would never show itself). If there's anyone to blame for this hole mess it's Rockstar for putting in the stupid third party launcher in the first place.

[-] Wildmimic@piefed.social 0 points 6 months ago

I simply repeat: it is OPs job to keep their accounts in order and contact information updated. The license is bound to an email account. Keep your info updated for stuff you actively use, or run into trouble. There's nothing else to say in this matter.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago

I simply repeat: it is OPs job to keep their accounts in order and contact information updated.

I don't defend 3rd-Party launchers, those are unneeded trash.

Clearly both of those statements can't be true because the only reason he needs to keep his accounts in order is because the unneeded trash of a third party launcher requires it, so which is it?

Actually, it doesn't matter. This discussion has already shown that you'd rather be a corporate cuck than stand with the consumers.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

The thing is, and I think you're missing this, he got those wrong. After being asked for email and Nickname he provides them and the support person says "I'm unable to verify that you own the account", that means he answered wrong, yes those might be bad questions because some random person might know them, but he didn't.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social -2 points 6 months ago

They will say "I'm unable to verify that you own the account" even if you give the correct answers to those questions. I know that because it literally happened to me.

[-] ech@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

~~Lol, YDI. When asked to provide the identifiable information, you just say "Stop and do the thing I want." You seriously expect them to just hand over an account to someone who can't provide basic information about it? You owned yourself, pal.~~

I misread the order of the interaction, which painted a much more antagonistic view of OP. Sorry about that. That said, the actual interaction plus their further reaction here is still not good. "Brainstorming how to automate the requests" is not an appropriate response to any of this.

[-] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Just wait until that guy learns about Crypto

I'm just imagining their pure rage when reaching out to a Bitcoin Dev/maintainer whatever with something like „I don't know what my Wallets name was, idk my 10 phrase password, but give me back my 10$ in Btc right now”

And then pasting this again with the Title DONT BUY BTC THEY SCAM YOU

Dude, treat every service like your wallet.

You have an Email, you have a password. If you forget these, consider everything the Support does as an extra service and not the bare minimum.

[-] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Social Club is the kind of account you use a throwaway email for, and just use whatever random nickname isn't taken yet. I, personally, have no idea what the email or nickname to my Social Club account are. I also have bought GTA V through Steam back in 2015 and haven't lived into Social Club since. I think it's perfectly fair to expect that your Steam account shouldn't be hijacked by Rockstar upon linking it to one Social Club account once.

At the very least, if they're gonna have a Rockstar launcher, it should allow you to unlink your Steam account through it, using your Steam credentials, and free it up to link to a new Social Club account.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

Look at the timestamps, the conversation is from top to bottom. So technically I guess he tried to answer, but he probably missed the answer and instead had a tone that happened to match exactly how a scammy email would sound.

If legitimate, it's probably better that they didn't get to successfully automating spamming the support system. Nothing screams legitimate requests like bot spamming... Don't know the tone of his follow ups, but best to take a breath and reset their tone and try again, asking what other details aside from nickname can be used, given their steam access.

[-] ech@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

Ah, yeah, I totally misread those screenshots. My mistake. Still not good, though. I take back that YDI, but yeah, not surprised they're getting ghosted after all that.

[-] trk@aussie.zone 6 points 6 months ago

I dunno man, I'd kind of rather you lose your account rather than Rockstar happily handing over my account to anyone who contacts support and claims they're me but can't access my email account.

[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

You're misunderstanding. They bought these games through Steam. Their proof of ownership of the account is that they have the Steam account. There's no legitimate reason to lock the authorized Steam user out of the account.

[-] Wildmimic@piefed.social 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Don't give them money because you aren't able to keep your email address updated? Don't give them money because you are not able to provide the information they need to verify you are who you say you are?

I've worked costumer support for many years, and me and my supervisors would have rejected your request too. Since you can't provide what they want (not even a definite nickname wtf), you probably can't prove the purchase either.

Don't flame some poor support guy or a company, kick yourself in the ass for letting it slide for so long that you cant even remember the original nickname anymore and chalk it up as a learning experience - we've all been there.

[-] FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works -1 points 6 months ago

Well then can we flame them (rockstar) for turning off Linux support on GTA V Online? I know the exact same anticheat works on linux, because I am playing Dune online and it's working just fine. So yeah, back to that, fuck rockstar!

[-] StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 5 points 6 months ago

Looking at the conversation, you do sound like a hackerkid™ trying to social engineer itself into someones rockstar account

You should give them the info they ask for
Also, the poor indian dude answering you probably doesn't have access to you crew's name in gtav or anything like that.

[-] Stamets@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

A lot of private information

Public nicknames, passwords and emails that could be fished from public dumps and retried, public crew names.... Where's the private and where is the a lot?

Also you're not even paying attention. You called someone Aaron well after they've left the conversation.

Yeah I wouldn't have let you in either with that hostility and level of vaguery

[-] artyom@piefed.social 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Yeah this is the cancer that is email 2FA.

Unfortunately email is the only way they have to verify your identity. No email, no account. But this is very much not exclusive to Rockstar.

I changed my email a couple of years ago and it's absolutely astonishing how many companies are completely unequipped to deal with someone changing or deleting their email account.

[-] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Unfortunately email is the only way they have to verify your identity. No email, no account.

That isn't really true, I've restored access to multiple game accounts before in situations where I lost access to my email, it mostly involved providing information about the account that only the person using it would know, like the names of characters on it and some other stuff. If a company can't handle this it's because they don't want to pay for competent customer support workers and just rely entirely on lazily coded automated systems.

[-] Pumasuedeblue@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

Why don't you request a refund from Steam? If the game doesn't work because they changed it then I want my money back.

[-] XenBad@feddit.uk 1 points 6 months ago

I have the same issue and had the same result with Rockstar. Ubisoft managed to change my email though after providing proof of purchase. Fuck Rockstar, I’m sailing the seas with their games.

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I know this is probably not helping but ideally you'd want to go through this process

https://support.rockstargames.com/articles/3LQJYIs9AJMwjylupZXB2K/changing-the-email-address-on-your-rockstar-games-account-without-access-to-the-email

If this process is not working people might want to report on it.

[-] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Everyone in the comments making such a huge deal of account security when literally all Rockstar had to do was allow people to unlink their Steam accounts from Social Club. It could even be done in their own launcher, with the credentials of the Steam account that actually owns the game. Then people could just make a new Social Club account, it's not worth shit anyways.

They're locking people out of playing a local, offline game, over some decade old account that I used my spam email for, and now I'm supposed to remember it? Get a fucking grip bro.

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social 0 points 6 months ago

Mandatory launchers can fuck right off. I was lucky enough to get Rockstar support to accept my Steam purchases but even then I had to try twice because the first time they pretty much blew me off.

I also had a similar issue with Ubisoft. There it was actually easier to restore my old email than get Ubisoft support to cooperate.

In short, fuck forced launchers and anyone who says "it's just another account". Yeah, it is at the moment but who knows 10 years from now. You'll be locked out of your games because some fuckery happens and support won't do shit.

[-] Flagstaff@programming.dev 0 points 6 months ago

Mandatory launchers can fuck right off.

... Iike Steam's? 😛

[-] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

You know what I meant. If I buy a game on one launcher it shouldn't open another launcher that then launches the game. The other launcher is completely unnecessary but it is mandatory to launch the game, hence mandatory launcher.

Edit: just to make it clear, if I make another account on another store that IMO is fine. I don't have a problem with having steam, gog and itch accounts. But when I buy a game on one storefront/launcher and then I have to make an account on another storefront/launcher to play the game I already bought, that's bullshit. In OPs case he was forced to make an account for a game he bought elsewhere and is now being punished because the company is stupid.

[-] voracitude@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

First of all, I agree entirely. Now: Pounds, so you're in the UK. Have a read about your options with the ombudsman service: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/how-to-use-an-ombudsman-in-england/

the Financial Ombudsman Service sorts out problems with banks, insurance, PPI, loans, mortgages, pensions and deals with other money and financial complaints - read our advice about getting your money back if you paid by card or PayPal

If nothing else you're putting them on blast with the government, and that contributes to the paper trail for eventual action. In the meantime it might get your complaint resolved. Did you try tweeting at their official account too? Sometimes that can help get things moving.

[-] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 6 months ago

Thank you! I didn't think an ombudsman would be at all helpful against a game company, I should reconsider aha. No Twitter account but that's good advice!

[-] meliante@lemmy.pt 0 points 6 months ago

It's not a game company. It's a company period. It sold you something that you're not able to use.

[-] thejoker954@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

Through "no fault" of the company and years after the purchase.

Its not the companies fault he couldnt be assed to :

  1. Diversify his email addresses in the 1st place
  2. Update his email address.

When you put all your eggs in one basket, you've really got no one else to blame when you then decide to throw the basket away.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

One way to fix this is buy your own domain and own all the email accounts.

[-] Fecundpossum@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago

Yep, I have the same story verbatim dude. Fuck Rockstar, permanently. Haven’t played one of their games in like 5 years, and I never will again.

this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
6 points (63.6% liked)

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