I have to say it’s frustrating that this far in to the existence of MSFS and the marketplace the reliability of making purchases through Steam is still so low. I would guess 1/3 of my purchases fail in the marketplace despite me being charged through Steam. I always eventually get what I purchase, but it usually requires an interaction with support, me taking screenshots of my steam account etc. It’s really not the seamless experience one would expect in this day and age, especially when there are often other places to buy the same things.
Ultimately it’s frustrating for us end users, but bad business for Microsoft. I tried to buy two things in the 40th anniversary sale and both failed. Now I’m dealing with support. I had a list of other purchases I was going to make but I’ve abandoned that and Microsoft is out their commission on the sales.
Anyway, I guess just venting/pleading for whatever the core issue is between steam and the marketplace to be fixed.
Have had two in-game Steam purchases fail in the last few days (trying to take advantage of the current sale). First one finally arrived after the usual faffing about with Zendesk but the second one was according to Zen, Steam’s fault. I got the refund from Steam ok but there is apparently up to a 7 day wait until I can utilise the funds again, so either I have to stump up more money and end up with funds I have no immediate use for sitting in my Steam wallet, or miss out on the sale…
I sometimes wonder just how much money that MS and the 3P developers are missing out on from potential multiple purchasers who get burned on their first transaction and depart (the in-game store) never to return…
I ran into this a lot until I realized it is something with the Steam Overlay UI. There’s a topic in Zendesk about it but try this first.
When you try to buy something, and the Steam window pops up, move it aside and look at the blue purchase buttons in sim. If they have changed back to “Buy and Download” the purchase will fail. There will also be a notification in sim about the failed purchase already.
If the blue buttons say “Purchase in Progress” it works every time for me.
Usually i get the failure the first time I press the Buy and Download button in the sim, just cancel out and retry the purchase that seems to wake the Steam overlay up. Then it goes through fine.
Will try to add screenshots later if that helps.
PS… MSFS team has been very quick about fixing my failed purchases. Usually by next business day.
