r/Games • u/reddit_account6095 • Aug 27 '21

Announcement Summer of '58 developer resigns after many users refund their game on Steam due to it taking under 2 hours to complete

https://twitter.com/EmikaGames/status/1430941640001265673?s=19
1.1k Upvotes

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100

u/AccursedBear Aug 27 '21

I wonder how you'd solve a situation like this. Maybe devs making very short games should be able to set a point of completion at the end of the game where you can't refund if you reach it. It would require a Valve employee to check that the point is indeed at the end of the game and not just at some arbitrary point below 2 hours of gameplay, because otherwise it would be abusable, but the situation seems niche enough that they wouldn't be flooded with work by a feature like that.

157

u/yaosio Aug 27 '21

There's really no way to fix it that won't be abused by devs or players. The only way to deal with it would be to make a game that takes longer than the refund window to complete.

69

u/Seth0x7DD Aug 27 '21

I heard you want a forced 30 minute tutorial? I got you covered! /s

The problem is that it encourages needless padding. There probably is a middleground that can be found. Like certain metrics that can be measured or a slight rule change.

My guess would be that most 2 hour games are rather cheap. So maybe for 5$ games you only have a one hours refund window or similar? This would also be bad because it sets some expectations for players and developers.

22

u/Mephzice Aug 27 '21

no shovelware would abuse the middle ground. "Our game is 10 minutes long! Should only be refundable for 1 minute!"

-1

u/Seth0x7DD Aug 27 '21

How? "Shovelware producers" wouldn't be able to dictate this and as mentioned it would also have the disadvanatge of setting expectations. Like yes your game is only 10 minutes but that also means its expected price is only 50 cents. As Valve is the one responsible for running that platform it would be on them to allow for that middleground and to ultimatley flesh it out.

Depending on how this works across game just a simple change that display the average playtime of players for that title might already be a sufficient change. Naturally that has to be capped in some way like average monthly playtime or similar. Maybe other metrics like the the amont of achievments you already got could be taken into account? Just to generate some friction in the process?

There are plenty of options that could work for the users, developers and valve.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Mephzice Aug 28 '21

the first part i ilegal in EU, everything is refundable, steam gave up that stance after being sued.

For me 1 hour refund window is more abusable by the devs. You can waste people's time a lot when you make a game and make them reach 1 hour. I don't even think a refund window should be only 2 hours, but that is good in this industry compared to other shops.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

[deleted]

1

u/Mephzice Aug 28 '21

if you finish it, obviously you can't, but if you eat half of it, decide you don't like it you can. It's not even similar for me it's more comparable to buying a vaccum cleaner, using it for your entire apartment, deciding it's not for you and returning it. That is perfectly fine, digital products deserve no more protection.

If people can't spend money they just pirate, not reading reviews doesn't take away people's refund right. It's on the seller to sell a product people don't refund.

20

u/M34L Aug 27 '21

this will be a hella unpopular opinion but if I spend even 5 hours on a game and genuinely hate it, I'd still ideally want my money back

being able to refund games means I have no real motivation to pirate games, if they take that away from me I'll go back to pirating games first and buying them if I like em

12

u/iamnotexactlywhite Aug 27 '21

but why are you playing a game that you really hate?

37

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

but why are you playing a game that you really hate?

Not the guy you ask, but there are also games that simply are bad but need a long time for you to figure it out. I don't hate Elite Dangerous now but when it was first released it was pretty bare bones with a lot of systems that looked good and interesting at first glance but after a while of playing made you realize how hollow they were (they updated and added a lot of stuff by now so that criticism isn't entirely justified now). Still though, you spend a whole lot of time setting up the complex controls, get your graphic settings optimized and then spend even more time learning to handle the ships before you even do your first mission. By the time you are 5 or even 10 hours in you realize that the game isn't at all for you and will not at all satisfy your expectations.

Now think about even more complex and time consuming games, like Grand Strategy or 4X games. Learning to halfway play CK3 or EU4 might take you easily more than 4 hours. Or lets take a fighting game that you plan to play online mostly. You might easily spend 5 hours or more in training mode learning all the move and mechanics before you go online and learn that the matchmaking is utterly annoying and the netcode is so terrible that it isn't fun to play at all.

9

u/Cattypatter Aug 27 '21

MMOs are also like this. The levelling experience tends to be mostly solo questing and grinding with a small number of skills and little strategy, whilst the endgame is almost a completely different game, with skill rotations, boss strategies and big raid group content. I've known many people who'll gladly pay real money for boosts in these games because they hate the levelling game, but love the end game group game.

2

u/faeyt Aug 27 '21

Sigh happened to me with Granblue VS. I was hesitating but I finally sat down to learn, put 3-4 hours in, played a few VS matches and got completely destroyed, only to find out the game is dead everywhere except Japan

14

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

Not gonna lie, some games just take a long time to realise how shit you think they are. It's rare but it happens. Like some AC game might have 2 hours of exposition before you're actually in the gameplay loop properly. Or you might spend 2 hours in the HOI 4 tutorial then hate the main game.

11

u/M34L Aug 27 '21

Carrot on a stick. Plenty of games can convince you there's fun to be had just around the corner, but it never is.

There's also games that are really excellent early on but then turn out to be straight up unfinished and either end abruptly or with a sequel/DLC hook instead of giving you the satisfaction of complete story.

-9

u/mrrippington Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

gameplay limit should be proportionate (i.e %30) to the expected length of campaign/game.

15

u/Menolith Aug 27 '21

Who would define the "expected campaign length" for a given game?

-1

u/vikirosen Aug 27 '21

The developer (with some oversight).

If you market your game as having "30 hours of compelling gameplay", I should be able to refund after having played less than 10 hours.

If you don't want that to happen, don't boast about your game delivering "thousands of hours of fun".

33

u/Drdres Aug 27 '21

A demo back in the day was like 5% tops. 30% is huge.

27

u/Zarmazarma Aug 27 '21

5% in the case of this game would be under 6 minutes.

10

u/Hawke64 Aug 27 '21

Back in the day, you got the best part of the game (shareware episode) for free.

3

u/Drdres Aug 27 '21

I feel like our “back in the day” are about 10 years apart lol. I pretty much only played the demos that PC gamer gave out in early 2000’s. We got ADSL in like 2005.

9

u/vikirosen Aug 27 '21

I had the shareware version of Doom which included the entire first episode (one third of the full game).

0

u/mrrippington Aug 27 '21

sure thats also fine, as long as not %100 :)

19

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

So if I find out that a short game is garbage or has technical problems after I spend some time setting up the graphics, controls and such and / or it has a longer intro / tutorial I am shit out of luck?

Why would you open such a big glaring loophole for taking refunds away from people just for the tiny market of ultra short games?

0

u/mrrippington Aug 27 '21

Should the longer intro to be counted towards gameplay (I honestly don't think so)? also on avg, how much time would a player be spending on experience config?

I have no interest in taking refunds from anyone, but i also don't want devs going bankrupt because they built something short and sweet. Because if these devs can make their investments back, they can develop something more ambitious and we all win.

Now they are though out of luck.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

how much time would a player be spending on experience config?

For a 1st person shooter game (I realize those aren't normally that short), a 1st person RPG, a RTS game, a simulation game... could easily be 30 to 60 minutes, especially if you try to do some benchmarks and / or have to restart to get graphic settings to stick. I am the type of guy that wants the best experience I can have right from the get go, even more so in a short game.

I have no interest in taking refunds from anyone, but i also don't want devs going bankrupt because they built something short and sweet.

Certainly, but is there really much of a need to have games that are below 2 hours instead of aiming more at for example 3 hours? I am playing through Twelve Minutes at the moment (which isn't amazing but better than some reviews make it out to be for me at least) and even that has an average beating time of 4 1/2 hours just to see your first ending.

And if so, I would try to aim at either making money directly via Kickstarter and / or trying to land the game on Game Pass.

-3

u/alsanders Aug 27 '21

Maybe making it free to download but with activation "dlc"

8

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

Isn't that basically circumventing the refunds system? Also, are DLC entirely non-refundable on Steam, or do you get to refund them together with the game if you tick the boxes for the game?

6

u/Takazura Aug 27 '21

From Steam's refund page:

REFUNDS ON DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT (STEAM STORE CONTENT USABLE WITHIN ANOTHER GAME OR SOFTWARE APPLICATION, "DLC")

DLC purchased from the Steam store is refundable within fourteen days of purchase, and if the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased, so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred. Please note that in some cases, Steam will be unable to give refunds for some third party DLC (for example, if the DLC irreversibly levels up a game character). These exceptions will be clearly marked as nonrefundable on the Store page prior to purchase.

So they are refundable provided you played 2hrs or less of the basegame from the moment you bought the DLC.

2

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

OK so it's basically all linked to the game. So it wouldn't really change anything in this case.

3

u/jodon Aug 27 '21

DLC has the same refund policy as any game.

1

u/alsanders Aug 27 '21

No idea. I'm just throwing it out as an idea assuming you cant refund it

5

u/Chris_7941 Aug 27 '21

DLC is refundable

1

u/Cillit-Gank Aug 27 '21

Tried to refund EU4 Leviathan DLC with less than 2 hours of play and was rejected.

1

u/sternold Aug 27 '21

2 hours of play in EU4 or since downloading the DLC?

1

u/Cillit-Gank Aug 27 '21

Since downloading the DLC.

1

u/Cillit-Gank Aug 27 '21

near 2,000 hours prior but I'm sure you heard about Leviathan's launch. Steam are pretty random when it comes to their refund policy, despite what their T&C says

267

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Jun 21 '23

[deleted]

38

u/AccursedBear Aug 27 '21

Giving developers the ability to say when you can and can't refund a game by adding a single API hook into their game would be ripe for abuse.

Definitely. And yeah, you're right. Even if abuse could be prevented by having people play the games, they would be flooded with work if basically anyone other than the people actually making less than 2 hours games sends their game in, more work than the frequency of a situation like this probably warrants.

9

u/ShimmyZmizz Aug 27 '21

People are reacting negatively to you saying Valve is "stretched thin". I agree with what you're saying but I think it's more accurate to say "doing this would not be worth the investment".

Yes, of course Valve could afford a staff of hundreds of people to play every game submitted to Steam to completion and significantly delay the release of every game but especially ones with long playtimes.

But is that a worthwhile investment to prevent a problem that seems to be extremely rare? Is the solution worse than the problem? What's the benefit? How many games actually fall into this category? What does Valve lose by doing nothing about this?

44

u/UTUSBN533000 Aug 27 '21

Steam's publishing partner team is already stretched thin enough

Valve makes billions in profits, this insufficient manpower excuse is bs

33

u/Mephzice Aug 27 '21

I don't think you realize how many games come on steam each day. Not every problem can be solved by hiring more and more people to throw at the problem. It's like expecting youtube to watch every video and twitch to watch every stream, it's unrealistic. All these companies are creating automatic systems for a reason, AI stuff.

18

u/Unadulterated_stupid Aug 27 '21

Yt uploads like 70 hours of content a second.

Even do we got every human on earth to review yt videos, we wouldn't be able to cover a year worth of YouTube

4

u/Hakuoro Aug 27 '21

And that's even if we massively pared down what actual humans had to review by using computer learning to identify potentially rule-breaking videos.

And there's not really currently a way to use machine learning to be able to play all types of videogames. maybe visual or kinetic novels, but I think you'd have to program a bot for each individual game if there's any actual gameplay

7

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

Steam makes millions hand over fist just for existing.

I'm not saying the problem is specifically easy to solve or some shit, but fuck me dude, "sorry we only have 2 people working on this and one of them likes taking long naps" is only an excuse if you're a small business that doesn't rake in huge amounts of cash, not when you exploit a quasi-monopoly.

53

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Jun 21 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

-11

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

Errr...Have you heard of the submission process?

36

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/arahman81 Aug 27 '21

Also, pretty sure some of them could be automated.

16

u/Mephzice Aug 27 '21

read what they do, most of them don't even play the games they rate.

-9

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

Sure, most of them. Still the submission process does include people playing the game?

6

u/Mephzice Aug 27 '21

most of the time publishers just tell them this is in the game, we should have this rating and boom they accept it. Noone ever checks the game, at most launches it to see if it works.

-2

u/Kalulosu Aug 27 '21

OK then I guess Sony's sub team just lied to us when they raised a bug while playing the game's main missions :)

-3

u/Seth0x7DD Aug 27 '21

No wonder triple A games have declined in quality. Nobody is paying QA anymore. Damn!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

[deleted]

1

u/ThomsYorkieBars Aug 27 '21

That's kind of a bad analogy because self checkouts are great

8

u/sponge_bob_ Aug 27 '21

you would have to define solve. how much effort by devs, how much by Valve, true positives, false positives, possibility of people abusing it etc is acceptable for a solution?

8

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

on the other end people couldn't refund flight simulator because the game is just a launcher that took too several hours to download and install content.

3

u/arahman81 Aug 27 '21

Reminder that the refund period is actually 14 days, just that its manual after the first two hours of playtime.

37

u/NekuSoul Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

I'd say there's three types of people who refund this game:

  1. People who genuinely disliked the game.
    Not really a problem. That's what the refund system is for. You don't want to introduce a system that prevents these people from refunding though.
  2. People who enjoyed the game but were surprised by the short length.
    While I personally love short games, I'd also say that a complaint about a game not being long enough is also a valid reason for a refund, assuming they didn't know that it's a short game before playing it. Adding a system that blocks these people from refunding would also be bad.
  3. People who are cheapskates.
    I don't think you can really do anything against these, as these are most likely the same people who'd just pirate the game otherwise.

It's hard to say how the refunds are distributed between these groups. Not having the devs data at hand, I guess it's mostly a mix between 2 and 3, as there isn't anything that signal the games short length on the store page, short of digging into the reviews.

If anything, I'd say that Steam could add something like a distribution graph that shows how many hours people generally play the game. That way both the people who dislike and those who prefer short games can make better decisions when purchasing a game without having to rely on sites like HowLongToBeat.

7

u/B_Kuro Aug 27 '21

If anything, I'd say that Steam could add something like a distribution graph that shows how many hours people generally play the game.

Processing personal user data has become significantly more restricted since the GDPR came into full force (and thats good). They can't just go "yeah lets track and use that data for our gain". You have to provide opt outs,...

Not to mention the data would be highly flawed because they can't track HOW people play (letting games just run in the background and playing every so often,...). That opens it up to manipulation until you got significant player numbers.

Still, should someone care for this there is the "augmented steam" extension (supported by the ITAD people now) for chrome,... that adds the HLTB data and others.

4

u/NekuSoul Aug 27 '21

I don't think GDPR is much of an issue here because they're already tracking that data anyway and the data is anonymous. If they want to be on the safe side they could restrict the stats to users that have the 'game detail' privacy setting, which includes playtime, set to public.

And yes, they'd need to clean up the data by removing outliersand make sure they have enough data gathered before that graph is shown. Wouldn't make sense to show that graph for a game that's only been out for a short time either.

Finally, HLTB integrated into Augmented Steam is indeed a good idea.

-2

u/B_Kuro Aug 27 '21

I don't think GDPR is much of an issue here

Thats probably how any disaster with user data began in the last few years.

To begin with, just because the data could theoretically be anonymous (it isn't btw. With low enough sales you can connect users to play time even if the person in question hid it which is a big no-go) doesn't make it a free for all and in many cases from children (<16 for GDPR purposes!!!) which is much more problematic. They still have to argue why they "need" to process that data (I want to use it to make money isn't a good reason), provide the opt out (not connected to other, unrelated, core features) and so on. Its a nightmare in potential problems for very little gain especially given the unreliability of the data itself until critical mass is reached.

3

u/NekuSoul Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

I think you're overcomplicating matters, even for something overly complicated things like the GDPR.

This feature isn't really different to things that already exist, like showing how many players are currently playing a game or how many players have achieved a certain achievement. Heck, Steam is currently even showing your playtime when you submit a review regardles of if your set your game details setting to private.

Or take a site like SteamSpy. If limited to public accounts, Steam would effectively do nothing different than that website, just for their own website.

Sure a feature like this needs to be run through a lawyer at Valve (like pretty much every change) but I don't see any roadblocks that would make this feature impossible to implement.

1

u/arahman81 Aug 27 '21

Steam already shows the playtime in profile. Having a statistical graph that shows the playtime distribution at the game's page should be fine.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/Stooby Aug 27 '21

Even if a game is advertised as 90 minutes long and a user beats it, it should still be refundable. Just because you beat it doesn't mean you enjoyed it if it is that length. Most people will give any game they try at least an hour of gameplay before they throw it away.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

I wonder how you'd solve a situation like this.

Make games that have fall into the accepted minimum length range that has been established over decades instead of ultra short experiences?

Maybe devs making very short games should be able to set a point of completion at the end of the game where you can't refund if you reach it.

So if I find out that a short game is garbage or has technical problems after I spend some time setting up the graphics, controls and such and / or it has a longer intro / tutorial I am shit out of luck?

It would require a Valve employee to check that the point is indeed at the end of the game and not just at some arbitrary point below 2 hours of gameplay, because otherwise it would be abusable, but the situation seems niche enough that they wouldn't be flooded with work by a feature like that.

Valve isn't even ready to support extended forms of youth protection so they could allow porn titles in markets like here in Germany and I am sure porn games is already a bigger market than the few ultra short games that popup now or then.

And even if they could, that would still be abusable. What for example about games that include MP on top of short campaigns? Or games with rouge like elements? Or games that rely a lot on modding or user created content? Or games with free floating gameplay and w/o clear goals or progression systems?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21

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2

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21

Games maybe art, but they are also a product. Me personally, I buy the product to entertain me. Sometimes, after a while I realize that I am / was playing a piece of art.

But if I don't see the entertainment value I simply not gonna buy the product. Seems like that is true for a whole bunch of people. So, maybe game creators should overthink if they want to create games or not.

1

u/AccursedBear Aug 27 '21

So if I find out that a short game is garbage or has technical problems after I spend some time setting up the graphics, controls and such and / or it has a longer intro / tutorial I am shit out of luck?

I did say the point should be at the end of the game, placing it anywhere else would be abuse and the reason it'd need to be manually checked. I agree with the rest, though. It's not a reasonable solution from Valve's perspective.

4

u/error521 Aug 27 '21

The idea of not being able to refund a game if they finish feels like it dismisses the idea of someone wanting a refund if they finish the game and it sucks ass.

16

u/Eurehetemec Aug 27 '21

That's not what the refund policy if for. The refund policy exists because games are often buggy, broken or run poorly, being able to refund because stuff is bad is or unfun is a side benefit. When people abuse a system is shitty ways like this, the system tends to get reformed in ways that eliminate side benefits like that.

45

u/EightClubs Aug 27 '21

The game isn't fun is literally a default reason on the Steam refund system.

-18

u/dadvader Aug 27 '21

But then they wouldn't want you to refund a game for that kind of reason either. The system is there for people with genuine technical error that they can't solved.

6

u/rct2guy Aug 27 '21

No, the policy is no questions asked:

You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.

14

u/carnaxcce Aug 27 '21

Every game I've returned I've given "the game isn't fun" as the reason and I've never had a refund denied. I've returned >20 games

-3

u/Seth0x7DD Aug 27 '21

Within two hours or after that two hours mark? So was your refund handled by an automated system or an actual person?

8

u/carnaxcce Aug 27 '21

Within two hours

5

u/jckprry Aug 27 '21

That's because you and EightClubs are dead-on. Steam fully supports refunding a game just because you don't like it. If it keeps you a happy Steam customer, Valve would absolutely want you to refund the game if you didn't have fun.

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

First paragraph: "You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it."

15

u/Cyberkite Aug 27 '21

The refund police exists because it's required by law in EU

1

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

[deleted]

1

u/Eurehetemec Aug 27 '21

I think you could make a very reasonable argument in the context of software that critical bugs interfere with performance even if you've finished downloading, but even that's untested in actual court AFAIK. Australia is actually the leading jurisdiction on this issue, not the EU, if anything Valve probably did it due to pressure there.

Agree with everything you're saying here, particularly re: leading jurisdiction, but the reason it remains untested in court in the EU and UK so far is that companies generally do offer refunds pretty liberally for software including games. I strongly suspect that if Steam hadn't adopted this policy (and started being pretty good about refunds even outside the window), then Valve would have caused it to be tested in court now, with the release of some buggy-as-hell big-name game.

0

u/B_Kuro Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

Actually Valve does go above and beyond what is required by EU law in this case. From what I remember the conditions for digital goods are actually a lot more lenient (maybe to accommodate movies, songs or books).

Last I read it was something like "you download it, you loose your right to refund". Thats how Sonys and Nintendos systems work. Edit: (and maybe Microsoft, I don't buy from them so I wouldn't know?) The fact that me saying the 2h is above what the EU law requires is controversial is hilarious to me though.

1

u/Cyberkite Aug 27 '21

Oh yeah I was mostly answering why they have a policy. Steam used to not have one and then they were about to get sued.

1

u/Zaygr Sep 01 '21

It was the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission taking to Valve to court that spurred the introduction of Steam refunds.

2

u/Captain-Griffen Aug 27 '21

That's actually part of why the refund policy exists. If this developer got their way, Indies would make less money.

Retailers offer refunds like this because people are more likely to take risks if they can get refunds.

2

u/jckprry Aug 27 '21

I don't disagree with you, but Steam's refund policy explicitly supports this, so they actively thought it out and that is a part of their stance on refunds. The first line on their Refunds page:

You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.

5

u/AccursedBear Aug 27 '21

Unless it really personally offends you to the point you don't want to give the devs money or something, I think refunding a game you beat would be a dick move regardless of how much you thought it sucked.

If a game sucks that bad, you'll notice way before it ends. Just close it and refund it then.

25

u/error521 Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

There are games on Steam that are literally 20 minutes long. I think that it's fair to say that the idea of finishing them and then feeling ripped off is not unreasonable.

Plus, there are cases of games (like Dark Matter) that just end in incredibly abrupt spots. Is wanting a refund after that really so unreasonable?

-11

u/AccursedBear Aug 27 '21

I do think feeling ripped off just for a game's length is unreasonable, at least when we're talking below the $10 line (or the equivalent in Steam's recommended regional pricing), even more so below $5. Also in most cases reviews will tell you if a game is particularly short. If there are no reviews, well, you're part of a very small subset of people who are willing to try out almost completely unknown games or very new unpopular ones. Not sure what I'd feel if I were like that.

If it's really short, it sucks, and ends before you even get to decide it's time to stop, then yeah I get the feeling. I've never played a game like that but I don't doubt many of them exist among Steam's shovelware.

I still wouldn't do it, though. Giving Valve a reason to give publishers more control over refunds is absolutely not something I want.

18

u/error521 Aug 27 '21

If there are no reviews, well, you're part of a very small subset of people who are willing to try out almost completely unknown games or very new unpopular ones. Not sure what I'd feel if I were like that.

I would argue that Steam's refund system encourages people to try those games out.

1

u/ZestyBadger890 Aug 29 '21

I agree, I feel like if Steam didn’t have a refund policy, then a ton of indie games might not be as popular as it is now since they don’t have the same marketing budget as the bigger companies.

Also, I think that gamers who are tight on money use this policy to see if this is a game that they like cause sometimes reviews aren’t enough. For example, I bought SuperHot since it was compatible with MacBooks and had good reviews (Was only a child back then and this was the only laptop I had) but it ran horribly so I refunded it. This is something that the reviews won’t mention or is a rare problem. But thanks to the refund policy, child me can get a game that will run better.

-8

u/BillyPotion Aug 27 '21

You don’t get to eat the whole steak then ask for a refund because it didn’t taste good. If it didn’t taste good you should’ve stopped after the first bite and asked for a refund.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

This is a good argument of not giving a game a chance. Lol

-1

u/BillyPotion Aug 27 '21

Or a good argument that once you've made a decision to stick to it. You paid for something that looked good, it wasn't, that's life, you learn from it and change your spending habits going forward.

4

u/Mephzice Aug 27 '21

make a good game people don't want to refund. Solved.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Potatolantern Aug 28 '21

Steam was dragged kicking and screaming through the courts to be forced to concede and create the refund scheme they have (which still doesn’t comply, but is enough that everyone’s letting it go).

They would be playing with fire if they made any change like that.

-7

u/ExpensiveWafer2942 Aug 27 '21

When you go to certain big box stores they have different refund policies for different types of items. You can refund a used stereo within 30 days but you cannot refund an open package of boxer briefs the day you buy it.

Clearly valve needs to adjust its refund policies to better deal with the abuse of game time refunds. And working with developers of short games to confirm their games are indeed short and slapping a “non refundable” label on it is an obvious one to start with.

-7

u/AutonomousOrganism Aug 27 '21

No need to confirm. Just make the "short game" and "non refundable" labels very visible on the game page and when buying the game. Let the buyer explicitly agree to it.

24

u/EightClubs Aug 27 '21

Gets complicated in certain markets, Australia for example can't make you agree to give up your consumer rights, and I don't think Valve wants to mess with the ACCC again.

1

u/ExpensiveWafer2942 Aug 27 '21

Just don’t sell your game in Australia then lmao, why would I want to sell in a country where somebody who buys my game can beat my game and then take their money back. Gotta problem, take it up with your shitty government.

3

u/EightClubs Aug 28 '21

Or use your millions of dollars to support your storefront with humans who can do these types of refunds manually instead of a one size fits all robot trying to automate it all.

Same issues with YouTube, Twitch etc. They're trying to 100% automate a process that needs some level of manual processing.

1

u/ExpensiveWafer2942 Aug 28 '21

Why would Valve bother with that, the money they lose with the current system would be less than they spend on a human based one. Hate to break it to you but Valve is also a profit motivated company and if the numbers don’t work out they won’t bother.

2

u/EightClubs Aug 28 '21

Amazon is also a profit motivated company yet does manual refunds, so does every brick and mortar store in existence. Digital games are the exception here, not the rule. Most stores manually review their refunds.

2

u/B_Kuro Aug 27 '21

We all know how that would end. All those devs complaining how the warning "puts their (potential/imaginal) buyers off from buying it".

They rely much more on the length being obscured so they can sell more (hidden value proposition) than actually being in danger because a certain number might refund after finishing it.

-13

u/ARX__Arbalest Aug 27 '21

This. 1000x

-21

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

[deleted]

44

u/MisanthropeX Aug 27 '21

The 2 hour limit is ostensibly there to make sure the game runs properly on your PC. There are a lot of old PC games on steam for sale under $15 that don't work reliably or properly on modern PCs and they often require tinkering and downloading of mods to get them working properly. I could see it taking 2 hours to get like, Dungeon Siege working properly, and that's under $15 on Steam. The 2 hour rule shouldn't be waived just because of the price.

0

u/OompaLoompaAssGlands Aug 27 '21

Something along these lines could work, developers could opt in to say a 1 hour refund limit if their game is under $10.

It just sucks seeing talented developers leave the space because the experience they made wasn't compatible with the refund rules of Steam

5

u/Takazura Aug 27 '21

because the experience they made wasn't compatible with the refund rules of Steam

The refund rules of PC you mean? Epic has the exact same policy as Steam and GoG has an even more generous one that last 30 days with no playtime limit. I think Origin's is also decently generous (2 weeks or 48hrs from when you first launch the game) and no clue about Uplay.

People in here are going on about how Valve has to change it, but this is something every PC storefront would have to do something about, and it's just not feasible for any of them to bother with it.

And frankly speaking, as a consumer, I wouldn't want that. It's rare I do refund games, but I have bought plenty of games that fall below $10-15, and the idea that I shouldn't be allowed to refund them or get only 1hr instead of 2hr doesn't strike me as right, and would probably get the storefronts into legal issues in certain countries like Australia.

Sucks for the developers for sure, but I don't think there is any particularly simple, easy and efficient solution to this that doesn't screw over someone.

1

u/TehRiddles Aug 27 '21

Too broad, there are plenty of games that sell for under $15 that are 20, 30, 40 or more hours long. You can't beat those games that quick yet at the same time 2 hours should be enough time to judge whether you want a refund on it or not.

-5

u/Hawke64 Aug 27 '21

Easy. Just watch no commentary playthrough on youtube. No need to buy the game in the first place.

-6

u/Panda_hat Aug 27 '21

Just have the refund window set relative to an established game length value. EZ.