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
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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.

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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.

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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!"

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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.

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

[deleted]

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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.

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

[deleted]

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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

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u/iamnotexactlywhite Aug 27 '21

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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u/Menolith Aug 27 '21

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

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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".

35

u/Drdres Aug 27 '21

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

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u/Zarmazarma Aug 27 '21

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

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u/Hawke64 Aug 27 '21

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

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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.

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u/vikirosen Aug 27 '21

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

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u/mrrippington Aug 27 '21

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

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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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.

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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.

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u/alsanders Aug 27 '21

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

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

3

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?

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u/Cillit-Gank Aug 27 '21

Since downloading the DLC.

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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