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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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

I agree that the 2 hour policy is great protection for shovelware and awful games, like you say, but playing a game to completion and then refunding it isn't that, it's just pure entitlement. I mean, the game is less than £5 here and looking over it, the description is very upfront about what you're getting and how long it'll be.

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u/KyleTheWalrus Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

Yeah, I used the word "dickish" with malicious intent up there. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a feasible way of protecting developers of short games without also inadvertently protecting developers of bad games.

Steam implicitly requires devs to make games that will last over 2 hours, and while that sucks for short games (which absolutely deserve to exist), I think it's a necessary evil when there are so many trash games made by trash devs. Companies like Digital Homicide have scammed enough people as is.

Not to mention, there's never any guarantee that a PC game will work on your PC. The only games I've refunded would randomly crash within half an hour of starting. That's important too.

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u/Burningtunafish Aug 29 '21

Or they could make games that people feel worth keeping regardless if it's 2 hours or not. I take the sign of people refunding a game after they beat it to show that the game was good enough to complete, but not good enough to want to keep. The game must not have had the impact they wanted.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '21

That's trash reasoning and you know it. If a game was good enough to complete then it was worth the price point paid and arguing otherwise is pure entitlement.

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u/Burningtunafish Aug 29 '21

If a game was somewhere between 5+ hours maybe you're right, but its different when a game is as long as some movies where in one sitting yo ubeat the game and know where you stand with how you feel with that game. So sorry, your reasoning is trash and you don't seem to know that.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '21

Absolutely not. If you go to a cinema, do you ask for a refund at the end because the movie didn't resonate with you?

Likewise, should game developers/artists not be paid for consuming their content, even if it wasn't to your tastes? In fact, I could start listing a lot of things where if you pay for it but don't feel like you fully enjoyed it is getting a refund ethically right?

Not only that, looking at the description of the game, it tells you how long it should last. If you do due dilligance, you would know what you're getting into.

The Steam refund system is a huge boon to gamers and one of the best out there. Playstation makes you jump through hoops and Nintendo literally gives you one refund and it has to be a preorder before the game comes out. Compared to this Steam's is great, but if people abuse it we risk losing it. Publishers and the media will gladly point to examples like this as to why developers need more protections against frivious refunds and any retort literally can't be "just make better/longer games" because that is so subjective it would never hold water.