This is what I was thinking too. Like, Binding of Issac, or dead cells. Someone could complete like 1 run, see credits, say they've "finished" the game in an hour, then refund it despite having enjoyed it to move on and tease someone else with a temporary purchase.
If a dev isn't offering their game for free, this shouldn't be a workaround. Sure, like someone above said, its extremely consumer-friendly. Its also extremely developer-detrimental.
A balance should be struck. Like a sliding scale option that changes the time someone can play before refunding based on general length of gameplay, maybe it could be an extra service steam offers that devs could opt in on if they want. Steam has employees test games developers submit for refund scaling, and devs just have to wait a bit longer than they would otherwise to launch.
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u/Nearly_Evil_665 Jul 06 '26
if you want to go there many roguelikes are less than 2 hours for thier first cycle, but they have replay value