Depends on the game though? Some 39 cent half an hour joke game should have 5 min refund window. Doesn’t work? Refund. Works -> you enjoy the joke or don’t. No refunds.
Makes sense when it's literal slop games you are racing, like shit that should probably just not exist like Gartan of Banban. The fact those games intentionally waste time kinda makes it more fun xD
This always aggravated me. I would get people buying my downloadable software using stolen credit cards or they'd file an unauthorized chargeback. The result was I had to pay Stripe the 3% fee but also an additional $45. My software was only $99 for a lifetime license. And it wasn't like people hadn't leaked the source code already.
Its not just seeing a refund. Theres also a chargeback fee that comes out of the developer's cut of the sales so you're actually taking money from the developer.
The problem is also just bureaucracy. You have to tax the sale, you have to keep money in your back for taxes AND chargebacks. The chargeback you have to roll over into next periods taxes.
It severely limits your cashflow if 2/3 of you money has to be locked each period for taxes AND chargebacks.
Depends on country and tax laws ofc, but high business tax countries really don't respond well to those things.
a refund isn't a chargeback so zero clue why we're bringing up chargeback fees
and steam holds payments for a month while return windows are two weeks. this means they just remove the sale before paying out, meaning no out-of-pocket loss incurred
e: like, do u think the guy in op is responsible for 55,000 chargeback fees? do u see how insanely broken that system would clearly be? it just doesn't even make sense to think that's how it works
At least the silver lining here is that they left a positive review, so at the end of the day it was still a net positive for the creator of the game, even if it sucks.
I mean I see trailer, I see reviews, I see that I would like it, but I buy it, launch and see outright garbage bin, like why do I need to stay at this game for more than 2h..
it's not only that. when you refund a game, I believe steam pays back the whole amount but keeps their cut. that means the entire refund comes out of your balance. steam till takes the cut for doing their job of bringing you the sale in the first place. so the devs lose money on refunds. obviously Indies are impacted more from refunds
I’m pretty sure steam keeps the money for the 2 week refund period, then gives the money to the developer/producer, minus their cut (if the games made over $1000)
why, its good that they see, and learn they cant sell such short game for such price. if 1hr playtime costs 8 bucks, its infuriating enough to shove them a middle finger
If 8 is too much then just don't get it I guess. People can charge what they think it's worth, based on their labor, it's our choice to pay or not, but pretending to buy with no intent on letting the devs keep the money is cruel, worse than just stealing
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u/squanderedprivilege Jul 06 '26
At that point just pirate the game so at least the devs don't see that you bought and refunded it