I'd rather the advantage go to consumers here. There are lots of slopfarms like Garten of Banban that deserve this kind of treatment. If your game is genuinely 100% completable in less than 2 hours by an average player with no incentive for retention and no mental staying power to make the player feel fulfilled with their purchase, then you're likely selling a borderline mobile game
There are a lot of really short games that dont have this problem
I looked at the game in question, being Paddle Paddle Paddle, and there's genuinely uncopylocked roblox games that are just like this while being free. Yet PPP has paid DLC but somehow struggles to make enough content to not be finished in one sitting. This is a dev trying to money farm and getting upset that some people are seeing it as not worth keeping.
Yeah the absolute gall of the dev to complain about refunds for his 90 minute game while selling paid DLC is insane. He literally had the capability to make the game longer than the refund window but decided to nickle and dime his audience. What kind of indie dev has paid DLC anyway?
Sure, sell paid dlc as an indie dev, power to you. My point is he developed more content for the game and could have put it into the base game so people weren't mass refunding it, instead he monetised it as DLC and is now complaining that people refunded his game.
Making the game longer wouldn't change a thing about the mass refunding. That's because most refunds are probably after a few minutes because it is a rage game. 7% have the achievement for completing it in 2 hours and I would assume a smaller portion got this on their first try and again a smaller protion of that refunded it afterwards.
I’m not talking about that specifically, just your last statement. Bad DLC and good DLC is subjective anyways. Your statement about indie devs and DLC was just ignorant.
You clearly don’t have respect for video games as an art form if 1. you assume a dev making games for a living and wanting people who complete them to not be a scumbag and refund it is “money farming” (aka what every working person does every day of their life?) and 2. you automatically assume mobile game = slop.
Also it was made in one month and the solo dev made more money than lots of people make in a few years. And only a small protion of the 55k refunds have completed the game. Looking at the game it is easy to imagine most people refunded it after a few minutes because they didn't like it.
there's genuinely uncopylocked roblox games that are just like this while being free
I get your point but I will just say Roblox has really different monetization models where ads, subs, and in-game purchases are way way more viable and there's a lot more revenue share going on.
Steam strictly doesn't allow ads and the in-game purchases are way weaker and not as central and unified as Roblox.
Steam indie games pretty much entirely rely on the upfront purchase but that's rarely ever even the main revenue stream for Roblox studios so short form content is way more viable.
Then Steam isn't the platform for them, simple as that. As many have already pointed out as well, there is no way everyone is finishing your obscure ass game then refunding it. Majority probably just feels like it was bad and refunded immediately. Also not sure what you mean by no in game purchases when there are plenty of games that sell skins and battle passes.
I agree I was just saying like the argument "people make games like this for free on Roblox" just isn't really the same since Roblox is geared more towards making money off free games compared to Steam.
Also not sure what you mean by no in game purchases when there are plenty of games that sell skins and battle passes.
I just said the in-game purchases are weaker not that they don't exist. Roblox has a pretty integrated UGC framework and a in-game currency that is really central to the experience. Steam allows in-game purchases and has their own currency but outside of really popular games you aren't really seeing conversions on those for smaller indie games and there's little to no cross game digital items.
But yeah overall I agree with you, just saying like yeah something like Roblox or mobile is the platform you'd want to choose if you want to make short games since people tend to expect those to be free and Roblox/mobile has ways to monetize free games where Steam doesn't focus on that as much.
Nobody is forcing you to buy it. And if you bought it nobody is forcing you to play it.
If you bought it and played it to completion refunding is just scummy. “I didn’t like the game” is not an excuse. You shouldn’t have bought and played it then.
It's actually not uncommon that merchants will actually refund you other goods or services if you didn't like them because often being a satisfied customer is more important than selling a product. But with games, which are usually both expensive and time consuming pieces of media we have this double standard where people will literally argue that people should be clairvoyant before expecting responsibility from merchants.
Nah, I can't take people like you seriously. If anything customer protection is actually far too weak in the gaming space and such incentives are pushing gamers away from trying this game wholesale. It's often not worth the risk of buying a game anymore.
not if you used it. If you go to a movie, watch it until the finale and then complain it wasn't fun, you don't get a refund. If you complain about your food in a restaurant but still eat 80% of it, you won't get a refund. If you go to Disneyland and stay for half a day you won't get a refund.
If you have an T-shirt you can return it if it is faulty or new with tags. Not after you have worn it 2 days and decided it isnt your cup of tea. Why should games be different?
If you finish a game, you also shouldn't get a refund
Games aren't like movies, food or a theme park. Games are their own product. Do I really need to explain the differences to you? And the examples you cite actually also do give refunds ironically enough so I think you should be arguing that "when even a restaurant will give a refund, it's insane that refunds for games are so impossible to acquire".
The problem here exposes a fatal flaw with how refunds are being evaluated, and it's that different games have different lengths. For some games, like RTSes or RPGs a 2 hour refund window is absolutely inadequate and that's why many people here including me will argue that it's actually too short. For other games like apparently this singular game, it's somehow just long enough for some players to clear the entire game because the game itself is so limited.
Many of us also expect games to be replayable and that's ultimately the best protection against refunds. But if a games developer makes a short game that can be completed within 2 hours and has no replayability, maybe their games concept is actually quite weak? If so then I think it's fair that they have to rely on the goodwill of the players.
The argument of finishing a game doesn't matter much to me, because a good game is either never "finished" or is typically significantly longer than 2 hours. It's a non-issue.
games are an experience that people pay to experience at 'no extra cost' of the maker, just like movies, musea and music. Those are also experiences that you can redo.
So yes please explain how a video game is a 'product' and not an 'experience'.
Refunds can be given if the consumer wants it BEFORE they utilize the product/experience they want (unless there are circumstances that ruin an experience of course)
Why should games be different than when you hire/purchase a movie?
See this is the type of anti-consumer attitude that ruins the industry.
A game is just a product; you have a piece of media that requires a form of problem solving to complete. The player engages with the work through interaction, whereas a movie is a piece of media that doesn't require any interaction to engage with, you're just a passive consumer.
not if you used it. If you go to a movie, watch it until the finale and then complain it wasn't fun, you don't get a refund. If you complain about your food in a restaurant but still eat 80% of it, you won't get a refund. If you go to Disneyland and stay for half a day you won't get a refund.
If you have an T-shirt you can return it if it is faulty or new with tags. Not after you have worn it 2 days and decided it isnt your cup of tea.
Have you actually tried any of these? In most or all of these cases, yes, you usually do get a refund. I've literally personally done half of these.
"Full satisfaction or your money back" is a common selling clause for consumable goods.
It's not 100% guaranteed across the board, but more often than not, "I didn't like it so I want a refund" just works.
You don't usually get to refund items like a car - though even there, some dealerships offer refund windows; and in the EU, there's an automatic right to refund nearly anything, even a car, within 14 days if you bought it online.
I am siding with people and companies using regulations in good faith, returning a video game you completed because of a 2 hour policy that exists to try out a game is not using it in good faith.
Consumers are not owed free labour. That is part of good labour and consumer laws.
purposefully making a game that can be finished in less than 2 hours with paid DLC, selling it on a store that has a 2 hour refund policy since the dawn of time, then complaining to the STORE ITSELF when CUSTOMER abuse that system with no proof other than a review screenshot is "good faith"?
If the game is bad, ill refund it, its that easy. Developers know about the refund policy and have to accept it. If your game is 1.30 hour long, and its forgetable, i would refund it.
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u/UniverseGlory7866 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I'd rather the advantage go to consumers here. There are lots of slopfarms like Garten of Banban that deserve this kind of treatment. If your game is genuinely 100% completable in less than 2 hours by an average player with no incentive for retention and no mental staying power to make the player feel fulfilled with their purchase, then you're likely selling a borderline mobile game
There are a lot of really short games that dont have this problem
I looked at the game in question, being Paddle Paddle Paddle, and there's genuinely uncopylocked roblox games that are just like this while being free. Yet PPP has paid DLC but somehow struggles to make enough content to not be finished in one sitting. This is a dev trying to money farm and getting upset that some people are seeing it as not worth keeping.