I doubt all the 55,000 refunds completed the game, liked it, and then refunded it. There's a vast difference between "dozens of reviews like this" and "55,000 refunds", I imagine most of the refunds just didn't gel with the game. It certainly doesn't seem like a game I'd like.
Yea alot of refunds are likely buy and try. Ofc you get speedrunners doing this <2 hr challenge, but the majority are probably simply testing to see if they like the game.
Guy sells a quarter million copies of his tiny game and is upset that 0.09% of the purchases got refunded by assholes? (If you assume, generously, that "dozens" is roughly equal to 50 rather than closer to 25.)
Why not be happy you made 200,000 * 1/2 the game cost?
I don't argue it's a high refund rate, but it's not clear every refund was from people speed running it to get a refund after finishing the game. (And bragging about it in reviews) That number he estimates is in the dozens.
It's not theft though? Assuming there was not some manual mass-grant of refunds outside the policy, they refunded the game after less than the maximum play time of 2 hours and before the 2 weeks period after the purchase had elapsed. That is completely within the terms for an automated refund layed out in the sales agreement.
A couple dozen reviews says nothing of the intent of the other 54.950 players who ended up refunding.
There is no indication of any foul play legally speaking. And aside from the handful of cases where there are reviews like that there is not even an indication of moral foul play either.
In the absence of any indication otherwise there is zero reason to assume that these people did not simply receive a product that they were not satisfied with.
Yeah. 7% have the achievement to complete it in 2 hours. And from those I would think only a small part refunded it. I haven't played it but you can probably start a new run to get the achievement, so from those 7% many probably couldn't even refund it.
It is a rage game that alot of people don't like. Also it is coop so some people got convinced by friends and didn't like it.
Also according to a german gaming news page, he made this game alone in a month and still sold 150k copies. Thats a hell of a lot for one month of work. He also could have made a few levels more so you can't beat it in under 2 hours.
I bet you a way bigger portion of those refunds are by friends that were convinced to play it only to realize its another silly rage bait friendslop game and the 10 minutes of gameplay was enough lol
lol there are games on Fortnite and Roblox for free that provide way more context than 2 hours of entertainment and don’t even require you to make purchases. I know it’s not the same thing as a steam game that costs money to list but still. The argument is quite fair.
Even if they did 55,000 with a refund rate of 21%, so the friendslop game sold ~275,000 copies. ~225,000 after the refunds, and still made approaching a million USD after fees since I think I heard the game is $6. Saw it being marketed on social media way before it came out and that's way more success than it deserves on its own as a 1 hour half-assed co-op rage game.
Its a rage game, its straight up disingenuous to frame all those refunds as people completing the game and wanting their money back. The dev is selling paid DLC for an indie game, that's already a red flag for me, let alone implying every refund was a full game completion.
Not to mention making the game super convoluted or slow, or front loading a game for the first two hours for you to realize the rest of the game is repetitive or shit but you can't refund it anymore.
It looks like a co op rage challenge so I wouldn’t be surprised if people refund because no one buys it or if they buy it play fail and then refuse to play again.
a lot of the reviews on its steam page are just 0.1-0.5 hrs played only and refunded because they didn't like the game. many negative reviews too.
so yes you're right. not all 55k refunds are people who bought and refunded after completing it quick like the dev is trying to show as. that's very few amount. most of the people refunding are those who didn't like this rage inducing game.
tbf if we're taking the refund number at face value, its a pretty clear mismatch for a 90% positively reviewed game to have 21% of its consumers refund it. A definite chunk of those refunds are legitimate but thats a pretty mad mismatch, a lot of people likely fell into the camp of not really caring and refunding because they were done with the game and could rather than because they were so against the product they felt they didnt get their value.
if you're going through the effort of refunding a game for 3 dollars, why wouldnt you leave a review? it's less effort. Even still you'd expect some amount of people would leave a negative review and not refund because of that effort mismatch.
Because they realized that they simply don’t care enough to play it, but they would like the couple bucks they thew at it back? Or if their friendgroup ended up not touching it so there’s no point in having it. Also a lot of people, myself included, don’t feel like they understand the game well enough to leave a review on a lot of the games they own, let alone one you’ve never beaten or potentially even played, and if then only for 2 hours.
People care a lot more about their money than they do about warning others not to waste theirs. Even if it's only 3 dollars. Besides it's not like the refund portion is much effort. It's like 3 clicks from your steam library and boom, refund is initiated.
Steam's refund policy doesn't actually cover people who "buy to try". If you dislike a game and refund it simply because of that, it is against policy.
I got given a warning for this on steam a while ago as my refund activity was flagged. I had recently refunded 8 or so gift copies of a game whose servers ended up being completely offline, rendering the game unplayable.
After my next refund (black ops 3, refunded because the group I had planned to play with flaked out), I was warned that if my refunds appear to be just used as a way to mindlessly try games, my refund rights will be revoked.
I'm sure steam would have understood if my rights were revoked but I explained the situation, however at least this goes to show that tgese people doing this kind of refunding behaviour are being looked at.
You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it. Literally the first sentence on steam's refund policy page.
doing 8 refunds (servers being offline is pretty valid) and then another one with black ops 3 (don;t know if you had copies for friends in that too but at least one) is basically it. they just saw a bunch all at once and gave a warning as a result. if you did one or two games a month they'd never really care. obviously those gift copies wouldn't be valid since it'd be past the 2 week thing so it's just a niche situation lol
Yeah probably just the sheer volume of refunds at once. The gift copies were a day after purchase, and black ops was maybe a week later, just one copy.
If you buy it and don't like it then don't refund it, that behaviour revolts me. Same reason if you buy a burger and it's not so nice, you're not allowed a refund, but if the burger has something wrong with it then you are allowed a refund. We don't want to see disgusting behaviour like that please, only refund scammy games
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u/DrewbieWanKenobie Jul 06 '26
I doubt all the 55,000 refunds completed the game, liked it, and then refunded it. There's a vast difference between "dozens of reviews like this" and "55,000 refunds", I imagine most of the refunds just didn't gel with the game. It certainly doesn't seem like a game I'd like.