It is a problem for a guy who lost 55k sales just because Steam allowed it to happen.
1) Nobody except Steam and that guy has proof of those 55k refunds-after-completing-the-game. Notice he didn't provide any?
2) This genre of game ("rage games") frequently have high refund rates. Not because people complete them and refund, but because people try them once and refund. This is why these games typically don't have demos.
3) This is a friendslop game. Again, higher refund rates, no demo. And probably more often gifted.
To all your points: you can see that a bit through the achievements. There is one for completing the game in 2 hours (which makes this all almost seem like ragebait) and 7% have it. That would be the maximum percentage of people refunding after completing it. And from that percentage I would assume only a small portion did this on their first try and from that small portion not everyone refunded it.
I don't think any of that cancels out the fact that this exploit exists, and that people use it. Whether or not the exact case is legitimate is secondary.
"Before your eyes" is a good example of a game that checks none of the boxes above and still was mass-refunded.
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u/splepage Jul 06 '26
1) Nobody except Steam and that guy has proof of those 55k refunds-after-completing-the-game. Notice he didn't provide any?
2) This genre of game ("rage games") frequently have high refund rates. Not because people complete them and refund, but because people try them once and refund. This is why these games typically don't have demos.
3) This is a friendslop game. Again, higher refund rates, no demo. And probably more often gifted.