I think locking refunds after a certain achievement unlock is a decent way to address this unless devs are scummy and do it after one achievement. Though proper disclosures can fix that too.
unless devs are scummy and do it after one achievement
Well guess what will happen.
This is something which will never have a solution that makes both players and devs happy. Someone always gets shafted.
You’ve found the main menu!
Too easy to abuse. Would complicate even further without real gain. Refunds should not be controlled by the developers or publishers of the game.
Some gaming consumers are just easily directed cattle for rage stampedes about whatever. No time for comprehension, just get the pitch forks and go burn some shit down!
Similar theme but different story was that guy who distributes a VR “mod” for various games, including Cyberpunk 2077. The nuanced part is a big chunk of it is in proprietary libraries that are independent of the games it provides VR support for. Just look at what PrayDog had to do to get VR support for just Unreal games https://github.com/praydog/UEVR/tree/master and that other guy has made a toolset that works with multiple engines. Charging at most a one time patreon fee for an unlocked copy doesn’t sound that greedy.
Another one was the more muted whining that Valheim’s Iron Gate has cheated everyone by doing “the bare minimum” to be Early Access and are abandoning an unfinished game with Valheim’s 1.0 release. Personally I think those people are fucking insane.
Forty years ago I was at a cross roads that would have led to me being a programmer in the gaming industry. Really glad I didn’t choose that as the game industry culture is absolutely exhausting.
its a Unity game eww
So is Ori and the Blind Forest.
I hate Unity >:)
Good for you.
The engine or the games made therein?
Cuz if you dislike Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dead Cells, Subnautica, Valheim, Rust, Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, Cities: Skylines, Among Us, Fall Guys, Overcooked… then I’d say your taste in games is next to shit.
the engine
tey think the old ceo is still in charge, some people only listen to outrage news.
Getting a new CEO doesn’t undo the decade of horrible development practices unity employed. The engine is swamped in technical debt, half finished and abandoned features, I’m not even sure if they have an actual native working multiplayer system yet, after multiple restarts from scratch…
The people who legitimately do this are the ones who make the rest of the gamers look bad.
If you bought a game, especially for $3, played it from start to finish over the course of an hour and a half, and then bragged about it when you refunded it. You fully deserve to have your refund capability disabled.
The thing is, though, I don’t really know a way that this can be implemented without allowing publishers to game the system. I do personally think that Two Hours is a little generous for the overall story because I will generally know whether or not I’m going to like a game within 35 minutes of playing.
I think a good alternative to it is have your refund window be based off of the current sale price of the game.
So for a game that’s less than five bucks, you would only have somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour of a refund window.
Then for your typical indie window, which would be like fifteen to thirty dollars, you have an hour to hour and a half then your AAA title pricing of ~60, you have two or three hours.
I can understand refunding a game if it’s broken on your system or just trash, but it feels real sleazy to me to spend money on a game, play it to completion, and then refund it anyway.
It largely depends on the type of game. There’s are plenty of games I’ve played where you’re still in the tutorial after 2 hours. Hell, I don’t think I knew if I liked EU4 until I was like 50+ hours in.
You don’t need 2 hours to figure out if you like Super Meat Boy though. You’ll know in less than an hour. Probably less than that.
For those who wonder how you could play a game for 50+ hours and not know if you like it; it’s a grand strategy game with lots of functionally. A full game can easily be 50+ hours depending on how fast you let the game run, and your first game is definitely going to have a lot of pausing trying to figure out various functionality. First game is or two is just figuring out the basic gameplay.
If you play a game for 50+ hours, you liked it. You don’t spend that amount of time being undecided.
You’d be wrong. Though you could say I didn’t hate it at least. But I certainly hadn’t made up my mind yet.
I played the first game with a friend. Which is largely why I even finished it. It’s pretty overwhelming because you’re left to figure out a lot on your own. Second game I played on my own. After that is when I knew I liked it, or at least toward the end of that second game.
I can’t think of anything other than grand strategy games that I’ve been that indecisive over. Everything else has been within like 3 hours. Some barely even 20 minutes.
Nah, you liked it. You don’t keep going back to a game for 50 hours if you don’t like it. Most people don’t even put 50 hours into games they like.
I agree. We’re not discussing “liking a game” in the context of whether or not it deserves 5 stars; we’re talking about whether or not you’re going to demand a refund. There’s clothing I regretted buying after 50 hours of wear, but by that point I’ve taken off the tag and it’s gone through a laundry cycle. I’d be considered trashy to take that back to the store even if within the return window.
This might sound dumb but why not have it so that if you get the achievement for beating the game you can’t refund it?
I suspect a big goal of this refund policy is to make steam self moderating. Valve don’t want to have to police individual games more than absolutely necessary.
If devs can game it by giving players the completion achievement the moment they launch the game, suddenly valve has to step in to solve the problem, and they are far too busy enjoying their enormous profits to actually do work
What if it was 10% of achievements or something then? Then it would be extremely obvious if someone got a bunch all at startup
I think we might just need to make steam employees actually work, I’m sorry, there’s no easy away around it.
They still get to massively profit off of the huge cuts their platform takes though, obviously
Dang. Actually hiring like 1 human? What a travesty
I feel like only the really dodgy games would do that, it would be a very blatant exploitation of the system. Just have a section in the refund request that says “the game gave me the achievement erroneously” or something and then you can look into it if there’s enough reports. Yes Steam has to step in occasionally, but that’s inevitable unless you’re happy with one side or the other getting screwed.
Like would any real game by a publisher do this? It’d tank their reputation by a huge amount. A lot of gamers care a huge amount about achievements so to get the 100% achievement on boot would actually really annoy them too. I just don’t see it happening.
The only other solution I can think of is for developers to just never release a game that can be completed in under 2 hours. Which is just silly.
That would be too easy to game or abuse by the devs
Oh I get you there.
I played The Witcher 3 for over a hundred hours and didn’t realize I didn’t like it until I went to have a threesome with Triss and Yennefer and instead got left with blue balls.
I would have returned that game right then and there if I could have.
This would only work if the game participates in regional pricing, otherwise you’re fucking over most people who don’t deal in USD. $15 to you is not just $15 to everyone else.
I don’t see how this would be too much of an issue. If it’s that way in one region, then it would be unilateral all across all regions. Price wouldn’t really matter at that point as long as you’re using the same guideline
I don’t see how this would be too much of an issue.
So not only are people paying more than you’re paying because the value of the dollar is higher in their country, the money they’re paying is now at a higher risk because they have a smaller refund window.
You would be essentially taking an existing issue and making it worse.
you are forgetting though that a 5$ USD game isn’t going to magically becomes < 5$ USD though. if its using the same framework even if the game is only worth 2$ native, its still 5$ USD and therefore would be the same. Regional pricing doesn’t matter in the scenario.
you are forgetting though that a 5$ USD game isn’t going to magically becomes < 5$ USD though.
I am not, and that was not the point. The point is if you’re paying $5, and someone in a non-USD region is paying $5, they’re taking a bigger risk than you if the game ends up sucking because $5 is worth more in their region.
Lowering the refund period for everyone without regional pricing means people in underprivileged regions are taking on more risk than you are; ergo, you’re punishing them for being underprivileged, and making a bad situation worse.
you are misunderstanding. I’m saying pick a region for the guideline, if its $5 on that region the game has that refund period. Then apply regional pricing. There’s zero reason to apply a framework for every region that’s more work then needed. the lower regional price would have the same refund period as the standard pricing as its following the same framework. The fact its lower price does not matter, as regions do not matter.
Then the only time it would need to be region based, is if they sold a region specific SKU such as some Japanese or Australian releases instead of having to go in and select refund periods for every period in every region. That’s way more work than is needed.
you are misunderstanding.
I don’t think I am. The issue is not that your system won’t work with regional pricing, it’s that it will not work without it.
I’m saying pick a region for the guideline, if its $5 on that region the game has that refund period. Then apply regional pricing.
Yeah, that’s the issue. Some games do not opt into regional pricing, so the price never gets lowered, which means they will be paying $5 and have, for example, only 1 hour to refund the game, just like someone in the US. Their having to pay $5 is already an issue, and now they have even less time to refund it if it sucks.
There’s zero reason to apply a framework for every region that’s more work then needed.
I never adovacted for this. You can tie the refund period to money paid, no problem. You do not need a different refund period framework for every region, and I don’t understand why you think I’m pushing for this to begin with. It’s fine as long as you enforce regional pricing for everyone, which’s not something Steam will do.
Maybe have a new rule for shorter games, like if its reasonable to complete the game normally in under 5 hours then the 2 hour window should be 1 hour or even 30 minutes. Idk how games are submitted but it should be an option at that time on how long the game is or a question about if its over or under x hours long so they know how to treat the game for this policy.
That’s where the abuse comes in, because how can you be sure a developer won’t make a short game and list it as 20hrs to complete?
A dev that is abusing the system is going to be delisted by Valve real quick, methinks.
I mean databases like howlongtobeat.com do exist. Steam could also come up with their own numbers by looking at the average playtime when players get the achievement for winning the game.
Issue with both is, the game needs to already have been released and beaten a few times.A developer can still game an achievement.
Enough rules, enough automations, I say, just make steam actually hire some real customer service humans. What? They can’t afford it?
Well, the dev is absolutely right. It’s really unfortunate for him that some trash subhuman scum abuses it in such a way, but overall I’d still argue that the refund policy benefits people more than it harms.
I think the only sensible solution for devs would be to make games that are longer than 2 hours. Add some additional content that drags the game across that line. You already got a working game - take another month, add some more content.
Bloating and padding a game unnecessarily is likely to increase the amount of refunds if anything.
So I don’t think you realize this but imo in many cases this would make a game worse.
Like if a dev has about a 1 hour game and they don’t lie and they price it with what they think is fair and people who play it enjoy it, then at the very least the people who brag in reviews about finishing a game and liking it, should have their refund denied or overturned
Maybe not all games should have the same refund policy.
Were they not aware of the refund policy when they listed their game for sale on the platform?
I guess they didn’t expect people to be such freeloading assholes to play their game in full and then take back their money.
That kind of dumb people are why we have to deal with huge exploitative game companies instead of having more indie devs
I guess they didn’t expect people to be such freeloading assholes to play their game in full and then take back their money.
Have they even given evidence that their game is significantly more refunded than any other game? Or did they see X amount of people refunding the game and declaring that they must have done it because they’re evil?
Well, yea. Giving great reviews and then refunding, as one example.
As if a good review alone was payment enough
Ah, yes, of course a single isolated example is indicative of an endemic issue /s
Single and isolated? You know that there are statistics about completion and play duration. It’s easy to see how many play it fully and THEN refund.
I wonder if the article says anything about that
Covic said the tweet that started all of this was something of a misstatement: The 20% refund rate on Paddle Paddle Paddle is actually pretty normal for a “rage game”
So the dev is just whining on social media then because they’re an entitled prick.
Doubling down on the idiocy I see. You could have avoided see me like a prick for the second time if you would just read the the whole article rather than cherry picking a bit of it that reinforces whatever random point it is you’re trying to make.
he’s not actually unhappy about the number of refunds or money he lost, or even Steam’s policy in general—he was merely expressing frustration with players who “bragged about having a fun time with the game and refunding it after completion.”
Which I think is fair enough.
I think market capture is the core problem. The fact that any of these storefronts can play kingmaker and supreme arbiter of what gets released is what discourages indie releases. We are very lucky that the gaming industry ended up under the stewardship of a relatively benevolent company, but if the global economic stage remains as it is, the minute Gabe dies or relinquishes control of the company, I suspect it will shoot like a bullet to the bottom of the barrel with all the other publishers. It’s not a good situation.
if theyre also review bombing its cut its not good, friend slop became a term for a reason and its likely being applied here.
Tagging the official Steam account, Covic wrote on X, “This should not be possible. Would be cool if you could finally do something about your refund policy… Got dozens of reviews like that and 21% refund rate even though the reviews are 90% very positive… That’s over 55,000 Refunds btw.”
The review bombing happened after he contacted steam regarding the multitudes of people refunding the game after completing it
I have never refunded a game on Steam. But then, I usually wait to buy a game until it’s been out for a while and usually on sale.
We do that with physical media all the time, dont we? If I finish a game and for some reason I’m able to get my money back, I’ll get my damn money back.
keep in mind, its partially overblown because according to the acheivements, only 7% users have actually beat the game of the people who kept it. the people who refunded shouldnt be that different than the average.
most of the people refunding are more likely people who rage quit more than people who beat the game in 2 hours
not saying its not an. ass move to refund but the people who refunded arent statisically the people who beat it.
Apart from the people saying that’s exactly what they did, which is what this is about.
hence exageration, as the majority probably never finished, and its more scrutinized on the people who did. When you bring up the refund rate, then a specific comment doing the refund, that’s pushing a narrative to the passive reader that they are one in the same when only a fraction of said 55k actually have completed the game in under 2 hours.
If valve for example stepped in and punished those few that actually beat the game and refunded, the dev would probably get a miniscule amount back. (and don’t get me wrong, I think they shouldn’t be refunded) Then you go towards the question that comes up in the debate that are you really going to deny people who didn’t even finish the game, a refund? If you are, that would just be another checkbox in the steadily growing debate between consumer vs developer debate
only 7% users have actually beat the game of the people who kept it. the people who refunded shouldnt be that different than the average
You would need data to show this hypothesis to be true, you can’t assume it, the variables are not independent, that’s the whole point being made.
while i can’t entirely assume it, you cannot assume that the people refunded are drastically better than the people who didn’t, especially when the dev puts out the 55k refund numbers. if hes going to claim 55k refunds, he needs to show that 55k (or a majority of those) actually beat the game and refunded in under 2 hours, else hes bundling a bunch of people who simply ragequit and likely legitimately refunded the game. The debate ultimately comes up because he happen to tie the 55k number on the same post as showing the comment that someone beat the game and refunded. Thats the equivalent of going somewhere, finding one thing to support your cause, and saying everything there supported it without actually checking.
But all games have a rate of refunds, including refunds due to rage quitting. Our null hypothesis should be that the refund rate should be the same as any other game (controlling for difficulty).
I don’t know what a normal rate of refunds is, that is probably data that is out there. But if the refund rate for this game is significantly higher than normal, then we can say that SOMETHING about this game is different.
If we control for every factor besides hltb, and it’s still higher, only then could we say with high confidence that the difference is due to people finishing and refunding. But we technically can’t ever say that with 100% certainty unless we go to every person’s house and watch them do it.
the game is intentionally designed around being frustrating, due to controls, and especially since it was designed to be done in coop, as it came from a period of time like carry the glass or chained together was. It’s not like conventional hard game like thrown into elden ring with no souls experience hard, but intentionally difficult games like those in the Foddian category like baby steps, pogostuck and such. they’re intentionally hard, and theyre intentionally designed to fuck with the player, far more than a typical game would.
Its a very similar vein as modern hard vs “nintendo hard” in the past because games werent hard to be hard, they were hard because of intentional design decisions to prevent users from renting a game and beating it, and to prolong game value
Maybe not in this particular case: but what if you buy a game intending to get 10 hours out of it and after 1h you get greeted by the final credits. Shouldn’t you not be able to refund then? (Depending on the price of course.)
i feel like i got fuckin ripped off if it was an hour long, this isn’t a complicated game and even with the low price id refund it. then again id never buy this game in the first place cuz i already hold that view point.
I tried Buckshot Roulette on gamepass last night. That would 100% be getting refunded if it was anything more than 50p.
You’re supposed to escape. And then get the white telephone. That takes many hours.
Yeah thats game was annoyingly short. I wouldnt blame anyone for refunding it.
That’s the thing they always tell you. It isn’t a mobile platform, people are prepared to pay higher prices but you need to set expectations with those prices.
If you’re charging $15 for a game people are going to expect at least 10ish hours of gameplay, if it’s going to be under that you want to be sub $10.
Although having said that I think I only paid £12 for Minecraft (about $15) and I’m probably thousands and thousands of hours into that.
Depends if the game set some expectation for a 10 hour long campaign or not I’d say.
If your game is so short that users can finish it without prior knowledge in less then 2h, you’re doing something wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, 2 hours for a game is hella short, but too many games want me to spend hundreds of hours on them and just aren’t good enough to justify that kind of time investment. The best games respect your time imo.
agreed, this is just a friendslop game. at least it has the decency to be only a few dollars
It’s going to be a tiny minority of people doing that, but there probably ought to be a basic check to see if you got the achievement for completing the game before letting you refund it. Maybe not for YouTube rageslop like this, but for the smaller “experience” games, like Unpacking or something.
Realistically a lot of people are treating the refund system as a demo. I know on PS+ there’s the option on a lot of games to play it for two hours before having to buy it. I guess the PC is a bit too open to allow for that. Could offer that by playing it in the nebulous “cloud” I suppose.
It seems like a pretty simple fix within the control of the publisher. If your game has less content than will fill the return window, you risk this kind of loss due to the tiny size of your product. It is a product that this market does not bear. Tolerate it or make more content before release.
It’s a game that costs £2.39.
On sale**
$5 otherwise
It really is a tiny minority. A handful of reviews said they did it specifically for that. That’s it.
Is the dev naive or young or something? Here in the US, people abuse public utilities, free services, etc all the time. It’s just the way it is, it’s in our nature as humans after all, to get the most of everything and leave nothing in return.
It’s not in my nature. I’d bet it’s not in yours, either. We’re both human.
You are projecting again.
Disproven multiple times, though actually something of a real life memetic hazard as people who are taught the tragedy of the commons tend to then act as if it was real thus causing it to be real. Its basically a way for rich sociopaths to justify their own behaviour by convincing other people to act the same way.
Then what about prisoners delimma.
The prisoners dilema is a worst case scenario as you can have an infinite number of prisoners but just one can create the worst possible scenario for everyone else, the commons generally has the ability to sustain a couple of selfish people without breaking down. Everyone has their own threshold for how much abuse of shared resources they can tolerate before they too will begin to abuse those resources out of self preservation, society stops working properly when that process hits a tipping point that makes it self sustaining so it encompassas everyone.
If it was so cut and dry it wouldn’t be a “dilemma” don’t you think?
