Steams new refund policy

[Terralthra]

This is not going to wreck the indie scene or small developers. You are blathering about people who will go and treat steam as a library, when the real issue is not that, but developers being shitty in general. This is squarely aimed at the shitty asshole devs who release titles that clearly needed at least two more months of work.

Here we see the German Shit-spewer (spurcifer germanicus) making a pile of assertions while both not presenting any evidence and ignoring evidence both in this thread from developers already seeing high numbers of refunds and in previous threads on this forum about game-purchasers who use broad refund policies as libraries. Let's see what this specimen does next!

I'll await definite proof of smaller developers being hurt by this before going into it.

Oh my, it's the spurcifer mating call, an onus probandi! He's definitely in rutting season.

[Temjin]

That would require gamers to know when they are close to the ending, aka spoil things.

True, but I would think that if a player managed to make it to the ending of a game it shows that they enjoyed the game the game enough to do that. If I buy a game that I later find out is a steaming pile of shit, I'm not going to think "Wow, this game is a steaming pile of shit. I'm going to play to the end just to spite it." I'm instead going to be looking for my refund button.

As well, if they make it to the ending, it shows both that their computer can handle it and that there's no game breaking bugs preventing it.

This system is of course far from perfect. It completely fails on a few circumstance, such as finding out only after beating the game that you only bought half a game, or if the game is open-ended with no end. But if the accusations of the indie game developers are true I would thing that this would be a better system.

[Purple]

Content creators do not need any more protection from customer abuse. There is always going to be a balance between the rights of customers (which they can of course abuse) and the rights of content creators (which they also can abuse). No matter what we do we have to accept one side is going to have potential for abuse. End of story. Once that is established we simply need to err on the side of the customer.

[TheFeniX]

True, but I would think that if a player managed to make it to the ending of a game it shows that they enjoyed the game the game enough to do that.

Or they just slogged through to see how bad it was. I've done this with two movies off hand: X-Men 3 and Dungeons and Dragons. Neither one of them were worth the time and money and had very few, if any enjoyable moments. They only serve to show just how bad things can get.

You could beat Brink in under 2 hours, even though the "story" is anything but. Same with Chromehounds, except with 25 little missions, that may take more than 2 hours (the Single-player is a story training system, nothing more. Great game, now 90% is gone with dead servers). Diablo 3: beating the game just means you have to beat it 3 more times.

If I buy a game that I later find out is a steaming pile of shit, I'm not going to think "Wow, this game is a steaming pile of shit. I'm going to play to the end just to spite it." I'm instead going to be looking for my refund button.

It's really moot. If a game can't cough up 2 hours worth the playability, you're going to have to bite the bullet on people who will use your game as if it was a library book. I don't care how cheap it is, there's multiple cheaper and free games that can keep people playing it.

Maybe this will force indie devs to cut out the cash-ins just like (I'm hoping) AAA releases on Steam will have to do.

[Thanas]

This is not going to wreck the indie scene or small developers. You are blathering about people who will go and treat steam as a library, when the real issue is not that, but developers being shitty in general. This is squarely aimed at the shitty asshole devs who release titles that clearly needed at least two more months of work.

Here we see the German Shit-spewer (spurcifer germanicus) making a pile of assertions while both not presenting any evidence and ignoring evidence both in this thread from developers already seeing high numbers of refunds and in previous threads on this forum about game-purchasers who use broad refund policies as libraries. Let's see what this specimen does next!

And in this very thread we have also seen other stuff about how there's a shitton of indie developers making a quick buck on false advertising and outright scams. Point is, people apparently don't think the games are worth their money. Sure you will get the assholes, but has it ever occurred to you that the games did not hold up to what was promised? Two developers are crying about it. Great. Mountain of evidence that is. I shouldn't have to explain that when one makes the claim of this being wrecking the scene one a) has to prove it occurs on a broad spectrum, aka a number of two (I know you have trouble counting, but bear with me) will not suffice and b) has to prove that this actually is a bug, not a feature = people don't like the game.

So show me the numbers. Don't go blathering about how it is already proven when all you got is one article about two developers.

[Thanas]

Ooh, but wait. Turns out the indie dev is a lying piece of shit.

Second, what they don't tell you is that their graph is misleading. If you check Qwiboo's game there's two facts that jump out:

His game only costs $1.99 normally. Most of the negative reviews for his game are to the nature of "game is really short, basically a mobile port, or a game suited for mobile"

Their dip in sales coincides with the same day their $0.99 sale ended. The game was on sale for $0.99 between 05/26/15 and 06/01/15. This lines up perfectly with the graph they provided, which is high sale volume (while they were on sale) and then little sale volume after the sale.

Frankly, there was probably a high rate of people who desired refunds in the past (ie: lots of unsatisfied customers). However, given Steam's vague previous refund policy (which was mysterious at best and downright black box at worst) most people probably weren't going to go through the hassle of trying to refund a $1.99 game in a manner which might remove their ability to get refunds in the future (for say, a $59.99 game).

Now that it's a three click process to refund a game, people are probably much more likely to go "Yeah you know what, this isn't what I expected or wanted, I want my money back."

If you're going to hide the fact that the sales numbers you present as being normal are from when you're on sale, I don't really trust anything else you're going to attribute to something.

Edit: In fact, early sales data amassed from all games (via SteamSpy) indicate the opposite trend. While it is early on, I'd be more inclined to trust the average of all games, than the sales of one specific developer.

And turns out GOG has had this policy already (and no DRM). Funny you don't see people whining about that one either.

Oooh, and look, that reddit thread has not one, but five indie devs weighing in and saying their sales have not suffered. Why, by the law of proof by Terralthra, that must mean that the refund policy is just dandy.


EDIT2: And the second dev whining has a history of anti-consumer shit as well.

And this was linked to in the thread but apparently idiots (well, just one idiot) are ignoring it:
http://ask.fm/Jimquisition/answer/128177519586

[Terralthra]

The spike in sales is irrelevant to the overall point which is that a majority of those sales refunded it. The post by Jimquisition is essentially saying "well, we don't know why they refunded", which is true, but not exactly a point in their favor; it's at best a neutral point. You can't say "we don't know why they refunded", then follow it up with "therefore it can't have been abuse of the refund policy".

Whatever you think of short games or indie games, you must surely see that Steam's policy effectively says "no game under two hours in length is worth money." Imagine the same thing applied to books: "You can get a refund if you've read less than 100 pages." Well, I guess Animal Farm, Candide, and Heart of Darkness aren't worth writing or selling any more?

Saying that people don't or won't actually do that is just you being ignorant. People can and do make use of broad refund policies to buy games, play them, beat them, and then return them. The idea that people don't do that is simply being willfully blind to evidence. The last one is particularly poignant, as someone advises that if you can't complete a game in the refund window, just return it at the end of the window, then buy it again, continuing to return it and buy it again until you do finish it.

[TheFeniX]

Whatever you think of short games or indie games, you must surely see that Steam's policy effectively says "no game under two hours in length is worth money." Imagine the same thing applied to books: "You can get a refund if you've read less than 100 pages." Well, I guess Animal Farm, Candide, and Heart of Darkness aren't worth writing or selling any more?

Animal Farm's length has nothing to do with it's quality. I've read it three times and enjoyed it all three times. Even though it is short, it has a lot of "replay value." I don't care how cheap your game is, short bullshit games are what free Flash sites are for. Trying to put a dollar amount of time investment is one reason why video games are in a shit spot right now.

People keep trying to make movie games, so let's just go with it: good movies aren't measured by length. However: think of your favorite movies. How many times have you watched them? How many times have you bought them in different formats over the years?

What is Pacman? You eat white dots and run (or chase ghosts). What is Tetris? You stack blocks in a line over and over. Not even 2 hours of "content" yet these, and many others have lasted years with little to no content except engaging gameplay. If your indie game, or any game, can't keep a player vested for 2 hours, I don't care what the price is: it's not worth it. Steam's indie scene seems to be riddled with "one and done" style of games, which is why I avoid them nearly always. I know I've missed a few gems over the years, but the amount of "one shot" games scares me away because even though the money investment is small, I don't like patronizing developers that make games in this vein.

I might actually try a few out now.

Saying that people don't or won't actually do that is just you being ignorant. People can and do make use of broad refund policies to buy games, play them, beat them, and then return them. The idea that people don't do that is simply being willfully blind to evidence. The last one is particularly poignant, as someone advises that if you can't complete a game in the refund window, just return it at the end of the window, then buy it again, continuing to return it and buy it again until you do finish it.

If people want to purchase, download, then refund games over and over to beat them, that's a shitty abuse of a system that needs to exist. Whatever amount of time they choose to allow refunds during is going to be arbitrary and there is no getting around that.

[Thanas]

The spike in sales is irrelevant to the overall point which is that a majority of those sales refunded it. The post by Jimquisition is essentially saying "well, we don't know why they refunded", which is true, but not exactly a point in their favor; it's at best a neutral point. You can't say "we don't know why they refunded", then follow it up with "therefore it can't have been abuse of the refund policy".

That is true, but one can also not follow it up with "this is a result of the abuse of the refund policy". And even more, I can't really disagree with anybody wanting a refund if what he gets does not match advertising and is a shitty mobile port. I don't think you would disagree with that either.

So far, the only publishers complaining is one who in the past has explicitly said they couldn't care less about their customers and won't help them - on top of other heaps of shady shit - and one guy who misrepresented the graph to make it look like sales during a special offer were the same as normal sales. Neither look like good sources. Other indie devs meanwhile are neutral or even supporting of the policy. So I don't see the massive negatives manifesting themselves, at least not yet.

(obviously, if legitimate indie devs suddenly experience the same then I will change that position).

Whatever you think of short games or indie games, you must surely see that Steam's policy effectively says "no game under two hours in length is worth money." Imagine the same thing applied to books: "You can get a refund if you've read less than 100 pages." Well, I guess Animal Farm, Candide, and Heart of Darkness aren't worth writing or selling any more?

TheFenix handled that one, so I'll just refer to him.

I'll also say that my top ten of games include uplink and I recently enjoyed banished, so it is not like I hate indie game. But obviously there is a problem in gaming publishers (both indie and big houses) with releasing shitty, broken products that would, were they any other product, entitle the people to a refund.

Saying that people don't or won't actually do that is just you being ignorant. People can and do make use of broad refund policies to buy games, play them, beat them, and then return them. The idea that people don't do that is simply being willfully blind to evidence. The last one is particularly poignant, as someone advises that if you can't complete a game in the refund window, just return it at the end of the window, then buy it again, continuing to return it and buy it again until you do finish it.

That is obviously abuse of the system.

But guess what? I can legally do the same thing with any book bought over the internet or via phone in Germany.
14 days of refund even, no matter how high the cost.
I don't even have to give a reason. I don't even have to pay postage - most retailers already even provide a postage button for return.
Heck, in theory, I could already treat amazon as my private library if I wanted to. You know how big retailers handled that? They do blacklists. I suspect Steam already does so. So I guarantee you that people might get away with it for some time, but Steam has no interest in turning into a library. Given how steam already tracks how long you play a game, it should be trivially easy to fix that and weed out abuse.

[bilateralrope]

Incidentally, there is only one game I own on Steam that I would want a refund for, and it is because of an incredibly shitty design decision that cannot rear its ugly head in your first session playing the game.

So you're saying that the refund system doesn't go far enough ?

I can't say that you are wrong. All I can say is that going over the cutoff times just removes the guaranteed refund. Valve states

but even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can ask for a refund anyway and we’ll take a look.

So getting a refund might still be possible. Or it might not be. We simply don't know Valve's internal policies on that matter. So not much of a counter argument.

I'm curious. If a trigger was added to games where if you completed it enough to see the end credits, you are no longer eligible for a refund, would anyone be opposed to that?

What is stopping a game developer from putting that trigger at the start of the game ?

Because, when there are developers that will sell a game as released when it does not work, I wouldn't put it past some of those scummy developers to do that.

The last one is particularly poignant, as someone advises that if you can't complete a game in the refund window, just return it at the end of the window, then buy it again, continuing to return it and buy it again until you do finish it.

That sounds like the kind of abuse of the refund system that Valve would crack down on. It's very easy to catch with an automated system, just look for someone who refunds a game and buys it again at the same or a higher price. But that isn't proof that Valve does punish such people. If such people exist.

I must question how many people have the discipline to do only play for two hour chunks. Please prove that people with the discipline to keep refunding and repurchasing the game every two hours of playtime exist.

Whatever you think of short games or indie games, you must surely see that Steam's policy effectively says "no game under two hours in length is worth money."

Are any games on Steam that are less than two hours long while still being worth paying for ?

[Joun_Lord]

If a game is good then people, save a small number of shitturds who would abuse the system anyway, aren't going to return it.

A game like Portal can be beaten is a few hours, maybe a couple if they really try to speedrun through it. But I could see very few people returning it. Its a good game, its got re-playability potential.

Some crappy little half hour piece of shit that has no real replay value or value at all, of course people are going to want their money back but not because its a half hours but because its a piece of shit. It doesn't matter if a game is 200 hours or 2, if its sucks its sucks and people don't want sucky things unless they are in a gas station bathroom with a Republican. Yes some people will think a game is shit if its under a certain length of time, I certainly can see where they are coming from especially for full priced games that clock in under 4 hours or less, but thats their opinion and their right to think the game sucks because they can beat it faster then some people beat it.

This only hurts devs in the fact they can't release some broken piece of shit game and have people buy it and not want to go through the trouble of getting their dollar or two back. Now because its easy to get a refund people are damn sure going to get their refund from some broken crappy game. That was the devs abusing the system, well sorry fucker you can't do it no more. Boo fucking hoo.

I wish this policy had been around for awhile. I can look at my Steam library and see several games I would have returned. Doom 3 BFG Edition because it was broken as fuck, Payday just because I didn't enjoy it, Dead Island just because I didn't enjoy it, Stalker Clear Sky because it ran like ass compared to the physical copy (I bought it because it was onsale and I thought having it for Steam would be more convenient then digging out the disk anytime the Stalker bug took me back to the Zone), and GTA 4 when it first came out because it ran like a little chubby boy without a bra.

[Napoleon the Clown]

So if we want to tie beating the game to if you can get a refund, will the publishers need to provide reasonably accurate numbers for how long it takes to beat? If you can beat a game in an hour without even going speed-run, shouldn't you be warned that there's basically no content? And if the publisher has to say "Story mission can be completed in an hour or less without speed-runs" would you decide to buy it? Or would you figure "This shit won't be worth my time." and skip it?

If a game can be beat in under two hours and has no replay value, maybe it isn't even worth the $2 you're selling it for. Yeah, game development isn't cheap or easy. But that doesn't mean the market will value something at the price it cost you to put it together. You could build a Geo Metro replica, but replace all the aluminum with titanium, and just generally go nuts with expensive components... But nobody's gonna pay what it cost to make what's essentially a blinged-up econobox from the 90s. And if we're being charitable, that's what a lot of these cheap-ass games are. They're blinged-up arcade games at absolute best.

So, you buy one of these cheap games and beat it in under two hours and never have a desire to touch it again. The publisher will go "People lap this shit up!" and keep churning out a game that you'll promptly forget you owned an hour after you fired it up. But then if you can get your money back... The publisher realizes that people want some goddamn content in their games, or at least replay factor. The people in it for an easy buck will drop out, the people that lack one or more of the necessary skills to put out their own game will have something to show off their particular talent so maybe they can get hired at an established publisher.

The majority of people will probably not abuse the refund system, and if you put out a damn fun game for cheap that they wanna play again later? They'll keep the game in their library and tell their friends about this fun, cheap game they found. Despite what Tumblr tells you, just because you've got something to sell doesn't mean people will be willing to pay you enough for the time and money you've put into it. Sometimes what you're selling just isn't that good. And as mentioned above, games like Pacman and Tetris are still widely-played and loved. The former came out in 1979, the latter in 1984.

Nobody needs to be an indie developer for video games. Why should we reward every little snowflake out there that wants to make a video game? If you cannot put together a product that people will actually want to keep maybe you've picked the wrong field. The Real World is harsh and cruel, and there are tons of options for supporting yourself beyond churning out terrible games.

As to people using this as a system to "rent" video games like books from a library... Well, where can you rent games anymore? And if the game turns out to be any damned good, they'll likely decide to keep it instead.

[bilateralrope]

Replay value will differ from person to person. Lets take Dear Esther as an example. The playing time is well under two hours. After getting it through a Humble Bundle*, I played it once because I had heard enough people praising it, and enough condemning it, that I wanted to see what the truth was. One thing I hadn't heard from either side was that the narration didn't make any sense. I went onto the Steam forums to try and figure out what was going on. It turned out that you don't get all the narration on any playthrough, you have to replay it multiple times to hear enough for it to make sense. Some people on the forums were praising this 'feature'.

If it was released today, the people who like it would play past the two hour mark. The people who don't would get a refund.

*I don't regret my purchase, because I got enough value from the other games in the bundle.

[bilateralrope]

Jim Sterling put out a Jimquisition episode on Steam refunds. The only thing it adds to the discussion is that it uses background footage from various terrible games that are on Steam. I only bring this up because of an interesting post in the comments section:
[quote=DROSWALD]Good points all around Jim.

While I see a good reason for the 2h/2w limit, I hope they give developers the option to extend that for their own products. As a aspiring indie dev, the strategy title I am working on, like most strategy titles, would not showcase the best while the player is still learning the systems in place. What if you judged Civ V on the first 2 hours you played it? None of the depth has revealed itself.

I am a bit concerned that longer form games will not have the time to prove themselves. Customers might feel like they have to make a judgement call 90 minutes in and decide it is not worth the risk and refund.[/quote]

Someone claiming to be a developer wanting the option to lengthen the refund window for their games.

TotalBiscuit went and asked some indie developers what they thought about the refund policy. The vast majority or developers were either in favour of it, neutral, or saying that it's too early to tell.

[Thanas]

That Totalbiscuit video is actually very good.

[General Zod]

Better hope that all future game breaking bugs come in under the two hour mark.

[bilateralrope]

Better hope that all future game breaking bugs come in under the two hour mark.

Or that when Valve said:

There are more details below, but even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can ask for a refund anyway and we’ll take a look.

They mean that they will refund games for game breaking bugs outside the 2 hour window.

[bilateralrope]

Now for some proof that Valve is refunding games that were purchased more than 2 weeks ago.

Steam Refund Experience: Majority Outside of 2-Week Window

by Kevin Geisler on 06/08/15 06:05:00 pm Expert Blogs Featured Blogs


With Steam announcing a new refund policy, there was an expectation by many that this would cause shorter indie games to get abused by this system. Octodad: Dadliest Catch can be a fairly short experience for many players, making it possible for people to play and quickly return.

Our general opinion at Young Horses is that the refund system is a positive change, even with the current time requirements, though perhaps there shouldn't be a time limit at all. The hope is that the vast majority of players will not abuse the system to get free games (and that Valve cracks down on those who do).

Many of the 'Steam Refunds Harming Developers' reports going around are based on gross revenue charts that don’t include refund data. Other developers, including us, have had no noticeable changes in gross revenue. In order to get more detailed information, developers have to download a .csv file and tabulate the data manually.

Since June 2nd, 30% of Octodad units sold have been returned. (i.e. for every 10 units sold this week, 3 returns have been made.) This is somewhat alarming, but I would think that pent up refund demand / fascination and Valve's large focus on the new system would naturally encourage an initial boom of refunding.

Since Steam does break down the data by sale price, we are in a position where we can have some certainty on when a returned game was purchased. For instance, we participated in the winter sale in December at 50% & 75% off, and in a 'Midweek Madness' sale in April at 66% off. It turns out that 80% of our refunds match the sale price for these periods, putting the purchase dates between 2-5 months ago. The other 20% of refunds at full price could have been purchased at any point in the last 6 months. Despite total refunds being 30% of units, it ends up only accounting for a loss of ~13% net revenue when looking solely at this week. These numbers sound high, but consider that we've sold a lot of units in the last 6 months and our current week is at our typical 'tail' rate (much lower) when the game is not on discount.

We did not expect that the vast majority of our refunds would come outside of the advertised 2-week window guarantee. Upon figuring this out, we were able to find a good number of anecdotes of people on Reddit successfully getting refunds outside the limitations.

It's unknown if this 6 month allowance is part of a transitional period or will always be present, but I'm not especially worried that it'll be abused long term. I think a large number of refunds are because of the spotlight on the system. I would expect it to naturally contract or Valve to naturally tighten up over time.

As to why people are refunding the game, that's unknown. We can speculate that it's mostly people who impulse bought it on sale, either didn't play it or played it a bit and didn’t enjoy it, and discovered now that they can refund the game more easily. Purchases made in the last 6 months do show up in a list when applying for a refund, so they may as well try. It's also possible that these are people who bought the game in order to resell as a gift (I believe that unredeemed gifts can still be refunded). Or it could be people who have long since had a reason to play the game again and mostly want it cleared from their library (with money back). Of course, this kind of speculation isn’t entirely helpful. What we hope for in the future is to have more data provided to us on why players may have asked for a refund. Currently, we don't know.

My hope with sharing our initial refund experience is that we avoid jumping to conclusions on how exactly the system is broken. Our experience in particular doesn't necessarily negate others' experience. There are many factors at play here and really only Valve has the best picture.

So it's clear that the 2 hour/2 week window is only for automatic refunds. Refunds outside that window are happening if the customer has a good enough reason. We just don't know what those reasons are, or if those reasons will remain the same now that the initial surge of refunds has passed and Valve can take more time looking at each refund request.

[General Zod]

Huh. Maybe I can see about getting that refund for Arkham Origin after all.