What's with the refund boom?

[Shillelagh]

Looking at the steam refund request graph, you can see there was an enormous spike in refund requests (help requests in general, but mostly refund). Also more "refund?" discussion forums. Was there some kind of major release that no one liked recently?

Or is it somehow related to the recent server maintenance troubles?

See here: https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support

[76561199223588030]

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

[

Well sometimes good games get overlooked, sometimes mediocre games get the attention they deserve. And developers making excuses for their failed projects pre-date Steam... :KentWinning:

The objectively good games of their genre, get buried by mediocre cashgrabs. You cant trust reviews. They're either bought or biased in some way. Not just the big game reviewers but all of them. They're all access media. They give out good review scores for swag and perks. They disparage games from middle sized studios, because said studios are too poor to give the reviewers perks, and too large to be pretentious indie darlings. You know what games I really disliked? Braid, Gish, And Yet it Moves, Fez and a whole slew of other indie 'darlings.' Those games were pretty mediocre. College fair games that you make for your final year in dev school. All mechanics, No gameplay.

The indie press and the big gaming journos started a trend of over rating pretentious indie garbage, because of personal relationships with the developers. Or for establishing 'cred' by giving indie games inflated reviews. The same happens in the music review industry too. I can not listen to anything recommended by Anthony Fantano. Not because I disagree in his taste in music. No, because he like most modern music critics gives bad bands super high scores to help them out. I cant remember the last game I liked that critics also liked.

My friend's game did not fail. They are happy with the numbers, just not the steam numbers. It sold more copies on PSN and Live in it's first week, than it's lifetime on steam. I dont know the exact numbers as they would not tell me, but I have no reason to doubt them.

Shillelagh님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah, steam isn't great to developers, and they're making it harder for them to get by. I've only "published" games to twitch.io since I don't care to pay $100 to upload a financially worthless passion project to steam, so I can only imagine how poor the experience is for small developers on steam, but all sources point to "pretty crappy", though it seems they do provide very good service and response time for their API

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

-snip-

All my developer friends say the exact same thing. They lament steam's dominant market position in the PC digital distribution space. Going to epic or ea or microsoft themselves, is even worse.

I truly believe that more PC games need to go the notch/minecraft route. Self publish and self sell. Like Escape from Tarkov did.

[nullable]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

[

Well sometimes good games get overlooked, sometimes mediocre games get the attention they deserve. And developers making excuses for their failed projects pre-date Steam...

The objectively good games of their genre, get buried by mediocre cashgrabs. You cant trust reviews. They're either bought or biased in some way. Not just the big game reviewers but all of them. They're all access media. They give out good review scores for swag and perks. They disparage games from middle sized studios, because said studios are too poor to give the reviewers perks, and too large to be pretentious indie darlings. You know what games I really disliked? Braid, Gish, And Yet it Moves, Fez and a whole slew of other indie 'darlings.' Those games were pretty mediocre. College fair games that you make for your final year in dev school. All mechanics, No gameplay.

The indie press and the big gaming journos started a trend of over rating pretentious indie garbage, because of personal relationships with the developers. Or for establishing 'cred' by giving indie games inflated reviews. The same happens in the music review industry too. I can not listen to anything recommended by Anthony Fantano. Not because I disagree in his taste in music. No, because he like most modern music critics gives bad bands super high scores to help them out. I cant remember the last game I liked that critics also liked.

Ah yes, everyone else is clueless about what's good and what they like. Well good luck with that self-inflicted misery.

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

My friend's game did not fail. They are happy with the numbers, just not the steam numbers. It sold more copies on PSN and Live in it's first week, than it's lifetime on steam. I dont know the exact numbers as they would not tell me, but I have no reason to doubt them.

Then what's the problem? You feel like success on a console owes the developer success on PC?

Yeah man, sorry some guy's game didn't do well on Steam. There are a lot of games released, and most of them don't sell amazingly. And those that do apparently don't deserve to. It's too bad there's no way you can control the universe and force people to buy, play and recognize the right games.

[76561199223588030]

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

Ah yes, everyone else is clueless about what's good and what they like. Well good luck with that self-inflicted misery.

My problem lies with the cozy relationship between AAA developers, Indie developers and game journos. I dont like being lied to by losers with ulterior motives. Game journos are failures. They couldn't get into the New York Times or some other more legitimate news publication and instead occupy the video game review industry out of spite and malice. They are openly corrupt and hostile to their audience. It's why I haven't read or taken into account any game journos opinions in well over a decade and a half.

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

Then what's the problem? You feel like success on a console owes the developer success on PC?

I feel that success on PC is needlessly harder to achieve because of steam's dominant position and unwillingness to tackle the shovelware issue. The WII also had loads of shovelware. Because of that I stopped buying games for the WII and skipped the WII U entirely. I heard the switch is better, but I'll never know because nintendo poisoned the experience for me.

Snakub Plissken님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah man, sorry some guy's game didn't do well on Steam. There are a lot of games released, and most of them don't sell amazingly. And those that do apparently don't deserve to. It's too bad there's no way you can control the universe and force people to buy, play and recognize the right games.

It's not about the lack of sales. It's more about the sheer amount of garbage polluting the platform that makes good, well made and thoroughly developed games hard to find.

The game my friend made. It's not my cup of tea. The community is very loyal and vehemently defends against any and all criticism. I'm happy for the success. I dont needlessly hate games from genres I dont play or have no interest in. Unless it's an asset flip or a cash grab that negatively affects steam as a whole.

Hating shovelware, is like hating mosquitoes. They suck your blood and occupy biological living space that other more beneficial insects could reside in.

[Tito Shivan]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

I truly believe that more PC games need to go the notch/minecraft route. Self publish and self sell. Like Escape from Tarkov did.

You're still not going to make a living unless you up your marketing ante and go out there to make your game known.

Minecraft was a black swan. You don't build your business model on the grounds of being a black swan, because you're most likely not. And then things don't work out.

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

I feel that success on PC is needlessly harder to achieve because of steam's dominant position and unwillingness to tackle the shovelware issue.

If your product can't even stand out amongst a bunch of 'shovelware' how it's going to compete against a bunch of actual products?

If you can't sell a product because of a lot of people who 'aren't eve trying' your chances aren't going to increase against a lot of people who actually try.

[Washell]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

They would rather not release on steam at all, because not only is exposure hard to come by, because you're lost in all the noise of all the shovelware clogging up the system

Your average supermarket has 10,000+ products, and only a handful of display stands pushing a few products, with the rest anonymously on the shelves. Getting a store to give you exposure is a matter of luck and/or paying for it, the latter of which isn't possible on steam. You need to generate your own.

Part of Stray’s meteoric buzz is because the game is novel, and genuinely very good, and word of mouth is a powerful tool. But it’s been aided by a publicity campaign that doesn’t fit into the mold of typical video game marketing.

You’d expect trailers and hype-speak at popular industry events, maybe even a promotion with a snack or soda brand. You’re less likely to see a tie-in campaign with nonprofits like the Nebraska Humane Society (NHS). Earlier this month, NHS organized a charity drive tied to the launch of Stray: Donate $5 and you could win a copy of the game. It resulted in some real-world good, too, tallying more than $7,000. A rep for NHS told Polygon that most of the donations came from first-time donors.

The adoption events exist IRL, too. Over the weekend, Annapurna organized a pop-up at Meow Parlour, a cat café in New York City’s trendy Lower East Side neighborhood. It’s a savvy marketing move. Meow Parlour is generally pretty slammed (admission is reservation-only), so Stray got a nice full day of publicity, potentially reaching folks who were only there to hang out with kittens. In exchange, Meow Parlour got a guaranteed stream of potential new pet parents for the dozen-odd kittens currently up for adoption. (Two were adopted by the time I left.)

https://kotaku.com/stray-annapurna-interactive-meow-parlour-travel-cat-1849327602

Are they complaining Steam didn't give them exposure? Would they have cared (much) if Steam hid them at the bottom?

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

I feel that success on PC is needlessly harder to achieve because of steam's dominant position and unwillingness to tackle the shovelware issue.

They used to. And then people like you were complaining their friends game wasn't accepted on Steam. There's obvious shovelware, and obvious great games and the rest is somewhere in the middle. Valve found they were horrible at determining on which side of the line the stuff in the middle fell. To solve that they first tried green light, and when that didn't work, steam direct in conjunction with curators, discovery queue, and other tricks to gauge your interests and push games into your eyeline.

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

unwillingness to tackle the shovelware issue.

They're perfectly willing. If you can suggest a solid method that doesn't cost an insane amount of manhours, doesn't involve crowdsourcing (failed greenlight), and doesn't lead to them declining games that then proceed to make millions for other stores. Because they're drawing a blank. If you got a good idea, they'll happily implement it.

[isomorphic_projection]

Shillelagh님이 먼저 게시:

Looking at the steam refund request graph, you can see there was an enormous spike in refund requests (help requests in general, but mostly refund). Also more "refund?" discussion forums. Was there some kind of major release that no one liked recently?

Or is it somehow related to the recent server maintenance troubles?

See here: https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support

The refund boom was between 22 and 24 of June. I checked which games came out the 21st of June. High possibility, Rainbow Six Siege - Y7S2 Welcome Pack Premium. If you look at the graphs on the game page. Checked further, it's the same story. As anno 2070. You buy it, but can't claim it on ubisoft.

[Tito Shivan]

Washell님이 먼저 게시:

and doesn't lead to them declining games that then proceed to make millions for other stores.

That's a factual impossibility.

The moment you start picking who does and doesn't sell in your store it stops being a matter of 'if' it happens and becomes a matter of 'when' it happens.

[Washell]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Washell님이 먼저 게시:

and doesn't lead to them declining games that then proceed to make millions for other stores.

That's a factual impossibility.

The moment you start picking who does and doesn't sell in your store it stops being a matter of 'if' it happens and becomes a matter of 'when' it happens.

Exactly

[76561199223588030]

@Tito Shivan
Shovelware harms the platform as a whole. Because of it's presence alone consumers lose faith in the platform/retailer selling the shovelware and go somewhere else.


@Washell
You're analogy does not work in this case.

Videogames are entertainment, a luxury. Supermarkets sell food, a necessity. Videogames are not required to live, food is. Sure you can get better quality of food to treat yourself. But you can go without videogames.

I have no interest in purchasing Stray. But I am happy for their success. I have seen let's plays and believe their success being more as a result from the novel concept and well executed gameplay and gamedesign. They're also using their game to further charitable acts, which is a form of marketing in itself.

I also do not read videogame rags, because I do not trust them. Kotaku and Polygon being some of the worst.

When steam had manual curation, cash grabs were not accepted. Since the flood gates were opened, all I see in my store page are low effort asset flips, pretentious indie titles, over rated AAA trash and/or other low quality garbage.

I buy most of my PC games from platforms competing with steam, because I can be sure that the competition did their due diligence. The only things these competing platforms are missing is a community interaction hub that steam has. Yes steam is the largest platform and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But I have no faith in steam's quality control anymore. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy having all my games in one place. But I'd rather not wade through the sewers to find one nugget of gold.

See this is my problem with steam. They could easily go back to manual curation. But they refuse to spend a dime. Steam is both very rich and very miserly. The manual curation process does not mean what the reviewer personally likes and dislikes. The manual curation process ensures that games are in good proper working order and are worth for the customer to spend their time and money on.

[Tito Shivan]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

@Tito Shivan
Shovelware harms the platform as a whole. Because of it's presence alone consumers lose faith in the platform/retailer selling the shovelware and go somewhere else.

Numbers say otherwise.
https://steamdb.info/app/753/graphs/
(See the Lifetime concurrent users on Steam)

Steam hit 69 million daily users in 2021 and moved nearly 33 billion GB of data
https://www.gamesradar.com/steam-hit-69-million-daily-users-in-2021-and-moved-nearly-33-billion-gb-of-data/

Steam smashes 28 million concurrent users—nearly 3 million more than last year
https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-smashes-28-million-concurrent-usersnearly-3-million-more-than-last-year/

[76561199223588030]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

@Tito Shivan
Shovelware harms the platform as a whole. Because of it's presence alone consumers lose faith in the platform/retailer selling the shovelware and go somewhere else.

Steam stats say otherwise.
{링크가 삭제되었습니다}https://steamdb.info/app/753/graphs/
(See the Lifetime concurrent users on Steam)

How long until users get frustrated and stop coming to steam? You can only abuse your customers for so long, before they revolt.

And isn't steam's growth now focused in emerging markets? How long until those markets are tapped out entirely? The developing world does not have the same extra income to spend on entertainment as we do here in the west.

[Aachen]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

How long until users get frustrated and stop coming to steam? You can only abuse your customers for so long, before they revolt ....

How far back do discussions revolving around “will shovelware drive away users” exist?

[nullable]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

Steam stats say otherwise.
https://steamdb.info/app/753/graphs/
(See the Lifetime concurrent users on Steam)

How long until users get frustrated and stop coming to steam? You can only abuse your customers for so long, before they revolt.

About the same time we go through the second big video game crash...

I mean you see your problem right? You have certain values, and you assume those values reflect reality. And when they don't, you assume they will eventually. Any second now, "gamers" which is a group you understand, and Valve doesn't, are going to mass migrate to some other store... OK. Any day now.

Bad games have always existed. People have always navigated around them. Most people aren't so bothered that bad games exist that they'll just give up on games completely. Not when there's actually plenty of games they like. Bad games existing don't negate good games.

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

And isn't steam's growth now focused in emerging markets? How long until those markets are tapped out entirely? The developing world does not have the same extra income to spend on entertainment as we do here in the west.

And what does that have to do with the existence of bad games? Poor people have higher standards when it comes to games? Or aren't experienced enough to shop for games? Oh no, poor people might learn they can't just buy the first thing shoved in front of their face?

You're kinda throwing spaghetti at the wall here. And what's the argument? That Valve doesn't know how to run their business? Valve: Twenty years of dumb luck? Armchair CEO has strategy to save thriving business from current success?

[Tito Shivan]

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

How long until users get frustrated and stop coming to steam? You can only abuse your customers for so long, before they revolt.

Steam direct launched in 2017. That's 5 years ago.
Steam Greenlight launched in 2012. That's a decade ago.

Steam users seem to have very high frustration levels.

[76561199223588030]

Tito Shivan님이 먼저 게시:

DONT GIVE GABEN MONEY!님이 먼저 게시:

How long until users get frustrated and stop coming to steam? You can only abuse your customers for so long, before they revolt.

Steam direct launched in 2017. That's 5 years ago.
Steam Greenlight launched in 2012. That's a decade ago.

Steam users seem to have very high frustration levels.

Sadly true. Patience for those who abuse and exploit you is not a virtue. Forget about forgiveness. I hope that more people come to their senses and stop supporting companies that despise them and treat them like trash.I personally have not bought products from any company that offended me. Unless they've apologized. Burying the evidence is not an apology.