Refund Policy Changes

[802Trip]

Steam seriously needs to start helping out their indie dev's. Its pretty pathetic that valve is going to let people refund 10$ indie games they got and beat/enjoyed because they finished it in the 2 hour window. I understand for scams and what not, but there are so many out there getting screwed by scum bags taking advantage of the system.

Kind of seems like a big FU to your indie devs valve.

[wuddih]

the 2 hours are mainly intended for technical troubleshooting. that some people use it to demo/play games entirely is ... abuse of the system.

aside that most devs are capable of providing more than 2 hours worth of playable content, devs that are doing shorter content on purpose have to accept that their product may be affected for that abuse. but there are simple things that devs can do though to minimize that .. f.e. not writing on the store page "Average time to complete the game: 90 minutes" ... and from knowing hundreds of other devs, this does not affect anyone.
there are other things that affect devs more...

and if a $10 game is beatable in less than 2 hours, it either has to be a distinct masterpiece or it is overpriced.
my golden rule is $1 = 1 hour of mediocre entertainment.
$5 per hour would need me to be glued to it, forgetting the turkey in the oven, no longer hearing the baby crying, not smelling that the house is on fire and literally only the firefighter dragging me out.

this being said ... i am not certain that the 2 hours are pro-consumer but more pro-exploit ... and i like shorter games and i like them to be on Steam without any doubts by their creators.

so ... as for that the 2 hours, as they are not mandatory by any law anyway ... nuke it.
too hard?
so we can compromise on 1 hour
done.
new negotiation in a few years.
then we get rid of it entirely or half an hour.
but after that ... lul.

a general refund time of course
individual refund times per product is hard af to communicate to the user. even if you would plaster it everywhere, people would not read it.

reduction to 1 hour would just create a tiny bit of fecal matter hits the rotary impeller but after a while it would be simply done with any discussion about it.
individual refund times would create a constant stream of noise with complaints because of the confusion it would create.

[Crazy Tiger]

Автор сообщения: 802Trip

Kind of seems like a big FU to your indie devs valve.

Don't the indie devs themselves decide to create a short game? They know the refund policy as well, so they apparently take a calculated risk if they create a short game.

[Start_Running]

Автор сообщения: 802Trip

Steam seriously needs to start helping out their indie dev's. Its pretty pathetic that valve is going to let people refund 10$ indie games they got and beat/enjoyed because they finished it in the 2 hour window. I understand for scams and what not, but there are so many out there getting screwed by scum bags taking advantage of the system.

Kind of seems like a big FU to your indie devs valve.

Define Indie and you'll see where the problem in this reasoning lays.

Автор сообщения: Crazy Tiger

Автор сообщения: 802Trip

Kind of seems like a big FU to your indie devs valve.

Don't the indie devs themselves decide to create a short game? They know the refund policy as well, so they apparently take a calculated risk if they create a short game.

Yup. An indie de is just as capable as creating a long game as a short game. Look at literally anything done by Spiderweb Softare, Fez,Terraria, etc.


OP the 2 hour thing is kinda arbitary, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

[Bmx Bandit]

Those people will always find a way to not pay for games even you change the rules for refnd, like regular piracy

[Sazzouu]

Автор сообщения: Major Cruton

Those people will always find a way to not pay for games even you change the rules for refnd, like regular piracy

Different discussion. We are not only talking about piracy here. We also talk about people getting achievements or writing reviews for stuff they don't own - so basically manipulate Steam-wide statistics. Or better yet some games can even drop all cards before having 2 hours of playtime which allows them to actually make profit out of games. Not much but still.

Piracy is just one thing of many happening here.

[Edifier]

If a game takes less than 1 hour to complete odds are it didn't cost that much to make.

So the Indie dev will most likely make a profit on it from all of the people who bought it and kept it. Which I'm sure is in the majority.

Not everyone is going to buy a game and refund it if they complete it before 2 hours.

[Matt]

As a customer, this seems like an odd thing to be concerned about. Surely content creators know the rules and what they’re getting into.

Furthermore unless you have access to refund data, I don’t know how you can assume there’s some form of refund abuse. That’s implying too that most people are dishonest and personally I don’t think that’s the case.

[Brian9824]

Автор сообщения: Matt

As a customer, this seems like an odd thing to be concerned about. Surely content creators know the rules and what they’re getting into.

Furthermore unless you have access to refund data, I don’t know how you can assume there’s some form of refund abuse. That’s implying too that most people are dishonest and personally I don’t think that’s the case.

I'll assume its in reference to this - https://kotaku.com/steams-two-hour-refund-policy-forces-horror-developer-i-1847568067

But again, considering no other dev's have had this issue it seems more like an issue with the developer then a systemic issue.

[Jazz]

Then devs should make their games longer than 2 hours

[Start_Running]

Автор сообщения: Jazz

Then devs should make their games longer than 2 hours :dip:

Or just make their price point and quality such that people want to keep the game..
Artificially lengthening the game does no one any favours.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Автор сообщения: Matt

As a customer, this seems like an odd thing to be concerned about. Surely content creators know the rules and what they’re getting into.

We aren’t just “customers” though, we’re human beings.

And knowing the rules doesn’t require anyone to be happy with every single thing Steam does. I mean the very existence of the suggestions forum implies that people might prefer the status quo changed.

[Start_Running]

Автор сообщения: Gus the Crocodile

Автор сообщения: Matt

As a customer, this seems like an odd thing to be concerned about. Surely content creators know the rules and what they’re getting into.

We aren’t just “customers” though, we’re human beings.

And knowing the rules doesn’t require anyone to be happy with every single thing Steam does. I mean the very existence of the suggestions forum implies that people might prefer the status quo changed.

One must understand teh status quo before one can offer reasonable suggestions for change.

[Arbyroch]

Changes to the refund policy for indie developers

I just heard the nasty news from indie developer EMIKA_GAMES and their recent game Summer of '58.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1609080/Summer_of_58/

http://store.steampowered.com
https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-dev-leaves-industry-indefinitely-thanks-to-exploitation-of-steams-refund-policy/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR2TdhF2H04P3pp3oqsvyK4l8ryrEr9CAIcUJjfO7643D9Cnlgjj909Umd0

This developer has indicated on social networks that he indefinitely abandoned video game development, EMIKA_GAMES is a short-lived game developer.

This short duration of the game helped everyone who bought the game to refund, so the developer indicates that he had practically no profit with this game, it is a pity that despite receiving good reviews, people refunded the game, a $7 game.

In my opinion, a time of 2 hours is the maximum and the most indicated, since there are long-duration games that have very slow introductions.
But what do we do with short-lived games? How can we help avoid these types of events in which refunds are made violently.

Among my ideas is the possibility of reducing this game time according to the duration of the game supplied by the developer at the time of publishing said game, for example:

If a developer indicates that their game is longer than 6 hours, their maximum game time allowed for refund will be 2 hours.

If a developer indicates that their game is less than 5 hours long, their maximum game time allowed for refund will be 30-45 minutes

Labels would be applied on the short game pages indicating the buyer about the new game time allowed for refunds.

We cannot allow an idea designed for long games from AAA, AA developers to affect developers with low economic profile, if you have ideas of how to improve this policy that some would call corrupt, write it in the comments

[Gwarsbane]

Seriously, you couldn't be bothered to even look at the first page of the suggestions and ideas section, let a lone use the search....

14 hours ago, same topic...

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/3043858334654924896/

[WhiteKnight]

offtopic - i love the gamer setup that u have. O i wish i had that :(.