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Author Topic: Steam refund program!  (Read 40898 times)

PrimusRibbus

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #60 on: June 07, 2015, 11:27:11 pm »

- we are back to the old "you need to impress your consumer during the first 2h", so another incentive for focusing on graphics, simple gameplay (why if they got confused and want a refund! let's make a game for idiots) in expense of lontermgameplay (who cares if my game has good replayability, all that count is the first 2h)

After years and years of developers focusing on marketing hype, and padding their games with grind and awful tutorials, this is very good thing. I'm no longer willing to pay a tax of my time to get to the fun parts of a video game.

Two hours is enough time to read an entire light novel, watch most movies all the way through, go through 2-4 episodes of a TV series, or give a thorough introductory course on an activity/craft/subject. If a developer can't convey how their game is fun and why it has redeeming value within two hours, the problem isn't with the player.

I've been burned by demos before back in the day, but it's a lot harder to fake 2 hours of gameplay than it is to fake some scripted pre-release videos.
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Scripten

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #61 on: June 08, 2015, 12:34:28 am »

I feel like the more pressing issue is in regard to shorter games becoming at-risk. While it isn't exactly easy, Metroid Fusion, for example, can be completed in less than two hours, and I would consider that to be a full game experience, quality/satisfaction aside.

No... no... It won't happen that way because games do not work off of loyalty.

Give that option and none of them will allow refunds. Why would they want to? It means less sales off their game because someone didn't want it.

Do you think that games will sell well if their store pages advertise an estimated play time of less than 30 minutes, regardless of genre?

If I'm not mistaken, many of the gaming scams that have run through Steam have been survival sandboxes or immediately and obviously broken. Our hypothetical short game, though, is likely an artsy sort of thing, like Proteus, and those who are interested in it are going to be less affected by a short estimated play time.
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Kanil

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #62 on: June 08, 2015, 12:57:44 am »

I feel like the more pressing issue is in regard to shorter games becoming at-risk. While it isn't exactly easy, Metroid Fusion, for example, can be completed in less than two hours...
But only with proper knowledge and experience, I'd imagine. A brand new player going through the game for their first time is going to be way slower. There aren't going to be many games that casually take less than two hours.
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Yah, it sounds like minecraft with content, you have obviously missed the point, people dont like content, they like different coloured blocks.
Seems to work fine with my copy. As soon as I loaded the human caravan came by and the world burst into fire.

a1s

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #63 on: June 08, 2015, 06:56:22 am »

Well it's a bit complicated, but how about the developers get to apply for "extremely short" status, denying refunds, but requiring under 4 hour completion  times, and story-driven content  (visual novels are a prime example.) ideally this is resolved during  greenlight phase but users may later request  a change of status. Developers who abuse the feature are penalised by steam. users who request status change on everything get points into their "refund abuse" score.
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Sappho

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #64 on: June 08, 2015, 07:08:42 am »

Well it's a bit complicated, but how about the developers get to apply for "extremely short" status, denying refunds, but requiring under 4 hour completion  times, and story-driven content  (visual novels are a prime example.) ideally this is resolved during  greenlight phase but users may later request  a change of status. Developers who abuse the feature are penalised by steam. users who request status change on everything get points into their "refund abuse" score.

Sounds like it would work. Also sounds like a lot of work for Steam, so I would be pretty shocked if they were willing to do this. :/

penguinofhonor

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #65 on: June 08, 2015, 07:22:17 am »

.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2015, 11:09:09 am by penguinofhonor »
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Sappho

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #66 on: June 08, 2015, 07:39:12 am »

I think they can't remove the refund option entirely, but they could reduce the max play time for very short games.

10ebbor10

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #67 on: June 08, 2015, 08:13:17 am »

AFAIK, in many countries the refund only works until the bought thing is used. So really, they can set minimum play duration to zero if they want too.
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #68 on: June 08, 2015, 08:43:05 am »

Possible downside;

Playing 7days to die with friends on a server - friend B buys it to check it out, spawns, dies, spawns, dies, refunds. Understandable, but at the same time I know he would enjoy the game if he got anything except spawning at night and dieing to very fast zombies, since he enjoys minecraftersurivalsims...
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Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #69 on: June 08, 2015, 10:40:25 am »

I think that short games that can be "completed" under 2 hours would simply get an exception. It's only logical that a game with a short completion time and no replayability value could be made non-refundable, on a case-by-case basis, while being clearly marked as such. Naturally, a game like that marked "NON-REFUNDABLE" better have a demo of some sort, otherwise such a label would drop its sales to insignificant.

At the same time. A game with under two hours of gameplay and no replayability value? Steam is still a PC game distribution platform, isn't it? If the refund policy causes games of that type to disappear from Steam, I don't think many potential buyers would be terribly aggrieved. I sure wouldn't be.

(I honestly can't think of any games that fit that description off the top of my head. Some Call of Duty(-like) games can probably be completed under two hours, especially if you skip cutscenes, but they at least tend to have multiplayer. Are there even any games like that?)
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Sordid

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #70 on: June 08, 2015, 10:51:30 am »

I can't think of such a game either. All the extremely short games that come to mind are short because they're based entirely on replayability. Basically the same idea as Minesweeper, right? You can finish a game in ten minutes, sure, but you can play thousands and thousands of games and it's still fun. Or chess. You can't 'finish' chess. You finish a game, then you reset the board and play another game. Games like that aren't short, quite the opposite, they're infinite. This also applies to primarily multi-player games that can be played indefinitely, some of which have a short single-player campaign tacked on for some reason. But a purely story-based game with no replayability that's under two hours? I can't think of any. Even things like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and The Swapper take about four or five hours to complete.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2015, 10:54:47 am by Sordid »
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10ebbor10

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #71 on: June 08, 2015, 11:03:13 am »

Most of the concern I've seen so far is about extremely short indie games, such as walking simulators gone Home and Dear esther and stuff.
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Scripten

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #72 on: June 08, 2015, 11:05:37 am »

Possible downside;

Playing 7days to die with friends on a server - friend B buys it to check it out, spawns, dies, spawns, dies, refunds. Understandable, but at the same time I know he would enjoy the game if he got anything except spawning at night and dieing to very fast zombies, since he enjoys minecraftersurivalsims...

That's more a fault of the game, really. (Note: I like 7 Days to Die. It can be tough to get into, though.) It's also still in alpha, isn't it?

I think that short games that can be "completed" under 2 hours would simply get an exception. It's only logical that a game with a short completion time and no replayability value could be made non-refundable, on a case-by-case basis, while being clearly marked as such. Naturally, a game like that marked "NON-REFUNDABLE" better have a demo of some sort, otherwise such a label would drop its sales to insignificant.

At the same time. A game with under two hours of gameplay and no replayability value? Steam is still a PC game distribution platform, isn't it? If the refund policy causes games of that type to disappear from Steam, I don't think many potential buyers would be terribly aggrieved. I sure wouldn't be.

(I honestly can't think of any games that fit that description off the top of my head. Some Call of Duty(-like) games can probably be completed under two hours, especially if you skip cutscenes, but they at least tend to have multiplayer. Are there even any games like that?)

Proteus and other artsy-type games can be completed in less than 2 hours. Granted, they often have replay value, but sometimes they don't. Eversion is a good example of this. Unless you want to complete every achievement, you don't have to play for very long to beat it. I wouldn't be surprised if the good ending could also be completed in less than two hours.

Also, I have only 111 minutes in Gone Home, but I've pretty much exhausted that, but I feel quite fulfilled regarding the purchase.
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nenjin

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #73 on: June 08, 2015, 11:37:55 am »

I'd worry about most EA games actually.

Despite knowing they're buying an EA game, many gamers will put in 30 mins, call it shit and seek a refund.

Compared to the last year or so of EA, developers were basically unaccountable. People had to buy to even check the game out. Now...people can buy, check it out, then refund. Ultimately I think that results in a much lower "spike" for EA releases, which isn't replaced later by legit sales. So EA may suddenly become a lot less profitable due to the ability to seek refunds.
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Retropunch

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Re: Steam refund program!
« Reply #74 on: June 08, 2015, 12:01:22 pm »

It's a tricky one. On one hand I completely agree that not every game needs to be a 100 hour epic to be worth the money, but at the same time if the game is woefully short then it's no good either and I don't have a lot of sympathy. Overall though, refunds are a basic right of consumers. There's no other product that you can't return and ask for a refund, and games shouldn't be any different.

The biggest change that I think/hope (more than anything in the world) this makes is that we'll stop seeing such terrible game launches. If a game launches and it's a complete shitstorm of bugs and fail then they'll just get them all returned. Before, devs could basically bank on people buying it and then being stuck with it so they could release patches at their leisure (if at all).

Massive improvement.

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With enough work and polish, it could have been a forgettable flash game on Kongregate.
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