Smaller Devs Abused By Steam's "No Questions Asked" Refund Policy

[Elijin]

snip

I live in the EU and I never realized that I was actually able to get an honest-to-god refund.

Because 90% of steam UI is designed around America, and they didnt want much attention given to the fact that consumer rights are championed in the rest of the world. Wouldnt want people to realise how much they're being taken for a ride...

 

[Strazdas]

Steam definitely needs to reduce the time frame on smaller games. Something that is only two hours long should have something like a 30 minute refundable window, not two hours. That just makes sense.

Absolutely not. Two hours is too small as it is. You can spend 2 hours trying to launch a broken game easily. What needs to happen is developers stop making shit games that people want to refund instantly. it does not matter how long the game is, if its good people wont be refunding.

You'd think that Steam, who basically introduced the indie market single handedly, would have figured this out?

Nonsense. Indie market was alive and well before steam even existed. It just didnt try to sell asset swap crap everywhere because it knew it wont fly.

Dude... do you remember what arcade games were like? Seriously. Difficulty curves that would make K12 blush, 1-hit deaths and the lives system. Where you could scrape your waty to the last battle only to be bumped off by anyone who popped in a token after you reached the last boss for them.

Honestly this policy is not a good thing. It's great they're trying to follow origin and all but they forgot. Origin's policy only apples to EA's first party titles. Games made by EA and it's subsidiaries. WHich means the money lost is EA's money. What steam has done is more drastic. They're basically forcing the policy on third party devs and publishers.

Is this good? for gamers... not really because while there is a short term benefit... what do you think the long term change will be? Will we see games with mandatory 2 hour tutorials? Padded out with slow text crawl dialog screen. Or mor insidiously will we have to buy games in bundles. Because one ***** is that Bundles have to berefunded as bunbdles and can only be refunded if no single title has been played for more than 2 hours.

So fallout 4 by example may not run $60 on release now.. it might run $80 because it's publisher worked out a deal with the makers of bad rats and stomping grounds to have their games bundled with it thusly cranking up the price.

Yes, arcade games were horrible penny pinchers. This is NOT a point in their favor.

No, Origins policy applies to all games sold on Origin, and it actually sells quite a lot of non-EA games. It just does a very bad job of advertising them (you have to go look for them yourself).

This is GREAT for gamers. The long term benefits is that developers will stop being rewarded for bad job and only those that make good games will be getting paid. Padding wont work because people will not wait for finish to refund. they will see padding and refund before the 2 hour limit anyway. GOOD games will work, because people will have fun.

your points about price increase and bundles are utter nonsense. nothing like that is going to happen.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

I think this execution on steam, is right for abuse by petty gamers with minor gripes. The fact that Steam offers refunds in EU, AU and UK, and was at around 1%, yet immediately jumped to 17% this quickly, only serves to reinforce my beliefs.

They gave refunds, but they pretended we were not entitled to them ...

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-restricts-14-day-eu-refund-law/1100-6425990/

By the way, all this is almost certainly a result of the Australian court case about their deceptive practices which entered mediation in april. I assume the mediators told them they didn't have a leg to stand on.

http://www.incompetition.com.au/2015/03/april-fools-mediation-steam-case/

 

[JayRPG]

What strikes me as the worst thing is that there are people out there so incredibly petty that they need their two dollars back after (most likely) fully completing the game they paid two freaking dollars for.

Hell, even if the game was total crap I wouldn't refund my $2, it's two fucking dollars for fuck sake, I'd have to have a personal vendetta against a developer to request my two bucks back.

 

[Areloch]

They should have written a book, then.

I don't think a dev wanting to make a one to three hour long, purely narrative-driven game is an invalid venture. I think such games have every right to exist along side any other video game.

I agree. One can ABSOLUTELY make a purely narritive based walksim game and have it be worth a price of admission. The Stanley Parable, for example.

Howlongtobeat implies that the average user beat the main of it in an hour and a half and it's $15 on steam. But I haven't heard many people complain that it wasn't good/worth the price.

So yeah, one can absolutely make a valid, short, narritive-driven lightly interactive adventure that's worth a price tag.

It just needs to be GOOD.

 

[Bindal]

What strikes me as the worst thing is that there are people out there so incredibly petty that they need their two dollars back after (most likely) fully completing the game they paid two freaking dollars for.

If they didn't like it, why should they be forced to keep it?

 

[MonsterCrit]

Honestly this policy is not a good thing. It's great they're trying to follow origin and all but they forgot. Origin's policy only apples to EA's first party titles. Games made by EA and it's subsidiaries. WHich means the money lost is EA's money. What steam has done is more drastic. They're basically forcing the policy on third party devs and publishers.

You mean like an actual retailer? Sounds about right to me.

Is this good? for gamers... not really because while there is a short term benefit... what do you think the long term change will be? Will we see games with mandatory 2 hour tutorials? Padded out with slow text crawl dialog screen. Or mor insidiously will we have to buy games in bundles. Because one ***** is that Bundles have to berefunded as bunbdles and can only be refunded if no single title has been played for more than 2 hours.

1. If developer's purposefully make their game worse to pad out gameplay, they'll see less sales, not more. And they'll deserve it.

2. Steam bundles aren't really bundles. Each one has a price listed separately. Bundles not sold on Steam aren't eligible for Steam refunds because you didn't buy it on Steam.{/quote]

YOu're missing the ramifications. If the industry on teh whole adopts the strategy. the gameing public is left with a choice of put up with it... or take up new hobbies. We all know how that goes. Think of the proliferation DLC and the previous proliferation of on-disk DRM.

So fallout 4 by example may not run $60 on release now.. it might run $80 because it's publisher worked out a deal with the makers of bad rats and stomping grounds to have their games bundled with it thusly cranking up the price.

You're making shit up. That hasn't happened, there is no indication that it will happen, and there's no logic based on past behavior that publishers would do that, or that indies would go for it. Big publishers would gain nothing from this, the higher price would actually harm them(believe me, if they thought they could get away with just straight up jacking up the price, they would; that's why we have DLC priced separately), and it's a fair guess that enough indies that actually tried this would get burned hard because they can't afford good contract lawyers(the ones that can also don't need publisher assistance to get sales).

You're right . it hasn't happened... can it happen? yes. You see the fallacy of history is that nothing happens until it happens . It's why people study hsitory to get a better understanding of cause and effect relationships. Again if it's something that is adopted by the industry at large... gamers will have little choice. Either put up with it.. or take up reading, or samba dancing.

Larger influential publishers would love an excuse to justify tacking another $20 on new release prices. . Bundle two games that would have normally sold for $5 that works out to Bethesda pocketting a cool extra $10. THe thing is there are plenty of games on steam that are sold only in bundles I.e they have no individual listings. That's on of the things the publisher does. A two-pack is ironically a single product.

 

[BadNewDingus]

I'm so glad people see through the indie devs. They had their fifteen minutes of fame and now it's time to actually make REAL games. Not to say that what most of them do isn't worthy of our money. I'm just saying that most indie titles are just clones of old school games, or whatever flavor of the month(zombies, minecraft and so on).

 

[shrekfan246]

Nope.

13 out of 18 isn't a usable statistic. There are millions of people using Steam. That number does nothing to tell us anything.

And it's been pointed out already, but the percentage of refunds has gone up in comparison to when people using Steam had to jump through multiple hoops without touching the ground just to even try to get a refund? Insert youdon'tsay.jpg here.

Sorry, small indie devs, but you're not being played here. If your faith in your consumer base is so low, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy. People support things they like. Refunds have been a part of the market for decades. The economy isn't going to crash overnight because digital sales are finally catching up.

 

[Politrukk]

If your game is worth it, people will keep it,as Yahtzee and Jim Sterling have pointed out on numerous occasions via their youtube channels there are SO MANY SHIT GAMES on steam.

This new policy is allowing people to refund games they really wanted to refund for numerous reasons, the reason why the refund percentage increased to 17% is because there was a heavy cry for the policy and there still is a cry in regards to some specific games (like I posted on this forum in regards to Godus or as has been pointed out to me in the case of Starforge)

Developers who aren't screwing over their customers but are just producing shitty games are taking a hit.
Developers who are screwing over their customers are taking a hit.
Developers who's games don't mandate their cost are taking a hit.

I think that's a good thing.

Perhaps there are some people who are abusing this policy at the moment but I find it highly unlikely seeing as steam has already implemented a failsafe for abuse.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Dude... do you remember what arcade games were like? Seriously. Difficulty curves that would make K12 blush, 1-hit deaths and the lives system. Where you could scrape your waty to the last battle only to be bumped off by anyone who popped in a token after you reached the last boss for them.

Honestly this policy is not a good thing. It's great they're trying to follow origin and all but they forgot. Origin's policy only apples to EA's first party titles. Games made by EA and it's subsidiaries. WHich means the money lost is EA's money. What steam has done is more drastic. They're basically forcing the policy on third party devs and publishers.

Is this good? for gamers... not really because while there is a short term benefit... what do you think the long term change will be? Will we see games with mandatory 2 hour tutorials? Padded out with slow text crawl dialog screen. Or mor insidiously will we have to buy games in bundles. Because one ***** is that Bundles have to berefunded as bunbdles and can only be refunded if no single title has been played for more than 2 hours.

So fallout 4 by example may not run $60 on release now.. it might run $80 because it's publisher worked out a deal with the makers of bad rats and stomping grounds to have their games bundled with it thusly cranking up the price.

Yes, arcade games were horrible penny pinchers. This is NOT a point in their favor.

No, Origins policy applies to all games sold on Origin, and it actually sells quite a lot of non-EA games. It just does a very bad job of advertising them (you have to go look for them yourself).

This is GREAT for gamers. The long term benefits is that developers will stop being rewarded for bad job and only those that make good games will be getting paid. Padding wont work because people will not wait for finish to refund. they will see padding and refund before the 2 hour limit anyway. GOOD games will work, because people will have fun.

Define "Good". The irony is. It's mor ethe 'Good Games' that will be hurt the most. But we'll see what happens when M#9 hits steam.

your points about price increase and bundles are utter nonsense. nothing like that is going to happen.

"Nothing like that will ever happen" , "It will never happen" . Look through history and you always find someone always says that.. and is immediately proven wrong. YOu need to think in terms of cause and effect.

ONe very real change that's already happening is that more than a few games have had 'Offline Mode' support patched out. As a protection against abusers. Since steam can't keep track of time played when the game is run in offline or launched without the steam client (don't snicker near a third of steam games can actually be run directly from their install directory.). The Steam DRM is about to become much more obtrusive as more developers actually start implementing it fully.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Players love it, and the primary complaints against it are from developers that have created games with no lasting value.

Indeed, the players do love it, but this policy is still turning out to be a bad one for - as the article is about - smaller companies. Not everyone has a massive budget and some have to start out with smaller games. Qwiboo wasn't trying to rip anyone off with their game. $2 for an hour or so of gameplay is a fair price...it's not like they were just raking in the cash even before the refund policy, but now they're making next to nothing.

I'd say they could solve this by putting a minimum payment requirement for the refund...like no refunds for games under $5. But that would just encourage devs to jack their prices to be above that mark.

The point is that a balance must be met. Yeah, we hate it when a policy like Paid Mods comes around and completely screws over us, the consumer. But there is another side to that coin, and this policy is detrimental to the smaller devs that are trying to make (in this case literally) a couple bucks for a small game.

Edit:
To be clear: I am all for this refund policy. After all, a refund is a basic consumer right that Steam has been lacking for too long.

Your edit contradicts your post. You can't have a refund policy with an exemption for the small developers. The point of a refund policy is to give consumers confidence to buy without worrying that they will be stuck with a lemon.

The game industry has enjoyed the lack of refunds too long and now it's time to address refunds for physical games that aren't worth a shit too.

 

[fix-the-spade]

That sucks but a return policy was desperately needed. I hope Valve fix this issue for smaller games.

The primary issue is that Qwiboo specialise in rubbish mobile ports, the kind that Steam is inundated with.

They are whining very loudly about it, but the fact is that Steam has just become an extremely hostile environment for lazy port companies like them. Before they could fling up crap safe in the knowledge that nobody could claim anything back once they got a sale. Now people have a magical 'this is bullshit' button and the results speak for themselves.

I doubt this will have anything like the effect it's having on 'real' indy developers that it's having on Qwiboo.

 

[Politrukk]

Nope.

13 out of 18 isn't a usable statistic. There are millions of people using Steam. That number does nothing to tell us anything.

And it's been pointed out already, but the percentage of refunds has gone up in comparison to when people using Steam had to jump through multiple hoops without touching the ground just to even try to get a refund? Insert youdon'tsay.jpg here.

Sorry, small indie devs, but you're not being played here. If your faith in your consumer base is so low, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy. People support things they like. Refunds have been a part of the market for decades. The economy isn't going to crash overnight because digital sales are finally catching up.

It is when you consider it might be 13 out of 18 units sold for them personally.

But 13 out of 18 sales out of millions on steam should pretty much explain his plight and it isn't going to be favourable to his argument.

 

[Aerosteam]

No shit people don't want to keep the game after completing it in less than two hours; it's a generic mobile game port.

 

[shrekfan246]

Nope.

13 out of 18 isn't a usable statistic. There are millions of people using Steam. That number does nothing to tell us anything.

And it's been pointed out already, but the percentage of refunds has gone up in comparison to when people using Steam had to jump through multiple hoops without touching the ground just to even try to get a refund? Insert youdon'tsay.jpg here.

Sorry, small indie devs, but you're not being played here. If your faith in your consumer base is so low, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy. People support things they like. Refunds have been a part of the market for decades. The economy isn't going to crash overnight because digital sales are finally catching up.

It is when you consider it might be 13 out of 18 units sold for them personally.

Not really. It just means that people didn't like their game very much. If they only sold 18 units in the first place, then their game wasn't catching many eyes. If most of those were then refunded, that's indicative of people not enjoying the thing they purchased, which the Steam reviews (horrible as they may be) seem to confirm.

It can't be used as any sort of data to determine a pattern or the likeliness of people abusing this refund system in the future. It's a single game that barely anybody bought in the first place. It's like picking out 25 men and 25 women and putting them into a study to try and extrapolate the tendencies of male and female gender; it's such a small sample size picked from a likely heavily homogenized group that doesn't take into account all of the other aspects that shape human societies that it's useless information.

Thousands of people buy games daily that they keep. 13 people refunding a single title is nothing. Sucks for that one developer, but I don't hear Klei whinging. Or those guys making Darkest Dungeon. Or Trine. Or Skullgirls. Or the Endless franchise. I can keep going.

Hey, maybe this will snowball into a massive epidemic in the future. But, much as I love slippery slopes, I'd still rather stand behind the slope that allows for more consumer protection than the one that only cares about the interests of companies.

 

[Politrukk]

Nope.

13 out of 18 isn't a usable statistic. There are millions of people using Steam. That number does nothing to tell us anything.

And it's been pointed out already, but the percentage of refunds has gone up in comparison to when people using Steam had to jump through multiple hoops without touching the ground just to even try to get a refund? Insert youdon'tsay.jpg here.

Sorry, small indie devs, but you're not being played here. If your faith in your consumer base is so low, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy. People support things they like. Refunds have been a part of the market for decades. The economy isn't going to crash overnight because digital sales are finally catching up.

It is when you consider it might be 13 out of 18 units sold for them personally.

Not really. It just means that people didn't like their game very much. If they only sold 18 units in the first place, then their game wasn't catching many eyes. If most of those were then refunded, that's indicative of people not enjoying the thing they purchased, which the Steam reviews (horrible as they may be) seem to confirm.

It can't be used as any sort of data to determine a pattern or the likeliness of people abusing this refund system in the future. It's a single game that barely anybody bought in the first place. It's like picking out 25 men and 25 women and putting them into a study to try and extrapolate the tendencies of male and female gender; it's such a small sample size picked from a likely heavily homogenized group that doesn't take into account all of the other aspects that shape human societies that it's useless information.

Thousands of people buy games daily that they keep. 13 people refunding a single title is nothing. Sucks for that one developer, but I don't hear Klei whinging. Or those guys making Darkest Dungeon. Or Trine. Or Skullgirls. Or the Endless franchise. I can keep going.

Hey, maybe this will snowball into a massive epidemic in the future. But, much as I love slippery slopes, I'd still rather stand behind the slope that allows for more consumer protection than the one that only cares about the interests of companies.

I think you sort of misunderstood my reply, we're on the same page.

What I tried to illustrate by quoting his 13 out of 18 statistic I just meant that apparently this is a horrible developer and his word counts for nothing to me because this is exactly the evil people wished to combat with the policy

 

[munx13]

Maybe more people will consider putting their games on GOG and Humble now, sans Steam codes. I'd be happy about that.

GoG has quality control, so 99% of the devs complaining about this wont be able to get their games on there.

Also on the DRM, how the hell would that stop people from getting refunds?

 

[CrystalShadow]

Players love it, and the primary complaints against it are from developers that have created games with no lasting value.

Indeed, the players do love it, but this policy is still turning out to be a bad one for - as the article is about - smaller companies. Not everyone has a massive budget and some have to start out with smaller games. Qwiboo wasn't trying to rip anyone off with their game. $2 for an hour or so of gameplay is a fair price...it's not like they were just raking in the cash even before the refund policy, but now they're making next to nothing.

I'd say they could solve this by putting a minimum payment requirement for the refund...like no refunds for games under $5. But that would just encourage devs to jack their prices to be above that mark.

You know that doesn't actually make sense right? Refunds benefit consumers, not devs. The consumer has no direct influence on what a game is sold for.
If a dev is worried about getting a lot of dubious refunds, they'd want to ensure their price is below the cutoff amount.

Eg, if you have a short game you think people are going to play all the way through then refund, and the policy is no refunds below $5 then you have an incentive to sell your game at below $5, and raising the price of your game would only hurt you in this case, not help.

Maybe you mis-stated what you actually meant, but as written nothing about that remark has any real logic to it.
Consumers want to be able to get a refund.
Devs want to make as much money as they can, usually, and that if you have any actual business sense, that means selling at a price you estimate to have the highest number of reliable sales. (eg. Sales that aren't going to get refunded, or otherwise negated.)

 

[shrekfan246]

Nope.

13 out of 18 isn't a usable statistic. There are millions of people using Steam. That number does nothing to tell us anything.

And it's been pointed out already, but the percentage of refunds has gone up in comparison to when people using Steam had to jump through multiple hoops without touching the ground just to even try to get a refund? Insert youdon'tsay.jpg here.

Sorry, small indie devs, but you're not being played here. If your faith in your consumer base is so low, then frankly I don't have a lot of sympathy. People support things they like. Refunds have been a part of the market for decades. The economy isn't going to crash overnight because digital sales are finally catching up.

It is when you consider it might be 13 out of 18 units sold for them personally.

Not really. It just means that people didn't like their game very much. If they only sold 18 units in the first place, then their game wasn't catching many eyes. If most of those were then refunded, that's indicative of people not enjoying the thing they purchased, which the Steam reviews (horrible as they may be) seem to confirm.

It can't be used as any sort of data to determine a pattern or the likeliness of people abusing this refund system in the future. It's a single game that barely anybody bought in the first place. It's like picking out 25 men and 25 women and putting them into a study to try and extrapolate the tendencies of male and female gender; it's such a small sample size picked from a likely heavily homogenized group that doesn't take into account all of the other aspects that shape human societies that it's useless information.

Thousands of people buy games daily that they keep. 13 people refunding a single title is nothing. Sucks for that one developer, but I don't hear Klei whinging. Or those guys making Darkest Dungeon. Or Trine. Or Skullgirls. Or the Endless franchise. I can keep going.

Hey, maybe this will snowball into a massive epidemic in the future. But, much as I love slippery slopes, I'd still rather stand behind the slope that allows for more consumer protection than the one that only cares about the interests of companies.

I think you sort of misunderstood my reply, we're on the same page.

What I tried to illustrate by quoting his 13 out of 18 statistic I just meant that apparently this is a horrible developer and his word counts for nothing to me because this is exactly the evil people wished to combat with the policy

Fair enough, though that's why I just responded to the part that seemed to be worded in a "devil's advocate" sort of way.