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

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Snap.

Actually I don't contradict myself with my edit, however as CrystalShadow points out I very likely failed to properly communicate my point.

My point is that I'm all for refunds. It's good that we're finally getting because as consumers we deserve the right to purchase with confidence and have a safeguard against being ripped off.

What I was trying to express, however, was that I wish there was a way to ensure that honest small devs wouldn't get screwed over by players essentially renting their games for free. I'm not even trying to imply that's happening at the moment, just saying that this current system is open to such abuse.

 

[Kathinka]

What? The Game Industry being held to the same standards that are the default in pretty much any other media branch?! Shock! Disbelief! Pitchforks! Torches!
What is it with the entitlement in this particular sector of businesses that has somehow become the norm and acceptable standard?

 

[LordLundar]

You know what the sad part is with Harris? He has stuff on GoG.

http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&devpub=positech_games&page=1

All of it eligible for the 30 day refund policy.

http://www.gog.com/support/website_help/money_back_guarantee

All someone has to do is lie to support in their efforts to fix it (or not even, see Redshirt) and boom! Free game. Easily exploited.

If he wants to implement DRM then he'll have to pull his stuff off of GoG which is not a wise business decision.

 

[Cowabungaa]

So the idea is that people buy their small game, finish it, then get a refund for it? Okay, I can see that as being a problem, regardless of anything else around it. That thing by itself is an issue, as we all know quality =/= length.

Problem is; what else can Valve really do? The article says they might not have thought it through, but I don't think that's the case here. A balance has to be struck; you can't have it too high or else a lot of games can be completed, but you can't have it too low or else someone doesn't get a relatively decent look at the game and possible problems they might want to get a refund for.

2 Hours, in that light, sounds quite reasonable. With a refund system you'll always have some games that are going to fall in the "too short to fall outside of the refund period" category. Games that last less than two hours, well, maybe they need to move to a different distribution platform.

 

[MrFalconfly]

So 1 game, out of hundreds of thousands on Steams, sees 13 out of 18 units sold being returned for a refund after Steam enacts this return-policy (which I personally think is way overdue).

That's not abuse. That's just one incredibly shitty game.

 

[Hedberger]

So consumers that felt cheated by bad games got their money back. I am completely ok with this. Anyone arguing this needs to stop in order to accomodate a few small indie developers when it's very neccessary to keep the bigger devs, like EA, in check clearly has their priorities wrong as far as consumer advocacy goes and the indie devs complaining seem to be completely self-centered.

 

[CaitSeith]

You people in the comments make me sick, to half of you your answer is "Well just make a better game!" sorry not all indie devs can make triple A games, and for 2 dollars, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

Steam never needed a refund policy like this, they need smarter customers, and don't try and tell me that you couldn't get a refund because the game doesn't work on your computer, they were already doing that.

I'm sorry, but if you checked the store lately, you would had seen the Greenlight section saturated with horrible quality games, designed to be blatant cash-grabs (the equivalent of CoD-clones in the indie market); which made good indie games very difficult to find.

 

[Sylveria]

Indies are now in a position that they can't rely on the all-sales-final mentality of digital gaming and the consumer has the avenue to return shoddy product, and you call this abuse? Alarmist.

This is consumer protection, the kind of thing journalists and distribution platforms should be praising. Consumers will buy more, quality titles, if they know the risk of flushing their money is reduced. This is quality control. The only people who are going to suffer are crappy devs relying on the fact there was no avenue to get a refund.

 

[Lightknight]

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.

That's not true. You're telling me people won't be tempted to get a refund on a $60 game after they've finished it? People absolutely do that and did that back with EB games had a one week return policy. It was practically issuing a challenge for people to finish a game in that time frame to be able to get the money back to buy another one. That's why the policy ended.

I'm not talking about reducing two hours for larger/longer games. I'm talking about reducing the time for smaller games that can be finished in less than the two hours.

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.

No, the indie market wasn't. It was nothing like it is today. Perhaps you could make the argument for relatively small studios but nothing like the incredibly small teams that produced games like Super Meat Boy, Braid, FTL and all the big indie titles now.

Not only that, but there really hasn't been an iOS market for that long either. So where do you believe the indie games market was thriving before Steam created a unified platform for PC? Some backwoods site that you found and enjoyed but no one else knew about?

Indie in the 90's-00's was just a small studio that still had a publisher (aka, not an Indie study by today's standards).

It's only with steam where getting their work on Steam is all the "publisher" they need.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Stop making shitty Indie games.

Your full post mentions game length as a deciding factor, but I'd have to disagree. I'd pay the asking price for any competently-assembled indie project regardless of the game's overall length, but I'd say the "shitty games" you're referring to would have to be the Unity Engine fodder that's clogging Steam Greenlight.

Steam's new refund policy would kill the legion of me-too devs that settle with buying example asset packs from the Unity Store and then repackage them; it would destroy the parts of the Steam market that are inarguably shitty, with quality standards that are insulting even to the most casual of gamers - the Day Ones, Unturneds and Slaughtering Grounds of Greenlight.

If a few decent outfits have to pay the price for the dozens of leeches that are sure to see their profit margins gutted, I'm all for it.

 

[Sylveria]

...man, after reading all these comments I'm understanding how Ert decided on a 'fuck it!' approach to things now... god damn.

Anyway, totally called this happening. As lovely as the Steam refunds are and as sorely needed as they have been, they've been poorly implemented (as is usual for Steam at the moment - what's up with that?) and are just a band-aid solution for it's bigger problem, which is an abhorrent lack of quality control. It's basically going 'Oh, we know there's lots of shitty games on the market, so it's up to you the consumers to deal with it' instead of what they should be doing, which is 'Alright, you fuckers gotta meat this quality standard or you're out of here'.

What's "quality" is too subjective though. I'm very fond of some games that have been considered as bad or worse than Superman 64 by certain out of business review sites. And I'm not fond of them ironically, I think they're perfectly passable titles. They have no bugs and function fine, but, their content is objectionable to some. The only way to make an objective measure of quality in this sort of platform would be "it mostly works," and that doesn't solve the problem of people putting out shovel-ware and half-finished drivel.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Snip.

Snap.

Actually I don't contradict myself with my edit, however as CrystalShadow points out I very likely failed to properly communicate my point.

My point is that I'm all for refunds. It's good that we're finally getting because as consumers we deserve the right to purchase with confidence and have a safeguard against being ripped off.

What I was trying to express, however, was that I wish there was a way to ensure that honest small devs wouldn't get screwed over by players essentially renting their games for free. I'm not even trying to imply that's happening at the moment, just saying that this current system is open to such abuse.

You suggested that devs who price their games below $5 be immune to refunds, which is the opposite of saying you are "all for refunds". Making certain games ineligible for a refund is not a balance.

 

[BayouStalker]

When you sell your game for two dollars, and people still want a refund after that, that should be taken as a sign you need to improve rather than it being people trying to steal it. If people want to steal your game they will, most won't want to go through the effort of a refund to do so as it takes time to get the money back.

Notice though, how they only ones who are afraid are the asset flippers/shovelware/poorly implemented ports/ones who outright overprice their games in early access.

If people like your game, they will not get a refund, if they abuse the system, they would have gone through the easier venues to do so. They have already said they will be monitoring abuse trends to see where they have to make modifications.

As to saying DRM is needed? That is like trying to help yourself walk by shooting yourself in the foot just to get a cane. It just hurts you in the long run.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Snap.

Actually I don't contradict myself with my edit, however as CrystalShadow points out I very likely failed to properly communicate my point.

My point is that I'm all for refunds. It's good that we're finally getting because as consumers we deserve the right to purchase with confidence and have a safeguard against being ripped off.

What I was trying to express, however, was that I wish there was a way to ensure that honest small devs wouldn't get screwed over by players essentially renting their games for free. I'm not even trying to imply that's happening at the moment, just saying that this current system is open to such abuse.

You suggested that devs who price their games below $5 be immune to refunds, which is the opposite of saying you are "all for refunds". Making certain games ineligible for a refund is not a balance.

I then immediately go on to say "This system wouldn't work." If you're going to reference things I said, please use the entire context rather than cherry-picking.

 

[gigastar]

Lo and behold, i bring you TotalBiscuit on the "issue".

Spoiler

 

[gigastar]

Lo and behold, i bring you TotalBiscuit on the "issue".

Spoiler

Don't forget the tumblr post where he puts the quotes from all the indie game developers he asked questions of.

Wouldnt know about that since i avoid Tumblr. Thanks for the tip though.

 

[CaitSeith]

There has been referencing the Jimquisition a lot. Now I'm referencing his audio show: The Podquisition [http://www.thejimquisition.com/2015/06/podquisition-episode-28-fallout-4-and-torture-porn/]. In there, his collaborator, Laura, confessed that she used to abuse that kind of refund policy (buying a game, finishing it and returning it to the store for a full refund) as a kid; and she will do it now on Steam to test how abuse-proof the new system is.