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

[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.

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.

The point is that you want to find a way to not be "all for refunds" whilst also claiming you are all for refunds.

Fact is, if I buy a widget that isn't worth the $4.99 I paid for it most stores will take it back and they won't care if a small manufacturer made it. Most recently I took a 2 day old PS4 back to Wal Mart because it stopped outputting a video signal (audio was fine). The only 2 questions they asked were "do you want a refund or an exchange" and "is there anything wrong with it". No bullshit return policies are what consumers expect outside of video games and it should be no different for video games.

 

[vallorn]

If these "Smaller Devs" are being abused by this, they are the only ones. The total number of owned games on Steam has been skyrocketing since people were given the ability to take risks on purchasing games...

 

[Tradjus]

How about no refunds on games under five bucks?
Seems fair to me. o3o

 

[WeepingAngels]

How about no refunds on games under five bucks?
Seems fair to me. o3o

Why is that fair? Are you saying it's ok to release trash and sell it without customer recourse as long as it's below $5?

 

[gigastar]

How about no refunds on games under five bucks?
Seems fair to me. o3o

Its one thing to hit everyone with consumer-initatied automatic refunds, its quite another to do that then leave the door open for the kind of "developers" that publish Unity asset packs as a released game.

So not only is that idea not fair, its utterly retarded.

 

[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.

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

Again.. because I'm a reasonable and sane person, the game would have to be downright unplayable, or have been insanely misrepresented before I purchased it (which would make me dislike the developer) for me to get a refund on a measly 2 dollars.

That is not the case with one of the examples in the original post, Beyond Gravity, which actually has favorable reviews and a good steam reputation. 89% positive reviews from 616 reviews total but as soon as the refund policy goes live it has a 72% refund rate? please. I don't think it has anything to do with people not liking it.

It is either A. petty scum buying it, finishing, and refunding it or B. people who are buying it but only to try it out and are immediately refunding it.

At the end of the day, it is $2, both groups (A and B) are wrong, if you are so hard up that that two dollars means your quality of life hangs in the balance, you should not be buying games in the first place.

Disclaimer: I am for the refund policy, I'm not even that concerned about steam's implementation, or the 2 weeks/2 hours rule, I just assumed that people were generally pretty reasonable and wouldn't abuse the system in such a petty, pathetic way.

This shouldn't be used as some full game trial service, and people shouldn't be refunding pathetically small amounts from small indie devs when they delivered exactly what they described on the game page.

You absolutely should get a refund on any game that is unplayable (due to mechanics, or bugs), misrepresented (described as an open world third person shooter but it's actually a first person physics puzzle game), or offends you in some way etc

 

[The Bucket]

How about no refunds on games under five bucks?
Seems fair to me. o3o

Games that cost less than 5 dollars are some of the most in need of consumers having recourse in the form of a return, look at some of the dreck that's come on Steam since they opened the floodgate

EDIT:

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?

Again.. because I'm a reasonable and sane person, the game would have to be downright unplayable, or have been insanely misrepresented before I purchased it (which would make me dislike the developer) for me to get a refund on a measly 2 dollars.

That is not the case with one of the examples in the original post, Beyond Gravity, which actually has favorable reviews and a good steam reputation. 89% positive reviews from 616 reviews total but as soon as the refund policy goes live it has a 72% refund rate? please. I don't think it has anything to do with people not liking it.

It is either A. petty scum buying it, finishing, and refunding it or B. people who are buying it but only to try it out and are immediately refunding it.

At the end of the day, it is $2, both groups (A and B) are wrong, if you are so hard up that that two dollars means your quality of life hangs in the balance, you should not be buying games in the first place.

Disclaimer: I am for the refund policy, I'm not even that concerned about steam's implementation, or the 2 weeks/2 hours rule, I just assumed that people were generally pretty reasonable and wouldn't abuse the system in such a petty, pathetic way.

This shouldn't be used as some full game trial service, and people shouldn't be refunding pathetically small amounts from small indie devs when they delivered exactly what they described on the game page.

You absolutely should get a refund on any game that is unplayable (due to mechanics, or bugs), misrepresented (described as an open world third person shooter but it's actually a first person physics puzzle game), or offends you in some way etc

That 72% return rate is composed of less than 20 sales, you cant make any kind of judgment or conclusion about the usage of the returns policy by the Steam community from such a minute insignificant sample.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

This shouldn't be used as some full game trial service, and people shouldn't be refunding pathetically small amounts from small indie devs when they delivered exactly what they described on the game page.

You absolutely should get a refund on any game that is unplayable (due to mechanics, or bugs), misrepresented (described as an open world third person shooter but it's actually a first person physics puzzle game), or offends you in some way etc

Developers are allowed to make demos for their games and make them freely available to try. But they don't. If they don't want people to do things like this, they shouldn't be making black boxes for people to put their money into and then crying when people want to make sure they want a game before they buy it.

 

[Gatlank]

If these "Smaller Devs" are being abused by this, they are the only ones. The total number of owned games on Steam has been skyrocketing since people were given the ability to take risks on purchasing games...

Spoiler

It nullifies the risk of the game not working in the system. I didn't bought a couple of games because of that and if you can ask for a refund in physical stores when you don't like or the game doesn't work, why shouldn't be allowed on Steam?
Drama queens gotta make drama.

 

[deathzero021]

The thing people need to realize is: not every game is worth any money. Beyond Gravity is a shallow, boring, repetitive game that barely has any worth. Of course most people are getting refunds, this new policy now let's people at least try games they would have other wise never even gave a second thought about. This policy hopefully will crush developers of poor quality games or games that simply have no audience on PC. Beyond Gravity might do well on an app store on android or something but as a PC title there is no interest for something like that. Some developers lack parts of their brain and so they put up their mobile games on PC hoping for the same sales figures, it seems these devs will have to learn the hard way.

Also to the writer of this article: just how hard are you trying to spin this against Valve? Are you anti-consumer? How could allowing refunds ever be a bad thing for PR? Your intelligence level needs a level up.

 

[CaitSeith]

MonsterCrit
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.

Now the important question: is how many gamers in Steam are petty and have minor gripes? And how many aren't? I've heard that in business usually 80% of the customers are good, 5% are bad, and the rest is in between.

EDIT: Sorry, MonsterCrit. Wrong quote.

 

[MonsterCrit]

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.

Now the important question: is how many gamers in Steam are petty and have minor gripes? And how many aren't? I've heard that in business usually 80% of the customers are good, 5% are bad, and the rest is in between.

That wasn't my post... but it raises a point. And to answer your question you only have to look at Skyrim. The game got a tone of negative reviews around thepaid mod thing. Mind you these reviews had nothing to do with the game or the quality of the game. People were just giving thumbs down reviews bew cause they had a beef with a policy.


That I believe shows the general level of maturity. There are easily between 10-30 thousand such users on Steam. It may not seem like much taking into account the steam population but to a small indie dev.. 10K users pulling this sort of crap can and will break the bank.

 

[RJ 17]

The point is that you want to find a way to not be "all for refunds" whilst also claiming you are all for refunds.

No, actually my point was that I'd like there to be a refund system that isn't open for abuse that will starve out smaller devs. But I'd rather there be a "no questions asked" refund policy that could (potentially) run honest smaller devs out of business than no refund policy at all.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

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.

Now the important question: is how many gamers in Steam are petty and have minor gripes? And how many aren't? I've heard that in business usually 80% of the customers are good, 5% are bad, and the rest is in between.

That wasn't my post... but it raises a point. And to answer your question you only have to look at Skyrim. The game got a tone of negative reviews around thepaid mod thing. Mind you these reviews had nothing to do with the game or the quality of the game. People were just giving thumbs down reviews bew cause they had a beef with a policy.


That I believe shows the general level of maturity. There are easily between 10-30 thousand such users on Steam. It may not seem like much taking into account the steam population but to a small indie dev.. 10K users pulling this sort of crap can and will break the bank.

Skyrim users were perfectly valid in reviewing the game negatively for the paid mod thing, just as someone is perfect justified to review a game poorly for abusive DLC practices or terrible DRM. Skyrim's popularity is highly dependent on the PC's huge modding community, and the removal or endangerment of that feature is a major blow against the product. This is something that is perfectly valid to review a game poorly for. Consumers protesting against their abuse is not immaturity, and neither is consumers returning a game they feel has been a waste of time and money, no matter its length, cost, or who made it.

 

[JayRPG]

This shouldn't be used as some full game trial service, and people shouldn't be refunding pathetically small amounts from small indie devs when they delivered exactly what they described on the game page.

You absolutely should get a refund on any game that is unplayable (due to mechanics, or bugs), misrepresented (described as an open world third person shooter but it's actually a first person physics puzzle game), or offends you in some way etc

Developers are allowed to make demos for their games and make them freely available to try. But they don't. If they don't want people to do things like this, they shouldn't be making black boxes for people to put their money into and then crying when people want to make sure they want a game before they buy it.

And you are being far too general. This doesn't just fit every game, situation, and scenario in existence. The world isn't black and white, and neither are games (not even mad world, that had some red in it too!).

In Beyond Gravity's case, it is described on it's game page as a procedurally generated platformer, do you really need a demo for a small platforming title? really? even with all those screenshots giving you a clear picture of what the game is, looks like, and plays like?

Even if they wanted to put a demo up for this game, it would either A. basically be the full game experience meaning nobody would actually buy the game in the first place, or B. take significant re-coding/re-developing to limit the trial experience given the procedural generation.

The negative reviews the game does have almost all list it's cheap price as a pro for the game, and most admit they were engrossed for at least a short while (not to mention the trading cards for this particular game being worth more on the steam market than the $2 game cost), and I'd be willing to bet that most of the previous negative reviewers would not have requested the refund, because they all seem like reasonable people.

Describing situations like this as black boxes is simply wrong, there is a very clear picture of exactly what the product is in this case, and I'm sure there are many other similar cases, and of course there are many cases which are the opposite; it all comes back to what I said earlier: misrepresentation - if the dev is purposefully vague, omits screenshots and/or details, or paints an inaccurate picture, you are absolutely entitled to a refund.

I will also reiterate yet again that we are talking about two dollars. This isn't a $60 game with a CGI trailer, you aren't being lied to on the game page. People pay $1 per song on itunes, and they are <5 minutes long, considering the procedural generation, both the game and song have the same replay value. It would be like buying a song on itunes, listening to the whole song and then refunding it. You are given a small preview of the song on itunes which gives you a good idea what the song will be like, the dev in this case gives you a description and in-game screenshots which give you a good idea what the game will be like.

The only way to get a refund on itunes is if the song was misrepresented IE it features profane language but wasn't listed as explicit.

 

[veloper]

Those are acceptable casualties for a far more consumer-friendly policy.

Even games I feel are only average in quality still get more than 2 hours of my time.

If a 2 hour long indie movie that is being sold as a game, is still good for what it is, then it should also attract enough fans who won't rip off the devs, while anyone so inclined could easily pirate it or watch it on youtube, with no need for Steam anyway.

The indie business has always been about fans and enthusiasts willingly giving their support. If people don't like you or your product, you don't have a leg to stand on.

Best thing Valve have done in years.

 

[WeepingAngels]

The point is that you want to find a way to not be "all for refunds" whilst also claiming you are all for refunds.

No, actually my point was that I'd like there to be a refund system that isn't open for abuse that will starve out smaller devs. But I'd rather there be a "no questions asked" refund policy that could (potentially) run honest smaller devs out of business than no refund policy at all.

Ok fair enough.

I probably should let this go but I want to say it anyway. I have never understood this shield that people want for indie devs to have. Just like anyone else, if you can't make a product that people want to buy and keep then you don't deserve to stay in business. If you need special protections to stay in business, you are doing it wrong. The same rules should apply to all.

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

This shouldn't be used as some full game trial service, and people shouldn't be refunding pathetically small amounts from small indie devs when they delivered exactly what they described on the game page.

You absolutely should get a refund on any game that is unplayable (due to mechanics, or bugs), misrepresented (described as an open world third person shooter but it's actually a first person physics puzzle game), or offends you in some way etc

Developers are allowed to make demos for their games and make them freely available to try. But they don't. If they don't want people to do things like this, they shouldn't be making black boxes for people to put their money into and then crying when people want to make sure they want a game before they buy it.

And you are being far too general. This doesn't just fit every game, situation, and scenario in existence. The world isn't black and white, and neither are games (not even mad world, that had some red in it too!).

In Beyond Gravity's case, it is described on it's game page as a procedurally generated platformer, do you really need a demo for a small platforming title? really? even with all those screenshots giving you a clear picture of what the game is, looks like, and plays like?

Even if they wanted to put a demo up for this game, it would either A. basically be the full game experience meaning nobody would actually buy the game in the first place, or B. take significant re-coding/re-developing to limit the trial experience given the procedural generation.

The negative reviews the game does have almost all list it's cheap price as a pro for the game, and most admit they were engrossed for at least a short while (not to mention the trading cards for this particular game being worth more on the steam market than the $2 game cost), and I'd be willing to bet that most of the previous negative reviewers would not have requested the refund, because they all seem like reasonable people.

Describing situations like this as black boxes is simply wrong, there is a very clear picture of exactly what the product is in this case, and I'm sure there are many other similar cases, and of course there are many cases which are the opposite; it all comes back to what I said earlier: misrepresentation - if the dev is purposefully vague, omits screenshots and/or details, or paints an inaccurate picture, you are absolutely entitled to a refund.

I will also reiterate yet again that we are talking about two dollars. This isn't a $60 game with a CGI trailer, you aren't being lied to on the game page. People pay $1 per song on itunes, and they are <5 minutes long, considering the procedural generation, both the game and song have the same replay value. It would be like buying a song on itunes, listening to the whole song and then refunding it. You are given a small preview of the song on itunes which gives you a good idea what the song will be like, the dev in this case gives you a description and in-game screenshots which give you a good idea what the game will be like.

The only way to get a refund on itunes is if the song was misrepresented IE it features profane language but wasn't listed as explicit.

It doesn't matter if it's 99 cents. It doesn't matter if it's 100 dollars. It doesn't matter how long it is or how short it is. It doesn't matter if EA or a starving indie dev made it. What matters is that the game, in the eyes of those that bought it, did not feel that they had made a worthwhile purchase. Apparently, most people that bought this game felt this way, and it has been refunded. If he feels upset about this, good. He should, because people don't like his product. If he wants people to purchase his game and keep his game, he should improve his games so that people are willing to purchase and keep his games.

Until he does this, he should not be surprised that people refund his games, and he should not be surprised if nobody has any sympathy for him when he sobs about it on Twitter. And he should especially not be surprised if he loses future customers for being so insulting to his audience and brazenly anti-consumer. That's the way the market works, and complaining about how unfair it is will not make people want a repackaged mobile port barely worth the hard drive space. That's just how it is.

 

[Baresark]

It's not an issue in my book. You need to create good games if you want people to pay for them. If you have a game that can be beat in under an hour and there is no replayability, then a refund is probably deserved. Also, if someone buys a product and is unhappy with it, then they could deserve a refund. Buyer always beware, but the devs have to make sure their product is being faithfully represented in the advertisements they create as well.

 

[Jake Martinez]

How do we even know there is a problem? You can't judge that by looking at the amount of refunds because it stands to reason that now that Steams refund policy is so liberal, more people will be checking out games that they wouldn't have wanted to risk buying before.

I personally bought 6 games yesterday and returned half of them, not because they were "short" but because I thought they might be cool, but it turned out they were not for me (okay, 2 of them were just flat out bad).

The point is - I wouldn't have even bought those before the refund policy, but now that this policy exists I can be more adventurous in my steam purchases.