Steam Now Offering Refunds "For Any Reason"

[Genocidicles]

If developers are worried about someone beating their game in less than two hours then they should make a longer game with more replayability.

 

[Kahani]

Good.

As for the two hours thing, it seems a perfectly reasonable compromise to me. Sure, there are cheap indie games that can take less time than that to finish and some bugs and things may not be immediately apparent until you've played more, but obviously there has to be a cut-off at some point and there are full price AAA games that can be finished in well under 10 hours. I don't see any real problem for indies anyway - it's already well established that a huge proportion of people just pirate them anyway, so people who actually make the effort to pay for them in the first place are unlikely to be the ones who want to screw them over anyway. The only difference may be that pirates will be able to buy them and then get a refund in order to appear legitimate, which might mess with their accounting a bit but won't make any difference to actual profit in the long run.

I'm vaguely annoyed by the "2 weeks after purchase" as opposed to "2 weeks after initial install/activation". It's rare that I actually install/play a game within 2 weeks of purchasing it, usually because I buy on sale and playing something else at the time.

I guess now I should try playing games right after I buy them just to see if they're worth keeping.

It's most likely based on existing legislation. In the EU, consumers must be allowed to return items within 14 days of purchase for any reason (as long as it's with packaging, not clearly used, etc.). While there have been all kinds of arguments about whether digital goods such as Steam sells should or shouldn't have to abide by this, it makes sense that they would base their returns policy on this rather than coming up with something different which could still potentially result in legal issues.

 

[Frankster]

So Valve finally gave in to applying some decent proconsumer protection after many years, good for them!

A massive LOL at the "some" independent "devs" who have a problem with this and are highlighted by the article...
Coincidentally it's the shit stirring twitter devs clique that have a problem that their 30 second (not my own words) artsy projects has basic pro consumer protection :

To the point some shall we.. "infamous" names want to petition against it.

To quote another forumite on this reaction: "For once a major player in this industry - an industry that seems at times to expend more creative energy on coming up with new and exciting ways to screw over the customer than on its actual products - is proactively making a move that benefits consumers, and these people are bitching about how it will affect the revenue of a shitty two-minute free-to-play comic masquerading as a game and want to petition them to stop it from happening?"

Those "indie devs" complaining can go stick it.

Meanwhile other devs like the Stardock CEO have a different take...:

 

[shintakie10]

While many have been understandably happy about these new options, <a href=https://twitter.com/hentaiphd/status/605802927299493890>there are some who worry that the "two hour" policy could lead to problems for independent developers. Some indie titles, for instance, have run times that are less than two hours, making it potentially possible to finish them and then still request a refund.

...Then make your game worth playing for more than two hours?

I'm pretty sure if you ask for five bucks and deliver an hour-long game, people will respect that. If you're going to ask for more, make sure it's worth it.

I work at a tech shop that offers refunds for ANY reason for two weeks to one month (depending on the item). People don't use stuff for a month and then trade it in for a similar item over and over to get "free usage and insurance", even though that's a possibility of the system. Why? Because if you deliver a product worth having, people will keep it.

I will always and forever bring this up because it amuses me.

Amazons digital distribution has allowed refunds for 30 days for any reason for as long as I've bought from them. Its the same refund policy that they have for their physical goods as well. Amazon pays for shipping on things you return. I'm fairly certain that Amazon has far more customers (and returns because of it) than Valve has for Steam.

People don't abuse Amazon's refund policy either because of exactly the same reason you stated. Also because its piss easy to tell if someone is abusing the system constantly.

Buy play and return a bunch of games in a short amount of time? Guess what, you're abusing the system and even the smallest cursory glance at your history would show this.

 

[DrOswald]

I'm vaguely annoyed by the "2 weeks after purchase" as opposed to "2 weeks after initial install/activation". It's rare that I actually install/play a game within 2 weeks of purchasing it, usually because I buy on sale and playing something else at the time.

I guess now I should try playing games right after I buy them just to see if they're worth keeping.

This is because within a few weeks valve will have already sent the money to the developer, at which point the money is out of their hands. If they allowed 2 weeks from actual install they might end up putting themselves in a position where they have to demand money from developers in order to cover refund costs.

 

[SecondPrize]

would have been very helpful when i got duke nukem forever. and many other titles i want my money back. but 2 hours is not enough. what if i play over 2 hours just to see if i might enjoy the game? so within the 2 weeks i cant get a refund because of that? this fails in my book. part of me wishes i can get a refund on MKX. even when i purchased the retail version but in the end i had to install the entire game from steam.

so far EA is having a much better service. already very happy i got a refund of my purchase of unity. how the site claims that i can get a refund but chatting to a person directly, and i got a full refund with no questions asked. and i didnt even play the game.

The refund isn't there to guarantee your enjoyment of a purchase. Two hours is enough to see if the game matches what they've listed on their store page. If it's not what it says it is, get a refund. Don't expect one to protect yourself from poor impulse buys.

 

[Cavouku]

It seems that they're still willing to look at refund requests that don't fall into the "played < 2hrs, owned < 2 weeks" timeline.

I think this timeline makes sense for semi-automatic refunds, as long as they're watching the numbers to see if people are abusing the system (I don't know what they'll consider abuse of the system, hopefully they make that more explicit), and any game that doesn't fall in that timeline is handled by a non-automated refund request.

Which I think would be a delightful system if it wasn't Steam's customer service we were talking about. Fingers crossed that gets better, and we might have a beautiful little system on our hands.

 

[Quellist]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Screw you idiots who make crappy non-games and try to sell them on steam to people too dumb to realise what they are getting. Guess Valve called time on your thieving asses!

 

[Qvar]

Two hours is not a lot of time, game breaking bugs can happen after a few hours into it, at least Origin you have it up to 24 hours after launching it to get a refund.

People ***** that 2 hours is too long for short games.
People ***** that 2 hours is too short for long games.

I suggest you give a solution, instead of complaining.