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While arguing against the idea of giving gamers more protection from unscrupulous developers who are happy to take their money in exchange for a broken game, may seem distasteful, the implementation of such a system is never easy. Valve has taken a stab at it lately, offering those that feel unhappy about their game purchase the chance to receive a refund if they've had it less than two weeks and have played for less than two hours. That's causing problems for developers with titles that can be finished in less than that time.
It isn't just short game makers that are having a tough time though, as it seems that just by putting the option for a Steam refund within easy reach, a lot of people are simply changing their mind after a purchase. While many indie developers have been happy to offer refunds if their fans get in touch with them, they were rarely taken up on it. Now though it's a much more common place.
@PuppyGames, the developer behind Revenge of the titans said that they'd had a 55 per cent refund rate in recent days, compared with five refunds in the 10 years of operation before then.
For many though, it's not even the fact that they are losing out on sales, but that they have no idea why anyone is refunding anything. As PCG points out, the developer of RPG Tycoon had one person buy the game seven times, only to demand five refunds. Is that a scam? Or was the guy having some technical issues?
No one will ever know it seems.
Bloody hell steam refund rate has gone from 0.09% to 17%. Methinks people are taking the piss. Here comes DRM again sadly…
— cliffski (@cliffski) June 7, 2015
Even Cliffski, a relatively well known Indie developer has run into problems and suspects foul play. He went on to say that refund systems like this makes a F2P model more useful and DRM more of a necessity, despite his dislike for it.
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KitGuru Says: Hopefully Steam refunds don't send people into the waiting arms of DRM, as that really is doing a deal with devil. Games that are shorter should perhaps have a shorter time period for refunds to counter them being finished and refunded.
“the developer of RPG Tycoon had one person buy the game seven times, only to demand five refunds. Is that a scam?”
What the hell? As soon as the clients get protection against shit games, developers cry scam.
No, you greedy bastards. Instead of pirating the game, he legit bought 7 copies for him and his friends, and 5 people decided they don’t like/want the game so he reimbursed it. Simple, elegant and fair system for everybody: people who enjoy the game keep it, those who don’t refund it and move on.
Cliffski should promptly go out of business, then. If people had played his game for more than 2 hours, then they couldn’t refund. 17% means that 17% of his purchases people did not like. That’s not “taking the piss”, that’s exercising their rights.
isn’t steam a big DRM anyway?
I don’t tend to think that people deserve refunds for bad, but functioning, products – Valve is being perhaps too generous to the consumer. However, I am not buying into this idea that people will just refund short indie games.
Why would someone who is determined to play a game for free even bother buying it in the first place? If they are intending to buy the game, play it, and refund it, then that’s a lot of hoops they have to jump through, and I suspect in reality they would just pirate it from the outset.
These complaints from developers that their refund rate has gone through the roof – of course it has! It was virtually IMPOSSIBLE to get a refund for any reason whatsoever before, even if the game was broken to its core. The fact is, we don’t know WHY those people are refunding their games. The real test of this system is going to be in a couple of weeks with the Summer Sale.
At least the consumers aren’t suffering anymore. Quality control was lacking lately, a lot of (old) junk was dumped on Steam by some developers. This is an great solution for both Steam and it’s users!
I don’t think that abuse will happen that often, If it will Steam can easily track down those users…
They should perhaps have a financial limit, something like any games under £5 can’t be refunded. This refund scheme is the best thing Steam have done in a long time, so many games I’ve bought were just terrible, seeing as we can’t sell them on I think this is a good solution.
That would undermine everything this is trying to combat. There is currently a plague of cheap “games” made by lying hacks in order to steal people’s money – the refund policy allows consumers to get their money back when they buy a cheap game that was made in half an hour with some pre-bought Unity assets and doesn’t work.
That is just not how it works. How do you know why people refund their games? There are so many factors, just shouting that there must be a causal relation between two of them is ridiculous.
Well, that’s Valve’s issue to work out by getting that information from users.
Users getting refunds are not taking the piss.
Getting refunds on Steam is how it should’ve “just worked” for the last 10 years.
How can these small developers make an accurate statement about how refunds have recently jumped when before no-one could get a refund without going through a massive amount of trouble for the sake of a few quid ?
All that has probably happened is that instead of pirating their games people bought them because they knew the refund policy protected them against duff games….
I agree, we as a consumer should have no problems with getting refunds on things that just do not work and it should be up to the company doing the returns to come up with ways to track why things are being returned. If you were to go into a retail store and buy a toaster, take that toaster home and find out it didn’t work, you would expect to walk back in there with your receipt and have the option of an exchange or a refund, because that is just how it works. Imagine how the retail market would be if it followed the examples set by the video game industry in past years? You buy a TV and take it home only to find out it doesn’t work at all. Oh sorry, no refunds on televisions. Yeah, I can see customers TOTALLY going for that.
“RPG Tycoon had one person buy the game seven times, only to demand five refunds.” Play the game 2 hours ‘for free’, get refund, rebuy the game and upload your save file for another 2 hours ‘for free’, rinse and repeat
Even if it doesn’t work. Just because they don’t like the game is valid enough, or as Valve rightly put, they got the item right before a sale and want the sale price.
Most retail stores do returns and refunds on items for about 14-28 days after purchase, providing the item is in a saleable condition. I know, I myself, once bought a TV only for it to get slashed in price by £75 four days later. I backed it up and returned it (a good case for leaving those stickers on TV’s for a little while), then bought it again for £75 less than the original. Sure the store lost out, but that’s not my concern.
You HAVE to know your rights with the market these days. One example, I bought a PS4 last July, which broke down in August. Called the store (GAME UK) and they were happy to fulfil their obligations and return it. I took it back, having done some checking with their tech support to get a return authorisation, and they were processing it. I was asked if I wanted a refund or replacement. I said replacement, and the manager went ahead and started processing that, but near the end he warned me that my warranty was from the original sale date on this brand new item I was being given… Now it’s only a months warranty I was losing, but I shouldn’t have been losing anything at all. So I hit the brakes on the replacement and said I wanted a refund… which I got, then I bought the PS4 he was about to give me as a replacement.
Know your rights!
Or he abused the system by playing the game for free for 2 hours,refunding it then rebuying it for another 2 hours of free gameplay.
If this is the case then Steam should only allow one refund per title to prevent refund abuse
And what did he gain by starting over 7 times?
The time played is still saved on your profile, it doesn’t reset when you refund the game.
Depends whether the game allows you to import save files from local such the way Borderlands does
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Like Andrew Fox said, time played is saved on your profile so there’s no way to actually abuse this, unless Valve fucked up it’s tracking system.
Guy bought 7 copies, 5 people didn’t like it, it was reimbursed. Consider those 2 hours a “demo”.
you cant refund gifts
Ok, can you actually buy 7 copies for one account or is the developer a lying sack of shit?
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white
Dear Steam – you know what might make this a bit easier to get a handle on, both for you and your developers? A required “why I’m requesting a refund” box that doesn’t deny a refund request based on what’s written, but must be filled in order to submit said refund request. Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of BS and profanity put in there, but anyone with a legitimate gripe about the game will put in SOME reasoning, which helps developers understand why their refund rate skyrocketed, and helps Steam track fraud.
Once the initial buzz dies down, it’ll flatten out again. The novelty of refundability will wear off.