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Steam Users abusing refund policy

Dangerously treading clickbait. Looking at game footage and reviews, this is game no one's ever heard of and has Mixed reviews. Some of the reviews point out that levels are gated behind paid DLC. Rightfully so, it's a meme game that clearly doesn't engage its players for long. "Abuse" is a bit hyperbole. How's the saying go? "There is no bad publicity."

Oh, and it's a $3 game right now.

If your game attracts a toxic community, then expect this kind of behavior. If the devs don't like it, they can shop their game elsewhere. Steam is not the platform for your game, imo. The 2 hours refund window applies to everyone, no exceptions. This is fair.

That said, I think Steam could curb some of this behavior by offering developers an opt-out of the 2 hour refund via providing a playable demo. If a demo is available, then Steam should scrutinize those refund requests. Even then, people will still find a way to abuse the refund system. But, this would make the refund process more of a pain to trolls. A person's time is more valuable than some attempt to troll.
 
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I've returned i think 2 games in total, cant even remember the names but i remember them not working well at all.

Also wait till you find out what people do with tools at hardware stores.
 
No it is not fair to have a 2 hours refund windows for a $2/3 made to be playable under 2 hours type of games (which seem a valid type of game to exist), which yes make steam not the platform for such game but they have such a dominant position.

The game as a free 40 minutes demo, that make the refund windows being forced on them totally unessary. Under $4 game with a free demo could have a shorter refund window, that make it possible to refund if the game crash at launch or something but not if you played all the way through it and it was clear the game was really short.

The assumption you can get a refund-trade for a totally fine item has went way to far imo, even laws in some place, a seller should have zero refund-trade-anything obligation to a functionning item that was correctly advertised, it lead to giant amount of waste and cost on everyone.
 
AceGoober said:
In all the years I've been a Steam member I've never returned a game for a refund. Not one.
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same...I've never returned a game...the people that are constantly buying/returning are ruining it for the honest folk...it's hard to judge a game after 2 hours...some games take a long time to get good...even bad games I end up keeping
 
Same on not a single refund, I'm just careful about what I buy (trying it out is not in my mindset since some good games are slow burn) and if the game isn't that good I just eventually get distracted by something else forgetting to come back. I'm pretty good at avoiding purchases for truly awful games.
 
AceGoober said:
In all the years I'veWish I had done that with Doom Eternal. With all the mario brothers been a Steam member I've never returned a game for a refund. Not one.
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Only game I wish I had done that with is Doom Eternal. Spent too long before actually playing the game after buying. Have not played it in ages. With all the silly Mario Bros like platforming I feel the game was seriously misrepresented in previews. No wonder there was no demo. And I really like Doom 2016. Still play arcade mode often.
 
LukeTbk said:
No it is not fair to have a 2 hours refund windows for a $2/3 made to be playable under 2 hours type of games (which seem a valid type of game to exist), which yes make steam not the platform for such game but they have such a dominant position.

The game as a free 40 minutes demo, that make the refund windows being forced on them totally unessary. Under $4 game with a free demo could have a shorter refund window, that make it possible to refund if the game crash at launch or something but not if you played all the way through it and it was clear the game was really short.

The assumption you can get a refund-trade for a totally fine item has went way to far imo, even laws in some place, a seller should have zero refund-trade-anything obligation to a functionning item that was correctly advertised, it lead to giant amount of waste and cost on everyone.
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This.

I feel they need to consider :

1. Developer - indie studio or AAA studio
2. Cost of Game - under $10 regular price - 30mins window to return instead of 2 hours?
3. Does game dev include a rough time to complete, if yes, and under X time, then refund can be done in Y window only.

They could find ways to not screw smaller game devs...
 
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MrGuvernment said:
This.

I feel they need to consider :

1. Developer - indie studio or AAA studio
2. Cost of Game - under $10 regular price - 30mins window to return instead of 2 hours?
3. Does game dev include a rough time to complete, if yes, and under X time, then refund can be done in Y window only.

They could find ways to not screw smaller game devs...
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agreed...the 2-hour window needs to be adjusted based on the length of the game...there can't be a blanket 2-hour return window for certain games which you can complete in under 2 hours...not counting those who speed run through games...it needs to be based on the average playthrough time
 
This refund policy is consistent with most other stores.

I don't know how you could make the perfect system that doesn't affect the consumer or the dev in a way that can't be exploited.
 
So far I've returned one, and I've had a Steam account since HL2 came out. Indy game that didn't work right. It had issues with mouse click handling. Sometimes it just didn't do anything. Actually, that was most of the time. It was basically click click click and eventually it registered. It was kinda playable but pissed me off to the point I just didn't want to deal with it.
 
LukeTbk said:
a seller should have zero refund-trade-anything obligation to a functionning item that was correctly advertised
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Grab your paddles (and your patience) and set out on a stupidly long, lava-surrounded parkour adventure.
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Maybe "stupidly" in "stupidly long" means fewer than two hours because that is rather stupid. Otherwise, this doesn't seem to be advertised correctly, imo.
 
polonyc2 said:
agreed...the 2-hour window needs to be adjusted based on the length of the game...there can't be a blanket 2-hour return window for certain games which you can complete in under 2 hours...not counting those who speed run through games...it needs to be based on the average playthrough time
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Who makes that determination? How you determine average playtime at launch?

I can see this being abused by shady developers immediately.
 
MavericK said:
Who makes that determination? How you determine average playtime at launch?

I can see this being abused by shady developers immediately.
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really short games are the ones that are getting abused the most as far as the refund policy...I think if the average player can complete the entire game in under 2 hours the refund policy makes no sense...and it's hurting the smaller, independent developer
 
polonyc2 said:
it's hurting the smaller, independent developer
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who's it hurting and how? this developer made a fewer than 2 hour game over the weekend and netted about a million dollars after the refunds. I have a hard time worrying about someone getting their 1.1 mil instead of a "mere" 1 mil.

Not to mention, with the amount of trolls out there a bunch of returns probably happened because of the article itself
 
mope54 said:
who's it hurting and how? this developer made a fewer than 2 hour game over the weekend and netted about a million dollars after the refunds. I have a hard time worrying about someone getting their 1.1 mil instead of a "mere" 1 mil.

Not to mention, with the amount of trolls out there a bunch of returns probably happened because of the article itself
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smaller developers aren't making the $$ to absorb a ton of refunds like the big publishers/developers...a smaller developer could go out of business if a game flops
 
SecretStash said:
I suppose steam could do some sort of achievements mechanism to determine if they beat the game.
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Yes, and then shady developers will just make you get an achievement the first time you start up the game, or whatever, and then claim that you "finished" it.

It can be abused either way, but way more limited on the customer's side and I'll side with consumer rights every time.
 
polonyc2 said:
smaller developers aren't making the $$ to absorb a ton of refunds like the big publishers/developers...a smaller developer could go out of business if a game flops
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I'm talking about this specific small developer. The one complaining about this policy made approximately a million dollars via his vibe coded game. But more generally, a develop can't go out of business because of refunds. Refunds are predicated upon sales and won't be greater than the sales numbers. They could make such a shitty game that everyone refunds it, but then what are we arguing about here? That developers who make a game so shitty they generate a 100% return rate shouldn't go out of business?

The developer this article is about stated they had an approximate 20% return rate, which also translates to an 80% uptake rate. They can take their game and self-publish it outside of Steam but I'm confident in my conclusion they wouldn't have made a million dollars (after refunds) if they had done that. He also said he coded the game over the weekend so I'm not particularly persuaded by the think of the little devs argument. If anything, the AAA studios are the ones who have much more to lose. Their games require 10s and sometimes 100s of millions of dollars to develop over many years. They can't weather flops, which is one of the many reasons we're no longer seeing development of games that may be seen as more risky.
 
mnewxcv said:
Imagine going to a movie theater, finishing a perfectly good movie that you enjoyed, then demanding a refund.
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Yeah, I can't imagine that many people being like that and if they really don't want to pay they can just probably pirate it. Most games you aren't going to beat most games quicky so looking for small games to beat really quick doesn't seem like a sustainable way of life for most people. Id get really tired of feeling like every game has the potential to be a feast but I can only trim down and consume only 2 hours of it.
 
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