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> It benefits the user AND the developer Notably it benefits good faith developers. I.e., the developers we actually want making games. The developers that los

> It benefits the user AND the developer Notably it benefits good faith developers. I.e., the developers we actually want making games. The developers that lose under this model are the ones that make poor quality games. Though I admit it does not solve every dark pattern.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Kinda, but it also incentivizes bad-faith gamers, which in turn disincentivises good-faith developers. There are a lot of games out there with a <2hr play time that are perfectly fine games priced very reasonably, and a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. The effect this has is that developers are incentivized to add filler content or just not produce a game at all. Perhaps such a system could work if it were based on a percentage of time-to-complete, but I have no idea how one would objectively determine that, especially before sale.
- esterin 5y ago
  I don't have the numbers of course, but with the right design of the refund process, which Steam does have, I don't think enough people abuse the system to warrant that.
- alickz 5y ago
  Yeah short vignette games were a concern when this was first announced. I don't know which solution Steam has for those (if any). Maybe they could not offer refunds after a significant percentage of the game has been played, regardless of time spent playing. Would be hard to determine how much of the game has been played though. The only way I could think of is to check achievements, but not all games have achievements. Or maybe expected length could be part of the store metadata. If the developer estimates 1.5hr playtime Steam could use that when processing refunds. Either way I'd consider this a corner case. To be solved sure, but not problem enough to disallow refund functionality for other games.
- teddyh 5y ago
  > a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. Is that really a big problem? Do you have actual numbers to that, and not just a hunch? I would actually guess that most people who can actually afford a game would pay for it. In my experience, most people who cheat in this way would not have bought the game anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    I don't have numbers or links to hand, but i've seen this issue brought up by a number of indie devs. > so it’s not a lost sale Refunds probably count negatively to your rep. with a store.
    - lithos 5y ago
      Developers are responsible for all card fees related to refunds, fraud, and scams. Some indie devs are seeing Steam cuts of 46% due to fraud purchases and refunds. The Steam store is also set up so that “the customer wins” so heavily that most devs are afraid of clawing back fraud keys (since they’re going to turn into negative reviews, or the key fraudsters get revenge by targeting their game more heavily).
      - crtasm 5y ago
        > Some indie devs are seeing Steam cuts of 46% due to fraud purchases and refunds. Which devs and are they selling enough copies for 46% to be a meaningful amount?
      - BlueTemplar 5y ago
        Which shows well (among other things), how if you release on Steam (or yet worse "platforms"), that you're not indie any more.
- baud147258 5y ago
  > a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. How often does it happen, though? I mean if you refund a game after finishing it, it's the same as saying 'I'd rather have pirated that game', not a good sign it's 'good-faith' game either
  - baud147258 5y ago
    (even if it can still be abused by bad-faith players)
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  A worse issue is that this incentivizes DRM : because you can just run the game for any duration by not using Steam after installation, or just using Steam in offline mode, since (IIRC that way game time is not counted).
- notafraudster 5y ago
  There is very little evidence for this. A number of developers have complained about refunds, but when looking into any of their actual cases, you see no real evidence of refund abuse, normal 2-5% refund rates, etc. In most of the cases I've seen developers complain there's been no evidence of refunds, but the games have sold poorly to begin with, and the attention from complaining in public about how mean all the refunders are seems to be a marketing technique more than anything. Meanwhile, there are enormous numbers of success stories amongst short games. And there's not really any incentive to add filler content, because adding filler content takes real development time, driving up the budget. Probably the most famous overtly fraudulent example seems to be "Summer of '58", a game developed by a Russian developer who claimed 30-50% of their players refunded. Here's an in-depth investigation of this claim that finds absolutely no evidence to support it: https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-refund-worries-kickstarter https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-refund-worries-ki... -- it doesn't positively prove that there's no refund abuse, but it makes refund abuse incredibly unlikely. Basically, it's possible to tell if someone who reviews the game refunded the game or not. So for there to be systematic refund abuse, it needs to be people who play the game to completion, then refund the game, but don't leave a review: but this pattern is not seen in any other games where developers report far lower refund rates. Gamediscover has also had a number of developers share refund data directly for this article and other articles, including developers of short games (some as short as 20 minutes long), and none have had anything in the ballpark of the studios who have made press cause celebre pushes claiming incredibly high refund rates. One thing to consider about this entire claim: if someone intends to proxy-pirate the video game by buying it, playing it, refunding, and cackling off into the sunset... why wouldn't they just pirate the game, something that is absolutely trivial to do? It's not really coherent to say a huge swath of gamers are manipulative enough to refund, have no moral compunction about doing so, but are too technically stupid to pull it off. Finally, think about this from Valve's side -- if a huge % of <2 hour games were being refunded, why wouldn't Valve adopt the apparently easy proposal of allowing short game developers to set a flag that alters their refund %age? Doesn't Valve's choice not to do this suggest that they don't really view it as a common thing?
  - account42 5y ago
    > And there's not really any incentive to add filler content, because adding filler content takes real development time, driving up the budget. There are plenty of ways to pad game length with minimal additional development. Grind is very much a thing for games that benefit from longer time to completion or where a certain length is expected.
deleted 5y ago
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AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

Kinda, but it also incentivizes bad-faith gamers, which in turn disincentivises good-faith developers. There are a lot of games out there with a <2hr play time that are perfectly fine games priced very reasonably, and a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. The effect this has is that developers are incentivized to add filler content or just not produce a game at all. Perhaps such a system could work if it were based on a percentage of time-to-complete, but I have no idea how one would objectively determine that, especially before sale.

esterin 5y ago
I don't have the numbers of course, but with the right design of the refund process, which Steam does have, I don't think enough people abuse the system to warrant that.
alickz 5y ago
Yeah short vignette games were a concern when this was first announced. I don't know which solution Steam has for those (if any). Maybe they could not offer refunds after a significant percentage of the game has been played, regardless of time spent playing. Would be hard to determine how much of the game has been played though. The only way I could think of is to check achievements, but not all games have achievements. Or maybe expected length could be part of the store metadata. If the developer estimates 1.5hr playtime Steam could use that when processing refunds. Either way I'd consider this a corner case. To be solved sure, but not problem enough to disallow refund functionality for other games.
teddyh 5y ago
> a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. Is that really a big problem? Do you have actual numbers to that, and not just a hunch? I would actually guess that most people who can actually afford a game would pay for it. In my experience, most people who cheat in this way would not have bought the game anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  I don't have numbers or links to hand, but i've seen this issue brought up by a number of indie devs. > so it’s not a lost sale Refunds probably count negatively to your rep. with a store.
  - lithos 5y ago
    Developers are responsible for all card fees related to refunds, fraud, and scams. Some indie devs are seeing Steam cuts of 46% due to fraud purchases and refunds. The Steam store is also set up so that “the customer wins” so heavily that most devs are afraid of clawing back fraud keys (since they’re going to turn into negative reviews, or the key fraudsters get revenge by targeting their game more heavily).
    - crtasm 5y ago
      > Some indie devs are seeing Steam cuts of 46% due to fraud purchases and refunds. Which devs and are they selling enough copies for 46% to be a meaningful amount?
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      Which shows well (among other things), how if you release on Steam (or yet worse "platforms"), that you're not indie any more.
baud147258 5y ago
> a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. How often does it happen, though? I mean if you refund a game after finishing it, it's the same as saying 'I'd rather have pirated that game', not a good sign it's 'good-faith' game either
- baud147258 5y ago
  (even if it can still be abused by bad-faith players)
BlueTemplar 5y ago
A worse issue is that this incentivizes DRM : because you can just run the game for any duration by not using Steam after installation, or just using Steam in offline mode, since (IIRC that way game time is not counted).
notafraudster 5y ago
There is very little evidence for this. A number of developers have complained about refunds, but when looking into any of their actual cases, you see no real evidence of refund abuse, normal 2-5% refund rates, etc. In most of the cases I've seen developers complain there's been no evidence of refunds, but the games have sold poorly to begin with, and the attention from complaining in public about how mean all the refunders are seems to be a marketing technique more than anything. Meanwhile, there are enormous numbers of success stories amongst short games. And there's not really any incentive to add filler content, because adding filler content takes real development time, driving up the budget. Probably the most famous overtly fraudulent example seems to be "Summer of '58", a game developed by a Russian developer who claimed 30-50% of their players refunded. Here's an in-depth investigation of this claim that finds absolutely no evidence to support it: https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-refund-worries-kickstarter https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/steam-refund-worries-ki... -- it doesn't positively prove that there's no refund abuse, but it makes refund abuse incredibly unlikely. Basically, it's possible to tell if someone who reviews the game refunded the game or not. So for there to be systematic refund abuse, it needs to be people who play the game to completion, then refund the game, but don't leave a review: but this pattern is not seen in any other games where developers report far lower refund rates. Gamediscover has also had a number of developers share refund data directly for this article and other articles, including developers of short games (some as short as 20 minutes long), and none have had anything in the ballpark of the studios who have made press cause celebre pushes claiming incredibly high refund rates. One thing to consider about this entire claim: if someone intends to proxy-pirate the video game by buying it, playing it, refunding, and cackling off into the sunset... why wouldn't they just pirate the game, something that is absolutely trivial to do? It's not really coherent to say a huge swath of gamers are manipulative enough to refund, have no moral compunction about doing so, but are too technically stupid to pull it off. Finally, think about this from Valve's side -- if a huge % of <2 hour games were being refunded, why wouldn't Valve adopt the apparently easy proposal of allowing short game developers to set a flag that alters their refund %age? Doesn't Valve's choice not to do this suggest that they don't really view it as a common thing?
- account42 5y ago
  > And there's not really any incentive to add filler content, because adding filler content takes real development time, driving up the budget. There are plenty of ways to pad game length with minimal additional development. Grind is very much a thing for games that benefit from longer time to completion or where a certain length is expected.

deleted 5y ago

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