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Steam Now Offers 90-Minute Game Trials
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoI'm curious to see if publishers will be willing to opt into this. On one hand, letting someone sit through the install time and see if they enjoy the game before paying for it probably significantly reduces the hurdle of "hmm, do I really want this game" for many consumers. On the other hand, if your PC port is a shameless, unoptimized moneygrab then players realizing that fact might balk rather than committing to actually buying the game. It could also end up encouraging longer "tutorial" sections at the beginning of games, which you can aggressively optimize to give players a misplaced confidence that their computers can run the game effectively.
- progbits 3y agoValve will refund any Steam purchase if made within 2 weeks and with less than 2 hours play time (see https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/ https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/). Therefore this doesn't really change much when it comes to realization that the game sucks very early on. I suppose there is some small risk difference between "play 90 minutes for free, then decide to pay" vs "play 120 minutes for full game price, then get it back". But in my experience and from what I've heard over the years the refund policy is reliably honored.
- Pet_Ant 3y agoHonestly, I've always been too wary of playing 2.0001 hours and losing access. I like this system much better.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 3y agoYou dont lose access. Just repeat the process to get a human review.
- gabythenerd 3y agoI have about 150 games in the backlog that I buy in sales to play later, when I don't like them after 30 minutes I just refund them. Steam has been pretty good with this, doesn't matter if I bought it months before, they will still refund them. I guess the demos would be better for Steam as they don't lose credit card fees.
- aaomidi 3y agoI think refunds don’t cost the company. Chargebacks do.
- zamnos 3y agoRefunds don't generally get the fees returned, so I buy a game for $10, $0.30 in fees goes to Paypal, Steam gets $9.70. I return the game, Steam gives me $10, but PayPal only gives them $9.70, so they're out $0.30. Across a million returns that adds up.
- vorvac 3y agoAnecdotally, I've had this experience lately: "We will not be granting a refund at this time. The date of the purchase exceeds 2 weeks (our refund policy maximum)."
- DANmode 3y agoInteresting. How much was the game in this anecdote?
- whartung 3y ago> Valve will refund any Steam purchase if made within 2 weeks and with less than 2 hours play time Yea, I tried to take advantage of this when I picked up Stellaris, but that's not a game (I don't think) that you can evaluate in 2 hours. I gave it a couple of stabs, but found it just way more complex than I was interested it. I obviously played it more than 2 hours, and they wouldn't refund my money. No harm, no foul, but for some games, 2 hours isn't enough.
- bityard 3y agoWe must be very different people... If a game or movie doesn't grab my attention within the first 15 minutes, it goes in the round file. Life is too short for mediocre entertainment!
- suddenclarity 3y agoBeing complex and taking time to get into is quite different than being mediocre. Some games take hours to just grasp the rules and its first by the fourth or fifth time you're playing that they become amazing. It's like dunking on racing because a guy without license can't figure out how to change gear.
- sieongioetnio 3y agoI don't have much use for mediocrity either, which is why I will always choose a flawed masterpiece over something merely competent. None of my favorite books have grabbed my attention in the first fifteen pages. Several of my favorite games took over 40 hours to become even tolerable. They made up for it by being uncommonly beautiful by the end. A slow start is a flaw, but in my eyes a forgivable one.
- 000ooo000 3y ago>2 hours isn't enough MS Flight Sim comes to mind. Apparently game content is downloaded in-game, and it's in the region of 120GB, so many folk blow through 2 hours before they even get to play the game.
- 3y ago
- willcipriano 3y agoThe only angle I see is now you don't need to distribute the game data with your pirated software. let the user download the trial and apply a patch to that.
- throwawaymobule 3y agoAs a software pirate, I hate this idea, or anything like it. I can see this being useful to fill up a steam cache though, depending on how it works.
- metalang 3y agoSteam already offers no questions asked refunds if a game is played for under 2 hours (and based on my experience will give refunds outside of that policy if the game won't run).
- j5155 3y agoFrom what other comments have said they also seem to give refunds outside of that if you have a good explanation (“questions asked” I guess)
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoI've long believed that a market culture of releasing limited game demos increases the quality of games. If someone has the opportunity to play some section of the game they'll be able to judge the game on something other than marketing copy and curated screenshots. > It could also end up encouraging longer "tutorial" sections at the beginning of games, which you can aggressively optimize to give players a misplaced confidence that their computers can run the game effectively. This made me wonder about "optimizing the tutorial" for content of the game such that it actually takes the same amount of or less time to play through the rest of the game after. I wouldn't be surprised if this is attempted in some cases and it would be pretty disheartening to see it widespread.
- moomin 3y agoMy kid can spend longer than that in the character designer.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoThat would be a "character" flaw...
- marcod 3y agoYeah, my first thought was "interesting approach in the age of 100 GB games" ... And I had the same thought last weekend, when Diablo 4 had their Server Slam for 2 days (70 GB download).
- themoonisachees 3y agoPublishers who use denuvo won't, because that implies giving random accounts either a non-protected copy of the exe, or generating a lot of denuvo keys that get revoked after a very short time (which doesn't break it but significantly weakens it)
- SentientNo4 3y agoThe first game to offer a trial is Dead Space which uses Denuvo. Game is also published by EA which would be at the tail of my list of consumer friendly publishers.
- aleksiy123 3y agoSeems a like a logical next step given it was pretty much already supported with their instant <2hr played return policy.
- charlie0 3y agoThis might get me to buy more games. Let me start off by saying I'm a very casual gamer, playing only a few hours a month tops. My two friction points are the return policy, which has a 2 week limit, and the huge download sizes for games. If I wanted to play a game, I'd have to wait a few hours to download the whole thing. I don't have Google fiber. My time to have played that game is usually gone by the time that's over and I might not get a chance to play again for another 2 or 3 weeks. Having the 90 minute trials would completely solve this problem for me.
- weaksauce 3y agoit was two hours of play time in the game not 2 hours from when you buy it... two hours of playing or 14 days since purchase whichever was sooner
- spadros 3y agoThey’re saying they might pass 14 days since purchase if the download wastes their time to test it on the free night.
- alisonatwork 3y agoSame here. I game in spurts where sometimes I will play a few hours a night and other times I will only fit in a couple hours a month. I have several AAA games I bought in the past that turned out to be obscenely huge downloads, and by the time I freed up enough space on my system to download them, then actually downloaded them, then started them up only to discover they didn't run on my Surface Pro anyway, the return window expired. Very annoying.
- pierat 3y agoWell, nice. I normally pirate my games to see if they work with my setup. If they do, there's a chance I'll buy them. But having it just work with Steam is much more likely I just pay a few bucks for a game, rather than look for it on a private tracker.
- giobox 3y agoWith the long-standing Steam refund policy being no questions asked in first two hours play/two weeks of buying the game, the piracy step hasn't really been necessary (assuming your motivations are genuinely just compatibility checking...)? The refund policy is still more generous than this 90min demo window. If it doesn't work, just legitimately get 100% of your money back.
- pharmakom 3y agoSeriously? are you not worried about malware?
- imran-iq 3y agoHonestly if you are running any game on your system, you do not really care about security (because most game devs don't care about security, just performance). https://secret.club/2021/04/20/source-engine-rce-invite.html https://secret.club/2021/04/20/source-engine-rce-invite.html
- penneallagricia 3y agoMost anti-piracy software is undistinguishable from malware. In addition to that I've never got malware in years of occasional pirate playing. I might as well pay to support the devs and still play the cracked version at this point.
- barbariangrunge 3y agocertain AAA companies have terms of service that allow them to harvest your web browsing data. Considering that, your malware risk might actually be less with pirated games
- 3y ago
- aschearer 3y agoAs someone who makes games this strikes me as nuts. I can easily see players enjoying their 90-minutes and leaving satisfied, why pay for more? We know from achievements and other data very few players reach a game's ending. I wager this will just encourage more sampling of games without ultimately buying a copy. Additionally, creating a compelling 90-minute demo _on top of the game itself_ is daunting! I recently-ish created a ~30-minute demo[1] and it nearly killed me and my colleagues... [1]: Shameless plug https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446350/You_Will_Die_Here_Tonight/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446350/You_Will_Die_Here...
- wildrhythms 3y agoHow is this much different than players refunding the game within the 2 hour window? (the current policy)
- jabroni_salad 3y agohttps://i.imgur.com/E4Qcqu1.png https://i.imgur.com/E4Qcqu1.png (not my pic) Refunds are for 'this product does not work', and they will block you from doing it if they think you are doing too many. Demos are zero consequence for the customer.
- howard941 3y ago> they will block you from doing it if they think you are doing too many I was warned after refunding no more than about 6 games over 5 years. I'm still not sure how many are too many.
- Gigachad 3y agoSteam has a "It wasn't fun" option in the refunds page. That message in the screenshot is semi common, I've got it myself. But I've never seen anyone actually have their refund permissions revoked ever.
- waboremo 3y agoFWIW, the current policy is also hotly contested for the very reasons outlined by the person you're replying to.
- hinkley 3y agoI asked for a refund recently at around 2 hours into a game, because it kept locking up. I thought it might be my computer but the internet is full of people with the same problem. For a launch title, these things are common now. But this was a 2 year old game.
- suddenclarity 3y agoI like the idea. It would definitely make me test out more games that I'm hesitant of buying today, especially with a game library of close to 1000 games. It's crazy how you get multiple games for free each week nowadays. On the downside, I'm certain it would lower my tolerance in new games. If you buy it, you kinda need to give it a proper chance. Now you can try it for 20 minutes and just throw it away.
- htag 3y agoI'm very interested in how this interacts with Valve's standard policy of giving refunds for games you've played for less than two hours. I suspect there will be more demo downloads, but fewer total (non-refunded) purchases with this modal. The question is where do you apply friction, before download or after 90 minutes of gameplay. I'm also generally concerned with demo-hacking. Putting all the novelty in the first 90 minutes. Placing one large cliff hanger or achievement near the 90 minute mark. Building a starting place that takes just over 90 minutes to get out of. I do get the impression PC devs are aware of the 120 minute mark and try to make the first two hours strong. This lowers that bar.
- imran-iq 3y agoThis already happens. Most people do not complete games[0]. You can verify by checking out the achievements for various games. This already leads to games having fun beginnings but lacklustre end games --- 0: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-most-players-donat-finish-games https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-most-players-don...
- DANmode 3y agoThe way "achievements" have dropped in quality by any measure in the last decades should be scrutinized almost as much as lack of retained player interest.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoMany people barely start games, let alone finish them. Look at achievement stats for things that happen very early on in games. You'll find achievements that happen 1-2 hours in with only 60% earn rates. I don't think it's meaningful to look at completion rate without first normalizing with the "starting" rate. One quick example from my steam library: Terraria - Chop down your first tree. (You can do this immediately after you start playing): 86.5% - Craft your first work bench. (Can be done immediately after cutting a tree): 56.8% - Survive your character's first full night (24 minutes of playtime): 78.8%
- 3y ago
- falcolas 3y agoI'm strongly considering trialing and buying Dead Space through this, even though I don't care for the game (I'm not a horror game fan). Customer friendly policies and programs are absolutely worth rewarding. I have a wallet, and I might as well vote with it!
- paxys 3y agoSeems like a simplification of their 2-hour refund policy. On one hand it's good to not have to bother with credit card transactions and refunds at all. On the other this seems to be opt-in from the developer's side (at least for now).
- barbariangrunge 3y agoThis feature sounds like it's there to be nice to consumers, but it's actually probably there to be nice to developers. When a customer refunds a game, steam keeps its 30% cut. This lets players try games without punishing the developer by making them pay that 30% I suspect anyway
- mike503 3y agoI think this is an amazing idea. As long as it's not pricey it would give someone like me (not a huge diverse gamer) a chance to get real gameplay on something long enough to get an idea if I enjoy it enough.
- Jemm 3y agoDoes download and install time count towards the 90 minutes because for some games that is all you are going to have time for.
- friendlynokill 3y agoIt doesn't, it starts counting from when you launch the game.
- ianschmitz 3y agoSo that means the last of us is off limits.
- janosdebugs 3y agoMy wife and I just started a games company after a long career in an unrelated IT field and this is awesome. Not only is it good for the consumer, it also saves the dev from having to produce a separate demo. It removes the hurdle of having to fork out the money up front and the mental anxiety of overstepping the 2 hour mark unintentionally, so more people will try new games. This is probably not going to matter much to larger productions with a large marketing budget, but it does save indies a nice chunk of time. There is also the problem of very short and cheap games, those should probably be excluded l.
- mock-possum 3y agoThis is potentially huge - at least for me personally, there is nothing more likely to get me to buy a game, than letting me sit down and try playing it for free. I’ll even try random demos of games I don’t even think look good, because why not? Trailers are lies. Watching other people play is alright but frustrating. Getting to play yourself? There’s simply no substitute.
- butz 3y agoWith fastest any% speedrun for Dead Space (2023) currently sitting at 1h44m22s, I'd say this is a great challenge.
- firstlink 3y agoExpect more 2-hour cutscene fests. As a recent egregious offender Hogwarts Legacy comes to mind,; I think actual gameplay lasted around 10 minutes in the first two hours and the rest was cutscenes.