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As 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 ach

As 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 ago
How is this much different than players refunding the game within the 2 hour window? (the current policy)
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  https://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 ago
    Steam 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 ago
  FWIW, the current policy is also hotly contested for the very reasons outlined by the person you're replying to.
hoffs 3y ago
They could already refund with playtime less than 2hrs, so not sure what is your point. Also the idea here is that you don't have to create a demo, you literally just give the game to them.
- aschearer 3y ago
  You and wildrhythms are asking, "How is a demo different than refunding?" 1. A demo is a promotional product. It has to have emotional beats that culminate in strong desire for more and a call to action to "Buy now!" The unedited first X-minutes of a game is unlikely to hit those beats. 2. A demo should be like a chocolate box, filled with delightful surprises, sampling the game. The first X-minutes of your game should be like a gentle hike into the woods, easing the player into the game's setting, mechanics, etc. 3. Refunding requires purchasing then taking action to reverse course. Furthermore, that action isn't entirely comfortable for many. That is, most people are honest and don't want to abuse refunds. A demo works in the opposite manner.
  - gbear605 3y ago
    According to the article, this is not a demo. This is just the first ninety minutes of the full game. So this can’t offer anything that your game itself doesn’t offer in its first ninety minutes.
tux3 3y ago
Players can already just download the full game before purchase, for the majority of games people play This is just more convenient, so it makes it more likely to convert into sales If the game can't keep people wanting to play it more than a couple hours, and players decide they don't want to buy it anymore, they could already do that with a refund. Making games more convenient to play always increases sales, if you think there's any chance at all that the product you're selling is worth buying.
ericd 3y ago
Anecdotal, but as a kid with no money, demos were super important, and 100% of my purchases were from games whose demos I’d played. I hope your effort in making a demo has been rewarded!
soulbadguy 3y ago
> why pay for more ? I am guessing for the "lenth of the game - 90 minutes" From my experience as a gamer, now days between the free games on mobile, epic game store and xbox game pass, the almost infinite amount of dirt cheap games on sale at any time on steam and the "sink all you life always online: experiences like destiny, overwatch etc... etc... The main resources for games is time not money. The idea that someone would find a game that they actually enjoy and decided not to pay for it (or wait for it for a sale) i don't think is realistic. Sure some people will sample the game, but the people who won't buy the game after sampling it are the same people who wouldn;t buy the game either way.
- aschearer 3y ago
  That may describe your patterns but it doesn't match my lived experience with a game on Steam... I added a demo and saw sales decline. I removed the demo and saw sales increase. I've heard similar stories from others.
  - leoqa 3y ago
    Perhaps your game is bad? Encouraging folks to gamble on their enjoyment seems like a losing strategy- instead make a compelling game?
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      Is it a losing strategy if the revenue increases? Consider how encouraging gambling on in-game items instead of making better games has served the mobile gaming industry. Unfortunately the world is not just and consumer-hostile behavior often ends up being more profitable.
    - waboremo 3y ago
      No, demos negatively affecting sales has been known for years now. Even studies as far back as 2013. This isn't some "your game is just bad" situation. Besides, even if it was, it's not like developers set out to make a non-compelling game. Like woops, let me just press the "compelling" button before shipping!
whalesalad 3y ago
Make a game someone wants to play for more than 90 minutes :)
- waboremo 3y ago
  This is how we get endless waves of shallow games and nothing but addiction hooks to get people into the game for 91 minutes :)
  - falcolas 3y ago
    Nah, we had those already. Gacha games and looter shooters with lootboxes.
whartung 3y ago
Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? I don't buy many new games, but I'd have thought that there was a higher ask of a game than just getting 90m out of it. I mean, I understand your point. My friend bought a used Mac once, and it had Sim-City on it. We hadn't seen it before and we fell into a black hole of playing it for 3 hours straight before someone accidentally kicked the plug. "Well, that's that!" and I can attest that none of us really went back to it. It certainly kept our interest for 3 hours though.
- pawelduda 3y ago
  Imagine going to a cinema and paying more for 90 min of movie and twice as much for popcorn/nachos. EDIT: forgot the 20 minutes of ads and trailers of other movies
- p1necone 3y ago
  > Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? It's not, it's just that there's a lot of very good sales and subscription services that firehose free games at you (humble bundle). So a lot of people have hundreds of games that they don't really need to extract any value from to get their moneys worth, so they only play most of them for a few minutes if at all, only putting real time into the few games that are really good. The games themselves don't only have 90 mins of playtime, it's just that most of the players have lots of games and not so much time to play them. There are short story-driven experiences, but even those generally last at least a few hours (the "walking simulator" genre - I'd recommend Firewatch as a good example of that type of game).
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  > Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? Why not? That sounds like a pretty sensible game length to me. I'd even say that within some genres stretching it longer only makes games worse. The current 2 hour refund policy is quite harmful for hand-crafted unique experiences created by small studios. These days nobody wants to finance short focused games. I wonder where the next Loom or Portal is supposed to come from in such environment.
p1necone 3y ago
I don't think the statistics are really communicating what you think they're communicating. I have hundreds of games in my steam library, a lot of which I've either not played at all or only played for like 30 mins or so. This doesn't mean I actually want games to only have ~ an hour of playtime, it's just that they were all either very cheap or free through things like humble bundle. So I grabbed them with the intention to play them later when I feel like it and maybe messed around in them for a little bit to see if I felt like properly diving in now.
waboremo 3y ago
It's still absurd Steam has done nothing to the refund rule when games are around or under 2 hours long. There are zero consequences to "buying" games like Superhot, A Short Hike, Journey, and Before Your Eyes; completing them, and refunding the game. None. They do have an abuse warning system in place, but I have never seen validation that it works for short games, just frequent refunds/odd cards used. EA has 10 hour trials, but we haven't heard anything about how successful they are. EA likes to boast, so one can only assume it's not all that successful in getting people to actually a) stay subscribed to EA play or b) get people to buy the games. We also know generally that demos, especially for lesser known games, can negatively affect sales. I can see publishers only supporting this for already very popular and well received games to secure every last potential sale, but everyone else has little reason to.
- frumper 3y ago
  Anything you want to refund after playing less than 2 hours doesn’t sound very engaging.
  - falcolas 3y ago
    The refunds are not due to dissatisfaction, it's because they can. The act is closer to piracy than an angry customer. Hot Take Edit: It's gamer Karens requesting the refunds. "I had information available to me that said the game time was under 2 hours but I bought it anyways and now I'm severely disappointed that the game was under 2 hours long and I deserve a refund!"
    - frumper 3y ago
      It's not piracy. They can't play it after they refund it and I'd call wanting to give it back because you accomplished everything you wanted in less than 2 hours a type of dissatisfaction.
      - falcolas 3y ago
        Really? I'd call "accomplishing everything you wanted" satisfaction. Especially since the chances are nearly 100% that the time to complete was known prior to the purchase (at a minimum, the information was available). I wouldn't demand a refund for a movie, for example, if it finished in 1:59. I wouldn't demand a refund for beating my friends in a round of Top Golf in an hour. Nor would I demand a refund if I decide I'm done after spending less than 2 hours in a museum.
km3r 3y ago
As someone who loves the occasional tight indie game that only has 2 hours of content, I agree. A game like "A short hike" couldn't exist if every game had this 2 hour policy. Hopefully its an opt-in system for game devs at the very least.
User23 3y ago
I don't personally have a problem with letting the publisher set a different time limit. I wonder if they will add that.

wildrhythms 3y ago

How is this much different than players refunding the game within the 2 hour window? (the current policy)

jabroni_salad 3y ago
https://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 ago
  Steam 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 ago
FWIW, the current policy is also hotly contested for the very reasons outlined by the person you're replying to.

hoffs 3y ago

They could already refund with playtime less than 2hrs, so not sure what is your point. Also the idea here is that you don't have to create a demo, you literally just give the game to them.

aschearer 3y ago
You and wildrhythms are asking, "How is a demo different than refunding?" 1. A demo is a promotional product. It has to have emotional beats that culminate in strong desire for more and a call to action to "Buy now!" The unedited first X-minutes of a game is unlikely to hit those beats. 2. A demo should be like a chocolate box, filled with delightful surprises, sampling the game. The first X-minutes of your game should be like a gentle hike into the woods, easing the player into the game's setting, mechanics, etc. 3. Refunding requires purchasing then taking action to reverse course. Furthermore, that action isn't entirely comfortable for many. That is, most people are honest and don't want to abuse refunds. A demo works in the opposite manner.
- gbear605 3y ago
  According to the article, this is not a demo. This is just the first ninety minutes of the full game. So this can’t offer anything that your game itself doesn’t offer in its first ninety minutes.

tux3 3y ago

Players can already just download the full game before purchase, for the majority of games people play This is just more convenient, so it makes it more likely to convert into sales If the game can't keep people wanting to play it more than a couple hours, and players decide they don't want to buy it anymore, they could already do that with a refund. Making games more convenient to play always increases sales, if you think there's any chance at all that the product you're selling is worth buying.

ericd 3y ago

Anecdotal, but as a kid with no money, demos were super important, and 100% of my purchases were from games whose demos I’d played. I hope your effort in making a demo has been rewarded!

soulbadguy 3y ago

> why pay for more ? I am guessing for the "lenth of the game - 90 minutes" From my experience as a gamer, now days between the free games on mobile, epic game store and xbox game pass, the almost infinite amount of dirt cheap games on sale at any time on steam and the "sink all you life always online: experiences like destiny, overwatch etc... etc... The main resources for games is time not money. The idea that someone would find a game that they actually enjoy and decided not to pay for it (or wait for it for a sale) i don't think is realistic. Sure some people will sample the game, but the people who won't buy the game after sampling it are the same people who wouldn;t buy the game either way.

aschearer 3y ago
That may describe your patterns but it doesn't match my lived experience with a game on Steam... I added a demo and saw sales decline. I removed the demo and saw sales increase. I've heard similar stories from others.
- leoqa 3y ago
  Perhaps your game is bad? Encouraging folks to gamble on their enjoyment seems like a losing strategy- instead make a compelling game?
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    Is it a losing strategy if the revenue increases? Consider how encouraging gambling on in-game items instead of making better games has served the mobile gaming industry. Unfortunately the world is not just and consumer-hostile behavior often ends up being more profitable.
  - waboremo 3y ago
    No, demos negatively affecting sales has been known for years now. Even studies as far back as 2013. This isn't some "your game is just bad" situation. Besides, even if it was, it's not like developers set out to make a non-compelling game. Like woops, let me just press the "compelling" button before shipping!

whalesalad 3y ago

Make a game someone wants to play for more than 90 minutes :)

waboremo 3y ago
This is how we get endless waves of shallow games and nothing but addiction hooks to get people into the game for 91 minutes :)
- falcolas 3y ago
  Nah, we had those already. Gacha games and looter shooters with lootboxes.

whartung 3y ago

Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? I don't buy many new games, but I'd have thought that there was a higher ask of a game than just getting 90m out of it. I mean, I understand your point. My friend bought a used Mac once, and it had Sim-City on it. We hadn't seen it before and we fell into a black hole of playing it for 3 hours straight before someone accidentally kicked the plug. "Well, that's that!" and I can attest that none of us really went back to it. It certainly kept our interest for 3 hours though.

pawelduda 3y ago
Imagine going to a cinema and paying more for 90 min of movie and twice as much for popcorn/nachos. EDIT: forgot the 20 minutes of ads and trailers of other movies
p1necone 3y ago
> Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? It's not, it's just that there's a lot of very good sales and subscription services that firehose free games at you (humble bundle). So a lot of people have hundreds of games that they don't really need to extract any value from to get their moneys worth, so they only play most of them for a few minutes if at all, only putting real time into the few games that are really good. The games themselves don't only have 90 mins of playtime, it's just that most of the players have lots of games and not so much time to play them. There are short story-driven experiences, but even those generally last at least a few hours (the "walking simulator" genre - I'd recommend Firewatch as a good example of that type of game).
seba_dos1 3y ago
> Is that the value proposition of modern games? 90m of content? Why not? That sounds like a pretty sensible game length to me. I'd even say that within some genres stretching it longer only makes games worse. The current 2 hour refund policy is quite harmful for hand-crafted unique experiences created by small studios. These days nobody wants to finance short focused games. I wonder where the next Loom or Portal is supposed to come from in such environment.

p1necone 3y ago

I don't think the statistics are really communicating what you think they're communicating. I have hundreds of games in my steam library, a lot of which I've either not played at all or only played for like 30 mins or so. This doesn't mean I actually want games to only have ~ an hour of playtime, it's just that they were all either very cheap or free through things like humble bundle. So I grabbed them with the intention to play them later when I feel like it and maybe messed around in them for a little bit to see if I felt like properly diving in now.

waboremo 3y ago

It's still absurd Steam has done nothing to the refund rule when games are around or under 2 hours long. There are zero consequences to "buying" games like Superhot, A Short Hike, Journey, and Before Your Eyes; completing them, and refunding the game. None. They do have an abuse warning system in place, but I have never seen validation that it works for short games, just frequent refunds/odd cards used. EA has 10 hour trials, but we haven't heard anything about how successful they are. EA likes to boast, so one can only assume it's not all that successful in getting people to actually a) stay subscribed to EA play or b) get people to buy the games. We also know generally that demos, especially for lesser known games, can negatively affect sales. I can see publishers only supporting this for already very popular and well received games to secure every last potential sale, but everyone else has little reason to.

frumper 3y ago
Anything you want to refund after playing less than 2 hours doesn’t sound very engaging.
- falcolas 3y ago
  The refunds are not due to dissatisfaction, it's because they can. The act is closer to piracy than an angry customer. Hot Take Edit: It's gamer Karens requesting the refunds. "I had information available to me that said the game time was under 2 hours but I bought it anyways and now I'm severely disappointed that the game was under 2 hours long and I deserve a refund!"
  - frumper 3y ago
    It's not piracy. They can't play it after they refund it and I'd call wanting to give it back because you accomplished everything you wanted in less than 2 hours a type of dissatisfaction.
    - falcolas 3y ago
      Really? I'd call "accomplishing everything you wanted" satisfaction. Especially since the chances are nearly 100% that the time to complete was known prior to the purchase (at a minimum, the information was available). I wouldn't demand a refund for a movie, for example, if it finished in 1:59. I wouldn't demand a refund for beating my friends in a round of Top Golf in an hour. Nor would I demand a refund if I decide I'm done after spending less than 2 hours in a museum.

km3r 3y ago

As someone who loves the occasional tight indie game that only has 2 hours of content, I agree. A game like "A short hike" couldn't exist if every game had this 2 hour policy. Hopefully its an opt-in system for game devs at the very least.

User23 3y ago

I don't personally have a problem with letting the publisher set a different time limit. I wonder if they will add that.