HiGame

A few days ago, Steam announced that it would begin offering refunds to anyone who wanted them, provided they fulfilled a few minimal requirements. Specifically, if you spend no more than two hours with a title and haven’t owned it for more than two weeks, you can have a refund, no questions asked. The policy has garnered praise for being pro-consumer. But there are some clear negatives for developers who are faced with a surge in refunds with absolutely no answers as to why people are suddenly returning their title.

Kotaku has rounded up these reports, which show refund rates climbing by 30-70%. One of the problems with Steam’s policy, from a game developer’s perspective, is that there are dozens of titles on Steam that can be beaten (or mostly beaten) within the two-hour window. Sure, there are plenty of games you won’t even scratch in two hours — but smaller, indie titles tend to offer bite-sized gameplay and simpler mechanisms. Even games like Left 4 Dead 2 could be mostly beaten within a two-hour window if you’ve played the first one and focus on the campaigns you like the most.


Data courtesy of Kotaku

The larger problem, however, is that creators have no idea why people suddenly don’t want their games — and when your return rate has gone from basically zero to a whopping 87%, that’s a serious problem. It’s not just a question of revenue (most of the sales figures given point to sales of 10s to dozens of copies at the most), but one of customer service. When customers don’t communicate to indicate why they don’t want a game, the creator is left wondering if they ran into a technical problem, if a puzzle was too difficult, or if some other aspect of the product offended or annoyed someone.

Developers have also witnessed some downright strange behaviors, like one person reportedly buying seven copies of a title, then returning five of them. Apparently it’s also fairly easy to download a copy of a game and then return it. If a game doesn’t use DRM in the first place, apparently the title will still play.

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