Valve Introduces Steam Refunds In Advance of Summer Sale 126
Deathspawner writes: Despite all of its competition, Valve's Steam service remains the most popular digital PC game store around. While Steam does do a lot of things right, it can sometimes stumble in the worst of ways. Look no further than April's Skyrim mod debacle as a good example. Well, just as Valve fixed up that issue, it's gone ahead and fixed another: it's making refunds dead simple. While refunds have been possible in the past, it's required gamers to jump through hoops to get them. Now, Valve has set certain criteria for granting a refund, no questions asked: if you've bought the game within the past two weeks and played it for two hours or less, your refund is guaranteed.
The changes are being welcomed by most, but not all: some developers of smaller games that take less time to play through are worried that this will lead to abuse, and the system may enable more risk-free review-bombing as well.
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They refuse to refund after forcing patches on users which remove functionality from them.
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What, specifically, are you thinking of?
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My personal issue is with removing GFWL when that was the specific reason I bought them. My hobby is getting Xbox live achievements and ~30 of the 44 GFWL games I purchased were through Steam. Everything would have been fine if I had the choice of when to apply patches but Steam forces them on you either through auto-updates or on launch. GFWL has been stripped out of a half dozen of them and another half dozen are "update pending" so that if I ever launch them again they get patched too. This is compounded by the fact that Steam, along with these patches, included a patch of their own which removes the product key from your system. This prevents you from using your key to activate a pirated copy to restore what you'd originally purchased.
That specific scenario aside, the bigger picture is that any update can remove/change any feature at any time. Something you love about a product can simply vanish and you have no recourse. I was reading about an early access game (Starforge) that did just that and had the balls to try and sell some of it as DLC. The early access factor meant they couldn't really complain but there's nothing stopping any developer from doing that sort of thing at any time with any content.
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GFWL still works. If a game developer decides they don't want to use it, and don't want to maintain the services with Microsoft in order to allow the acheivements to continue to work, that's their decision. Steam has nothing to do with it
Steam is the only problem in the situation. I don't care if developers patch out GFWL so long as [b]I[/b] am not [i]forced[/i] to install their patch. Steam is the party that forces patches on its users. Several of the games I have been able to unpatch because I had recorded the keys but the majority I am unable to. Once unpatched the GFWL functionality is still there and works perfectly, including multiplayer.
I've reported fraud (Score:2)
numerous times to Steam because some game had some extra bullshit requirement like GFWL that wasn't listed on the store page.
I was very surprised - and after reading the entire ToS update - delighted when I opened Steam when I got home from work last night. I'm anti-drm but Steam does have some benefits and I've had an account for over a decade with hundreds of games and only a handful of problems.
I'm glad they're doing this and frankly it should have been their stance from the beginning, they've been notor
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Still have to jump through hoops to get refunds for older games that you got more then two weeks ago, even though their letter says to contact them anyway and see what happens. But contacting them requires you to create an additional account (beyond your normal steam one). If only I had a way to give those games away to someone who might use them, but DRM forbids such an unpatriotic act.
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Doesn't seem to work any more. The game won't auto-update, but Steam won't let you play it again until you manually update.
As for GFWL, thank Bob that abomination is being pulled from Steam games. It was such an annoyance in GTA4 'Yes, I know you actually want to play GTA4, but first you have to download this GFWL update and reboot your machine' that I vowed never to buy another GFWL-infected game again. Now, of course, I've forgotten my GFWL login, SO I CAN'T EVEN PLAY THE GAME ANY MORE.
The funny part is t
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The funny part is that someone here apparently believed Microsoft would keep an online DRM system running, after the Doesn'tPlayForSure debacle.
This is exactly why I get shivers down my spine when I hear Microsoft wanting to care more about the PC gaming market.
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Many games panicked over rumors that GFWL might shut down and moved to ... GameSpy. Now most are unplayable after GameSpy was bought and turned into an extortion racket, while GFWL is still going strong. I hate having any of that shit in my single-player games, but I know I'm the freak, and most people just care about the online part of games these days.
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This no longer works. It has not worked for quite some time now. The choices are now something like "always keep this game updated" versus "update when playing". So if a game has yet another snafu and a patch breaks it, you're stuck until there's a hotpatch. No rollbacks allowed, except for the few games that you can start and run without going through the pointless Steam front end.
It's an extremely stupid design decision. If I don't want an update it shouldn't be forced on me. Also when there *is* an
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Its like people don't even know how to use Steam.
Looks like you're one of them. It hasn't been that way for some time. The "Do not update" option was changed to "Only update this game when I play".
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Wow. What purpose does GFWL actually have? Honestly I don't see the point except to slow down the computer, the first thing I remove in the extremely few games I have that include it. Is GFWL still even actively supported?
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If you're an Xbox gamer it gives you your Xbox friends/chat/achievements. It's not actively updated but it's still supported by phone support and all the services are still active. It's a piece of crap software but I've got Xbox copies of a lot of the games, the duplicate purchases were entirely motivated by the xbox achievements which I can no longer get.
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Sorry, but I think your problem is another if you have to buy the game again to get the achievement of friendship. I advise you to leave home and seek friends of flesh and bone.
I speak Spanish, sorry for the grammar
Those friends of flesh and bone, they come over and play video games. It's this fun thing called LAN parties or just co-op gaming... heck even solo gaming on different systems is fun. It's also how I keep in touch with family who live in different provinces/countries. I wouldn't know my nephews at all if I couldn't game with them on XBL.
Who knew it wasn't 1960s anymore?
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Somewhere between a troll and the well you shouldn't do that, do what I do instead fallacy. Nice.
We do not consider it abuse to request a refund o (Score:1)
We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.
why not just have an 7-14 day price guarantee with an auto refund?
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Because not everyone will return a game that just dropped in price (or even be aware of the price drop), and Steam gets to keep the difference for the people who don't.
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I hit up HumbleBundle first before buying something through Steam to see if it's available DRM-free. The prices are typically the same and both have their own sales cycles, too.
Also charity and pay-what-you-want bundles, which is nice.
=Smidge=
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Not bashing Steam in any way, just keen to promote alternatives and competition.
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"The Steam refund offer, within two weeks of purchase and with less than two hours of playtime, applies to games and software applications on the Steam store."
They have some specific additional requirements for DLC, but it definitely applies to games (as I read it).
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Not our fault you can't read.
The Steam refund offer, within two weeks of purchase and with less than two hours of playtime, applies to games and software applications on the Steam store.
May be good for indie game makers (Score:1)
Sometimes, I look at a game, and I'm partially interested, but I don't buy. Or I wait for 3 years until its on sale for 99 cents. Because I've been burned by too many bad games, and you can never get refunds from software (traditionally)
If I could get a refund, I'd be more likely to try something that I'm borderline interested in. If it turns out to be a ripoff, I'll get my money back. Which should help discourage people who are putting crapware on steam. And, if it's a good indie game, but comple
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Seems like the only ones who loose are devs who release really buggy games, or ppl who put up crap in hopes of making a quick buck.
See Early Access, Greenlight, Unity asset abuse and Jim Sterling.
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Good move, but doesn't address useful (but subjective) claims like satisfaction guaranteed. I remember as a kid saving for most of a year to buy one of the later KQ games. I played through it fast, (but probably more than two hours, but not by much) and wasn't challenged/entertained as the past KQ games (or other Sierra titles like the QFG series) indicated I should be - in light of past experiences, I felt pretty mislead about the experience which should have been in that box. Overall, I was pretty bumm
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but my kids will never get the chance to loan their game disks to a friend
Set up steam library sharing. My friend and I both have around 400 game libraries with only 200-ish overlapping. We have Family Sharing set up so we can share our libraries with eachother when we want to.
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Put some content in your damn game (Score:5, Interesting)
Developers of smaller games are afraid people will buy, finish, refund? Put more than 2 hours of content in your game. Your game sucks. Sell your game for $2 and lobby Skype to not refund games costing less than $2 or something.
I spent $50 for a game that took 80 hours to complete the first time and can be completed in 6 by a highly-skilled player skipping all the dialogue after months of practice. A highly-knowledgeable player can do it in like 20. A casual player can do it in probably 30 in a rush, and often may take 40 hours to figure it all out blind. This is the story of almost every fucking game I've bought--not just JRPGs, but Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime, Crash fucking Bandacoot, Unepic, etc. Metroid Fusion stood out to me when I beat it 4 hours after opening it--I was disappointed. Nibelumbra took 2 hours to beat, and cost $7; but then it gets out of the narrative-slash-tutorial and dumps an obscenely difficult second quest on you.
If your game is shorter than 2 hours, it shouldn't cost enough to be worth refunding.
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So, because you prefer an epic gaming experience, all other gaming forms should be ignored? Granted, if a game has less than two hours of gameplay, AND little replay value, I'll probably be disappointed, but not everyone is in it for the replay. Hell, a lot of the short games cost less than renting (much less going to) a movie, and considering the amount of drek coming out of Hollywood the odds are good that the game will offer more value for your money.
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That's a dumb argument. I asked you why you would spend $50 for shit like Angry Birds, as the context of the initial comment was:
Put more than 2 hours of content in your game. Your game sucks. Sell your game for $2 and lobby Skype to not refund games costing less than $2 or something.
I suggested a low price for low-content games, and you come back talking about
So, because you prefer an epic gaming experience, all other gaming forms should be ignored?
Would you pay $50 for shit like Angry Birds?
Angry Birds *is* 1/10 the price of what I said. Would you pay $50 for it?
No?
Then maybe these fly-by-night, valueless, contentless game providers should sell their games for $5 and not $50, instead of expecting us to pay $50 for shit like Angry Birds
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That's a dumb argument. I asked you why you would spend $50 for shit like Angry Birds, as the context of the initial comment was:
Put more than 2 hours of content in your game. Your game sucks. Sell your game for $2 and lobby Skype to not refund games costing less than $2 or something.
I suggested a low price for low-content games, and you come back talking about
So, because you prefer an epic gaming experience, all other gaming forms should be ignored?
Would you pay $50 for shit like Angry Birds?
Angry Birds *is* 1/10 the price of what I said. Would you pay $50 for it?
No?
Then maybe these fly-by-night, valueless, contentless game providers should sell their games for $5 and not $50, instead of expecting us to pay $50 for shit like Angry Birds.
Your entire line of argument has been stupidity, up to and including ignoring a propositional question ("Would you pay $50 for shit like Angry Birds?") and instead treating it as a declaration ("Angry Birds is like $50, why would you pay that much for something with so little content?").
I never said any of those things, aside from the last one, you're thinking of Immerman.
Immerman never mentioned "$50" nor "Angry Birds" so I'm not sure where you go them from anyway.
It could be games that are less than $50 and larger than Angry Birds (but not the large epics you originally cite) would be affected by this.
Just because something isn't $2 doesn't automaticaly make it $50, nor does something not being one of the games you cite make it Angry Birds.
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Even Angry Birds has more than 2 hours of gameplay if you're not some sort of physics sandbox god and/or aren't abusing some sort of guide.
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I happen to recognize and model physics quite well, up to and including real-world newtonian physics. From time to time, I'll spend nearly an hour examining things in my head that didn't work the way I expected, because my brain is better at emulating physics than I am at understanding it.
I do recognize that others aren't quite as good at video games like Sonic and Metroid, though. I pick up on everything from AI behavior to dynamic movement pretty damn fast.
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Okay, you're a god at physics prediction. Can you, with no prior experience in the particular implementation of the game, finish 'Angry Birds' in 2 hours or less?
Remember, if you've played the game before and beaten it, it doesn't really count because you're just replaying it, and have thus already invested time in it.
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So, because you prefer an epic gaming experience, all other gaming forms should be ignored?
2+ hours of gameplay is not remotely close to being "epic". It means the game has a fairly minimal amount of entertainment value ... about the same duration as a movie.
If the game cannot hold a player's attention beyond 2 hours, it's little more than a glorified demo. No one's banning that "gaming form" ... but fewer people will want to pay money for it.
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Yep. It's the usual crowd of anti-gamers that's whining about this.
Think "games" like Depression Quest and Gone Home. Games that aren't what any sane person would call a "game" and contain less than two hours of content but still charge like $5 for the "experience." It's just more anti-gamer crap from the usual crowd.
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Damned right. They are upset about this because Indie games and shitrags like Kotaku have a nice little incestuous relationship. Shitrag posts glowing review of some Indie darling PC garbage and it sells... even though as soon as you bought it, it's clear that it's utter unplayable garbage.
This will put a stop to that. Of course the corrupt Indie devs and shitsack journos they are in cahoots with don't like it.
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And there you go. The "outrage" is only from developers that really suck at what they do and are hoping they can continue half assing everything.
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I think the refund system will actually drive more sales -- even for small games because it might reduce risk enough for people to be willing to try games that they wouldn't otherwise buy.
Making a game interesting enough for 2 hours of gameplay really isn't that hard. That's a VERY low bar.
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Also if the game does takes 40 hours to play, make sure that 38 of those hours aren't unskippable cut scenes or running on rails. Modern games (which I hate) are increasingly becoming interactive movies with game play being scaled down, exploration removed, quick time events added, etc.
I really want a refund reason of "your game's design decisions piss me off."
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There are plenty of games with tight gaming experiences that can be played in under 2 hours. My first playthrough of Journey took about two hours, yet it's one of the best games I've played in years. Mind you, slapping "indie" on a game doesn't automatically make it good, nor does "eighty hours of content" do so. For me, pricing concerns aside (and there are plenty of those, to be sure), it's all about quality, regardless of whether it's packed into one hour or eighty. And if there's a choice between qualit
The "review bombing" is already happening. (Score:4, Interesting)
The people behind some of the smaller games get their friends to give positive reviews to the point where reviews are basically worthless on Steam.
Re:The "review bombing" is already happening. (Score:4, Informative)
Most games I purchase aren't from public reviews but from friends recommendations.
Smaller games once recognized will quickly drop in rating if they really aren't that good.
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Most of mine were free samplers like playable demo(nstration)s, free week(end)s, trying on someone else's platforms in person, etc.
Or pre-release reviews (Score:1)
Or they introduce a game as a pre-release, and it's awesome. Then they introduce a bunch of pay-to-win crap, or break the game in other ways when it's released as a completed product. People see a new game come out, see awesome reviews, and buy it... but at this point what *was* a good game is now a steaming pile of sh**...
I've seen many games that seem to have gone this route... although to be fair many are FTPPTW (Free to Play Pay to Win) so the only thing you really waste before seeing it's a PTW piece o
Fears of abuse are overblown (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's be honest here, if somebody's going to go through the effort of buying the game, playing through it in under two hours, then requesting a refund, couldn't they have much more easily just torrented it? That cuts out the entire pay for it, request for refund, wait for refund step. If hey can complete your game in under two hours, it's probably an indie title with little or no DRM so finding a pirate copy isn't even hard.
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Technically torrenting the game you haven't purchased to achieve the same end result is illegal (copyright infringement), whereas buying then requesting a refund is not. That's not much difference to some people, but for many it opens possibilities that didn't exist before.
Lego Worlds (Score:1)
I just requested a refund on Lego Worlds which I bought yesterday. It looks like it might one day be a fun game, but right now it's impossible to remap the WASD keys to something that a left-handed player would want. I searched the forums and tried to find a workaround, but decided that the seven minutes I played the game struggling to do anything much was below the 2 hour limit so I requested a refund.
When you request a refund you have the option of 'steam credit' or a chargeback to your credit card. It
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When you request a refund you have the option of 'steam credit' or a chargeback to your credit card. It's nice that they're not trapping your money within their accounting system.
That is very kind of them. It's become a more common thing with big retail and I'm happy they followed into those footsteps.
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The steam update specifically says that they do not.
And having VS installed won't give you a VAC ban, or almost every developer would be VAC banned from their own games. There may have been a glitch at one point but every instance I've seen of that gets reverted.
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Guilty or not, Valve reserves the right to take away from the user every purchase they have ever made on Steam, for any reason, with no legal recourse. Why anyone would agree to those terms I do not understand.
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I'm not VAC banned, and I have all sorts of developer stuff on my computer - Visual studio specifically, as well as some debugger stuff.
On the other hand, I'm also not running that stuff on VAC enabled games either, or cheating otherwise(my lousy record in such games speaks to that).
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What's wrong with short games? Portal is one of the most loved games of all time and it takes only a couple of hours to beat. Are coin-op arcade games devoid of satisfaction? What about short stories versus novels? Should I be entitled to a refund on a banana because it wasn't as filling as a steak dinner?
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What about short stories versus novels? Should I be entitled to a refund on a banana because it wasn't as filling as a steak dinner?
Amazon let you return an ebook within seven days for any reason whatsoever, even if you read the whole thing before returning it. Most writers typically see about 1-2% returns, because people who don't want to pay for books can download them from pirate sites instead.
I'm guessing this is driving Valve's refund policy as much as anything, since they're increasingly having to compete with other sites which do have sane policies.
Re: Hilarious quotes from Kotaku article (Score:1)
Valve is obligated to comply with a law in Germany that guarantees returns of goods bought in the Internet. Luckily for the rest of the world, Valve is extending this consumer-friendly policy to everyone. Hopefully it will work out for developers too. As a consumer I'm very happy about this.
The best on the industry (Score:2)
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Now I need to shower after writing that last sentence
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72 hours? Hah. Recently for me it was about two weeks. I mean, yeah, they autoreplied to the ticket immediately, and I got a computer-generated useless response half an hour later. But once I responded to that it was two weeks, and when that didn't work, it was two more weeks for another go-round.
Now they did apologize a little, and they said they were working on dealing with one really big backlog, so maybe it's not always that bad, but I was pretty unimpressed.
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Hah, you're doing well. I've had them take over 2 weeks just to send an autoreply.
Apparently they were dealing with the same "backlog" 6 months ago. Or perhaps they just have a permanent backlog... which would indicate that they should hire more support gorillas, or maybe ban their support gorillas from playing DOTA 2 on the job.
EU law (Score:1)
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Actually, the real reason behind this is that they were about to get their asses handed to them in court by the ACCC [accc.gov.au]. They've been trying to fight the ACCC's lawsuit, claiming that Australian consumer protection laws don't apply to them (they do). As a last-ditch effort to avoid massive fines, they've decided to mostly comply with our laws, and it's simply easier to have one policy for all steam users rather than only offering refunds to Australians. Their wording is 100% spin.
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Certainly one of the few Steam games I regret buying. 'Oh, look, you just broke your steel pipe by beating half a dozen zombies to death, and now they're respawning thirty seconds after you killed them, and don't even think of moving and turning at the same time unless you want vomit-inducing stutter.'
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These days I tend to watch gamers on twitch play a new game before I commit to see if I will enjoy the game play,
I look at reviews (negative in particular - sure I wade through a lot of nutters that I can ignore -- and people will often rate a game negatively for precisely the feature I'm interested in it... but it also surfaces the real complaints), I look at ratings; I look at price. I look at the discussions. And I want some game play footage in the trailer so I know what I'm getting. I don't want cutscenes and crap.
But the one thing I really don't want is to watch someone actually play the game and literally spoil
It would be nice. (Score:1)
Limit returns (Score:3)
Finally... (Score:2)
As a victim of Valve's previous refund policy (bought game which simply didn't work on my system, which they knew, but would not issue a refund, and ended up needing to charge back the purchase on my cc, resulting in a ban of that cc from Steam and much consternation), I think this is a great change. It boggles my mind that the previous policy and mechanism was so broken, and so doubly-punishing to victims of bug-riddled software.
demo/trail games (Score:2)
a better way would be if you could download the entire game and play it for 2 hours for free. if you still like it, then pay the price.
why not? steam already controls your library anyway, so should be easy enough to do and seems an easier method then this (too much hassle).