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[pottering]

I believe in this particular case "abuse" can actually cause a quantifiable negative number (a loss of $$$), that the sociopath programmers inside Valve can actually understand and try to fix.

And I wonder if they don't let things go shitty for periods just to provide data to their pet Steam Economist. Maybe it is not a coincidence they are doing this right before a Steam Sale.

[DanglinBob]

I agree that the fear of people "being jerks on the internet" is a bit unfounded. Review bombing? Certainly possible, could be very annoying for a few select games that have polarizing audiences. Easily solved by letting developers opt out of refunds... most games KNOW they are going to have a polarizing effect. A few people may get hurt by this but I doubt we'll see if very often.

People buying the game, playing it, then refunding in order to get free games? Absolutely going to happen. Will that be worse than piracy? Not at all, its significantly better since there's a decent chance they'll enjoy the game enough to keep it.

For the most part people will use the system as intended. If you're afraid of your audience you've got a big problem

That said a client of mine finished up a big youtube event last week and someone didn't enjoy it enough to create an annoying DDOS attack that took their server down for several hours (spread out in chunks) over the weekend. Sometimes people are jerks - but on the whole they're not aiming to abuse your business.

[TwistedJenius]

I'm kind of hoping that laziness will also be a factor here in helping to avoid too much widespread abuse.  Of course some abuse is inevitable and there will definitely be some people who will refund in order to get free games. And of course there will always be some people who will go out of their way to use this system to be deliberately malicious as others in this thread have stated.

But I think beyond issues like honesty and dishonesty, simple laziness is also a factor for a good many Steam users (as well as the Internet in general) and even if getting a refund is relatively simple, the fact that you have to do anything at all will be at least a little bit of an obstacle for people who just don't care very much.

While it's true that certain individuals will go to great lengths to abuse a system like this, I can definitely see the majority of people simply not bothering with it because they just don't feel like it and it's not worth it to them. The fact that I've often heard many Steam users say that they will buy games on sale and sometimes never even play them,or wait a surprisingly long time before ever picking them up, would seem to confirm this sort of fickle attitude about the whole thing.

In fact, I've heard people complain when a game they already own a through another distributor isn't released on Steam, just for the convenience factor of having it on there. And of course anyone who's tried to do any sort of promotion on the Internet knows how hard it is just to get people to bother to click a link or watch a video. And the fact that it can take up to a week to get a refund also helps from a psychological standpoint, as we know that instant gratification definitely seems to be a motivating factor for many Internet users.

While some abuse will inevitably occur, it's likely that most Steam users will actively have to dislike a game in order to be motivated to refund it. For the most part I suspect that most people will use this system as it was intended, if for no other reason, because it's just easier to do that.

[StrayCatRock]

Out of curiosity, I played "the bad guy" and asked a refund for a soundtrack (with the dev/composer permission of course).

The OST was purchased Thursday and I immediately introduced a refund ticket with the motive option "I purchased this by accident" (ahem...). Turns out that my request was accepted this morning and I'll got the refunds on my steam wallet.

While I can understand game refunds for technical difficulties or other things, it bothers me that it applies to OST as they're marked as "DLC" but as soon as they're downloaded, they should be considered as "consumed" (cf. the steam refunds FAQ). As there are of course no DRM on MP3 files, I had no problems to copy the OST on another folder when my request was pending. In fact, I just checked now and the OST files are still in my default steam library even if the "DLC" has been deleted from my account page in the steam application.

If somebody feels up to do the same trick with "drm-free" games for experiment purpose...(with the game dev permission naturally)

[pottering]

bad sign:

https://twitter.com/qwiboo/status/607234020372418560

not "hard proof", but personally it is enough for me to reconsider my previous position ("it's not gonna be so bad")


edit: there is a informative discussion under that tweet, worth it scrolling down and reading it all (maybe ppl need to be logged-in twitter, idk)

[gimymblert]

bad sign:

https://twitter.com/qwiboo/status/607234020372418560

not "hard proof", but personally it is enough for me to reconsider my previous position ("it's not gonna be so bad")

Game
http://store.steampowered.com/app/317510/
reviews = very positive

[Mittens]

^ wait what? how can refunds kill player numbers like that? You can only refund if you haven't played for more than 2 hours (i thought) so any existing regular player base should not be affected


Nevermind, I just noticed that's a graph of sales not players.
I guess that game must suck if they have a near 100% refund rate

Personally I am for refunds because I am sick and tired of the sheer number of bitchy emails I get from people begging me, the developer, for a refund.
I constantly have to tell them that they should seek a refund from the retailer (Steam) not the developer personally (how hard is it?)

[mankoon]

Interesting chart. How does steam back end represent refunds. In that chart, It seems like sales just dropped. Does the graph update and eliminate a sale that was a refund or did his sales drop for other reasons. Were assuming that's refund activity.  Steams backend is pretty awesome so I wonder how they track the refunds.

[Christian Knudsen]

Dev tweeted that it's due to refunds. 72% sales were refunded. That must suck.

However, the dev had a 50% off sale that ended on June 1st, right when sales dropped. He says that he hasn't seen a similar drop between previous sales, but that's not entirely true. This chart the dev tweeted shows that sales (outside of Steam sales) were, of course, already going down and nearing zero (I added the red line):



Refunds certainly had an effect (it's a new system that people are trying out/it's a short game with Steam cards), but it's most definitely exasperated by coming right after a 50% off sale and being a game that's nearing the end of its cycle.

[starsrift]

I'm more intrigued as to what this is going to do to Early Access.

[skaz]

I have regrets about a few games I bought, because I didn't like them. Consequence is, now I'm reluctant to buy games. I really think about which game I will really enjoy or not. I end up buying really few games directly from steam, and getting more games from bundles for example.

Now I can get a refund if the game sucks or if I simply don't enjoy it. I will probably try more game than before, and probably end up buying more games altogether. Is it bad for devs? If you buy a game on steam, don't forget that the money is now locked away from you, you WILL buy games with it. Trying games with confidence will ends up making more money spent overall, no matter what.

I think it's really positive, even if there are a few issues with the system as it is now. The time delay is an issue, it puts to much importance on the game length or re playability. I Don't see why call of duty should be safe from refund if you want to beat it first, but a small indie game shouldn't (ok, CoD may be beaten ins the 2h time limit, bad example :p). People buy games. Seeing every customer as a threat is not a very positive state of mind. There will be abuse, but will it outweight the benefits? I think not. And don't forget that games are already available for free. People are OK to buy games. Even if they could do otherwise.

Last thing is, steam is making its service in accordance with the law. Refund and customer protection is a thing. It's shocking that steam have ignored it for so long.

[marquet]

I found this, its true?

[guille]

It is. Right now you can get a refund on items you bought 6 months ago.

[Christian Knudsen]

Is Warner Brothers pulling the PC version of Arkham Knight the first big impact of Steam refunds?

[ThemsAllTook]

Can that be attributed directly to Steam refunds? I heard speculation that that was the reason, but I didn't think it was a sure thing.

[Christian Knudsen]

I suspect a very high percentage of people that bought Arkham Knight on Steam have requested and been issued a refund, since the game is outright unplayable to a lot of people. That's gotta hurt Warner Brothers. If that hadn't been the case, I don't think they'd have pulled it. Of course, the question is why they didn't just delay it in the first place, and the speculation there has been that they still wanted to capitalize on day 1 & 2 sales. I suspect they were caught by surprise by the sheer amount of people getting refunds, which is why they've now decided to pull it. A refund is probably as good as a lost sale -- I suspect most people that have been refunded aren't going to buy the game again at some later point.

[skaz]

I'm wondering if the refunds actually costs them money or not. If it does, publisher will have to think before releasing crap. The backfire can be really hot.

Oh and I'd like to correct something I said above : you can get the money back to your bank account directly, it's not locked on steam if you used a credit card. I suppose wallet money is locked forever. I got a refund for tow games, it was great as I didn't played them at all or just didn't liked them. I bought some other games with this money anyway...

[Christian Knudsen]

You mean if they lose money because of fees and such? I'm not sure. But it's definitely a lost sale, so they've lost money that way.

And, yeah, hopefully this will make publishers think twice before releasing broken games.

[Schrompf]

No, you don't lose money by a refund. Tax, Steam bill, transaction fee ... all should be reversed like it never happened. At least I think so. As far as I can tell from the tables Steam gives to me Refunds don't cost me money. They're more like money which I once had but now lost again.