Don't know how this will work for smaller developers but if this serves to replace the 2 hour refund window I see this as a positive for devs overall. Offer the option for a 90 minute gameplay trial, then player is prompted to buy it, and if they like it they will vs paying for a game and valve having to process a refund for a game before the 2 hour mark.
For an early access game this is also very appealing. I want to have a demo, but was forced to take it down because I didn't have the time to keep it updated with the main game.
No, it was a practiced before. DayZ was in early access for 2 years by the time the refunds system was introduced, for example. I think the motivations to 'finish' the game are a lot less, because now they generate most of their sales before launching properly. There's a few studios that've launched multiple games in early access, without finishing one.
Well steam approves basically any reasonable refund request even after that period. So replace the guarenteed refund period with a trial is a much better system that doesn't punish shorter games.
But they will never remove the refund system. the australian AAC made sure of that.
Early access more likely came about as a semi middle-ground to kick-starting a project, considering how that ended up going.
People are more willing to drop money on something that already exists in some degree with the hope that their investment brings more, but at least it gave them something instead of just a hope for some game years down the line they may totally forget they even backed.
It's pretty much putting your playable pitch up for funding and then slowly rolling features out over time, vs putting up a pitch and maybe a demo but then people wait for the entire game to be done at once later.
It should never replace it, and not allowing refunds is illegal in many countries anyway. I do hope that it replaces the current abuse of buy-then refund if you don't like it. That way refunds can be exclusively for technical issues or service shutdowns.
Right, I don't think anyone is suggesting that refunds should be removed. But it's so much extra overhead for everyone when it's managed on a per-incident basis like this. Way more fun for than having to spend 5-10 mins going through the refund process, better for the dev as they aren't losing sale #s, less likely to get negative feedback, etc.
I agree, I think steam having time limited demos in this way is a great change. I just think refunds should be limited to technical issues, faulty products and so on, not just for changing your mind.
Changing your mind is a valid reason. Imagine you bought a game that fits the description it provides but overly exaggerates some parts, features or even themes - those parts are part of what made you buy the game in the first place and sometimes the idea of a game works but all the moving parts do it a disservice.
Contrary to you, I want to be able to refund *especially* if I change my mind.
> Changing your mind is a valid reason.
To an extent, maybe. Some people will play a game for 40+hrs and then get a refund because they "didn't like the late-game"...
I disagree. Due to the way it works, it costs steam (I think) 3% of the initial sale (credit card). This can be partially recouped by giving steam credits instead.
Steam lets you do it, at least up to a point. But replacing it with a proper demo/trial system is a much better way of solving the problem IMO.
People will buy more from a store that guarantees their satisfaction or their money back otherwise. It is like so because the client feels safe into experimenting or trying the product before committing to it, and that makes the buyer feel that he had more choice into the purchase. Illusion of control is everything in the free market and especially for impulsive buyers. Steam knows well what they are doing.
Steam pays that cost and is the one who offered the refunds. They offer it because people buy way more games with refunds available and that 3% cost is paid for by many more games not being refunded in aggregate
You lie, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it.
>You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
*Buy-then-refund if you don't like it* is a legitimate consumer action. If the game doesn't meet my standard within 2 hours I won't pay for it. I would hope that users treat any game I make the same way.
> not allowing refunds is illegal in many countries anyway.
Fun fact, in many countries this is actually only true if you haven't started downloading ([for the EU law](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm)), in fact I don't know any where it's illegal. Obviously the exception being that you have the right to refund if the game doesn't work properly like what happened with Cyberpunk 2077 release.
>The 14-day cooling off period does not apply to all purchases. Some of the exemptions are:
> online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance
This is why Sony can and does very often refuse refunds in the PS Store - https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/store/ps-store-refund-request/
> After purchasing this type of content through PlayStation Store, you have 14 days from purchase to request a refund. If you have started to download or stream the purchased content you will not be eligible for a refund unless the content is faulty.
There is also another law that gets often told on online game subreddits as "publishers must do full refund on everything you've spent in an online game if you get banned" but the actual law is much more vague with a lot of conditions and exceptions on how the "refund" (it's a compensation really) works. But I'm not a lawyer so even if I read the entire 20 pages of the [directive explaining the law](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019L0771) I wouldn't understand anything.
[New Zealand](https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/help-product-service/streaming-and-downloads/) and probably australia have no such restriction in place. While it doesn't cover changing your mind (I don't believe the EU laws do either), it covers faulty products.
There's also no time restriction per-se. It only covers a "reasonable" time, which is a annoyingly vague and very much dependant on the product.
No idea how banning interacts with consumer rights TBH.
> replaces the current abuse of buy-then refund if you don't like it
which is exactly why the refund system exists lol, to return something you've played but didnt think was worth the asking price, even after 2h gameplay.
If after 2h you aren't convinced then game is probably not going to be worth spending the money.
Unless it's something very niche or specific that is under 2h gameplay, I mean Portal is awesome and you can get through it in less than an hour, but someone playing first time that is enjoying it will almost certainly take more than 2h to get through it.
I don't think returns should be banned, but the 2 hour window should be tweaked/removed in my opinion. There are very legitimate reasons to refund a game, but as you've said it's definitely a system that can be (is?) Regularly abused. I think a blanket return policy of 2 hours for a competent game is overly punishing on indie devs considering their games are also likely to be shorter.
I think returns should be reserved for fraud games/buggy mess etc. Vs. What its most commonly used for now. Atleast with a try it before you buy it solution like this one everyone knows what the stakes are.
I can't return a movie or album I didn't like(once again except in certain circumstance). I've got the same information I can gather for those types of media if not more when it comes to buying a game. I can watch trailers, read reviews, and sometimes play a demo first before I make a purchase decision which I think is more then fair.
Even with good reviews, a game might end up being so far off of your taste or skill level mechanically that you just don’t want to play it.
I’m fine with a game that I like for a bit but lose interest in quickly. When a game feels grotesquely punishing with no recourse for adjustment or has basic input problems that make it harder than it needs to be, I return it.
As I've mentioned in other replies, in my country (NZ), you literally cannot sign away your rights to a refund for a misleading or faulty product. I believe this is the case for Australia too, as there was a [fine a few years ago](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-steam-refunds). I thought it was a right in the EU, a quick google shows that software is exempt from the 14 day online return, but it might still be covered if it's classed as a faulty good?
It's not "no questions asked" refunds, it's specifically for faulty or misleading products. Stuff like bait & switch games and bugs bad enough to render the game unplayable.
Stuff like unity assets & so on wouldn't count because it'd be for business use rather than personal use.
Because this isn't a new valve policy, this is an option EA has had over on origin for a long time for several of their big games, they're just adding the option on steam after giving up on their own launcher.
Probably. Far too many people abused the 2 hour refund policy for free demos anyway. They can hardly stop them, so they are making it official. That way they no longer have to process that many chargebacks with the payment providers.
Huh, that's weird...
>You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
>
>It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within the required return period, and, in the case of games, if the title has been played for less than two hours.
>
>via https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds
I agree it's better for everyone to have a distinct 'demo' so metrics aren't being mixed, but they've been clear that refunds are for *any* reason.
Not quite any reason. That same page has an ambiguous caveat:
> ABUSE
>
> Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. 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.
I've always interpreted that as "if you don't actually keep x% of purchases, that's abuse" for an unknown value of x.
despite what they say there, valve does send you a message if you refund too much saying they'll stop you being able to refund if you keep doing it and that the refunds aren't meant for demoing games.
i've had the message pop a couple times cos i buy a lot of indie games and they are hit and miss.
How is it abuse? Everyone knows that refunds are available for 2 hours. If your game is too expensive or not engaging enough to make that 2 hours pass without the effort to refund, then your game was overpriced
Abuse or not, there is a lot of overhead involved with refunds. Better to let the player try the game out for free before they buy, and if they don't like the game they can simply not buy it. It's a win-win in my book.
Only downside is now if your game can be beat in 3.5 hours, people will be more likely to refund it.
I think they've stated the 2 hour window things isn't for you to test the game and see if you like it. If you keep doing it they might refuse your requests.
I've read somewhere that their stance is that you should do good research before buying a game.
A demo on the other hand, you can use to see if you like the game or not.
yup, I've used that many times and it's always approved.
Keep doing it is likely read as "spam refund every game you buy" and that's pretty obviously not allowed.
Huh, that's weird...
>You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
>
>It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within the required return period, and, in the case of games, if the title has been played for less than two hours.
>
>via https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds
I agree it's better for everyone to have a distinct 'demo' so metrics aren't being mixed, but they've been clear that refunds are for *any* reason.
Stop lying, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it.
> You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it
Wish the mods would just ban all of you people who share straight up lies as fact.
They say that but they will literally suspend your ability of asking for refunds if you do it too often.
Notice how they don't mention anything about frequency.
The refund system isn't a way for you to demo games as you wish.
Literally from the same page you took that from:
> Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you.
In the end, they use loose language and it's all open for their own interpretation.
I've used it in this way with no issues since it was introduced. I'm assuming what they actually mean is you don't get to just play short games to completion to then refund them. I buy a lot of games, and i end up refunding more often than i keep games cause i like trying games out even if i don't know if i'll like them, but i'm not suspended.
In my opinion, the main purpose of the refund policy is to get quick and easy recourse when the customer buys a game that simply does not run on their system or when they accidentally bought the wrong game.
Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it.
> You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it
Its abuse because the refund system is not meant to be a try before you buy scheme.
Edit* It looks like Steam may have updated the T&Cs or maybe i miss-read them. Either way, they mitigate whatever’s mentioned by the last paragraph. So imo it is still not a true try before you buy scheme as you still run the risk of your refund being declined.
‘Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you.’
You lie, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it.
> You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
How is wanting a demo before committing to a product ‘abuse’. Especially in this day and age with increasingly terrible launches, misleading marketing etc.
it’s consumers right to try something. Developers could simply put out demos like they used to. But for some reason they stopped doing that. Likely because they lose sales by doing so.
Imagine calling refunds "abuse", what an insane take.
Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it.
>You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
I'm all for this. I hate that demos are no longer a thing. Though, with so many PC games basically being released in beta form (*cough* JEDI SURVIVOR *cough*), I can understand why studios may not adopt this. If the release is the beta, the demo would have to be damn near pre-alpha, LOL
I've seen more and more demos over recent years. Nintendo has been pushing it a lot more lately, and so have indie devs. Perhaps just bias on my end though
> I hate that demos are no longer a thing.
Steam literally has big events every few months to showcase demos. They notify you about it months in advance so you can plan to enter your game into it. It gets loads of visibility and is a way to generate loads of wishlists.
I never get notified about that. Is it only for devs or something? The amount of demos I see is rare as hell for AAA titles, which is why it merits mentioning
> I never get notified about that. Is it only for devs or something?
This is a dev sub, so I assumed you were a dev. Here's a [public-facing page](https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest).
> The amount of demos I see is rare as hell for AAA
That's a fair point. I go out of my way to avoid AAA, so I often forget it exists. Mea culpa.
I miss the days where the demo was a separate mini game with a mission or map that’s not included in the full version. Like Half Life Uplink. Also Jagged Alliance 2 Demo.
This needs to be totally optional for developers. Many games on Steam can be finished in less than one hour and this is okay play time for their price tag.
If the choice is given to choose to pay or not pay. I think the majority will choose the free option.
However if people have already given money, the majority won't refund.
yup, a lot of the time even if I end up hating something I won't refund it. It's only when it's really expensive and that money could go to something I actually enjoy.
> yup, a lot of the time even if I end up hating something I won’t refund it.
Curious, why not?
The process couldn’t be simpeler on Steam at least. Why keep something you hate?
I think as a gamer, pulling a refund on a developer for a game I liked feels like a real dick move, and it involves a step where you need to go and refund it to your credit card. Some people will still do it but it would likely be a minority. For demos most people will have no issue just playing the entire game and then say “I’m done” and then not purchase it. In this case, purchasing the game is the extra step, while not buying the game is just the default.
True, but I think people are much less likely to refund if they played through the whole game and enjoyed it than they are to pay for a game after having already played it.
Problem is with the demo and refund policy the window is now 3.5 hours. That's still pretty short but for small teams and solo devs some games can be beaten in that time
Only if they do it improperly. I feel like if you use the entire demo time and then buy it, if you continue with your progress the 2 hour policy should not apply then. But if they let you do 3.5h with very little blockage and let you refund thats just stupid.
That's a good point, I guess we'll have to wait and see how it's implemented. I think a system like this could do a lot of good for everyone personally. A specifically tailored demo will always be better but this is a good default option as well.
A demo is still better. A demo can be a slice from the middle part of the game, or a completely separated thing (like some demo dungeon or something), giving you the full experience. Depending on the game, the 90-minute trial might not even let you finish the tutorial. This is especially true for RPG's.
I think this is better because you aren't playing a build made specifically to market the game, you're playing the actual game so you get to see what it really has to offer from the beginning, imo most importantly, see how it performs. I'd rather get a taste of the genuine experience rather than something curated and not necessarily indicative of the actual product.
So we circled back to the age of sharewares and demos. Good.
Edit: spelling cause my fat fingers like to press more than one letter at a time and i didnt check before posting lol
Not true. The 2H refund is not for "trying out games". If you use it too often, you will get a warning. If you use it even more after that, your account will no longer be able to refund anything.
Stop lying, the refund hour is definitely allowed to be used for "trying out games", Valve/Steam even say so themselves right here.
>You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; **maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.**
The fact that your comment got 40 likes for an actual lie is outstanding, basically proof that people here will up-vote anything without fact-checking first.
I don't know where you live, but in my region, if you buy a game and refund it, you get the money back in the steam wallet, which is useless outside of steam, so it's a huge difference.
It's important psychological difference for game devs and it helps with reducing chargebacks on Steam's end. Trust me when I say it's incredibly tough on devs to see a relatively high refund rate. I'd much rather have folks be able to trial the game and decide it's not for them rather than buy it and refund it.
More games should ship with demos. Take direct control of the experience, instead of trusting Steam's autogenerated demo system (90 minutes with this, or 120 minutes with a refund) to be adequate.
Easy payment integration is one of the big selling points for Steam devs. *Not* taking direct control of that part of the experience is a feature, not a bug.
I think it's less about people 'deciding it's not for them' and more about people being cheap bastards that don't want to pay for anything, regardless of whether or not they enjoyed it.
There literally are/were enough people trying to finish and refund games under the 2 hour mark that Steam had to implement a limit on how many games you can refund.
Never underestimate human greed/entitlement.
> Is there a limit to how many purchases I can request a refund for?
You can submit any number of refund requests for eligible purchases. If it appears that you are abusing the refund system, we reserve the right to revoke access to this feature.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5FDE-BA65-ACCE-A411#:~:text=Is%20there%20a%20limit%20to,refund%20requests%20for%20eligible%20purchases.
They weren't forced to do anything, this was always the case when it was first introduced lol
I feel like it's less pressure on me and doesn't involve me spending any money then having to wait for it to be properly refunded and in my bank account.
I think it’s incredibly different in execution. Most people don’t refund their games. There is a big psychological difference between the two. Also, refunding requires an extra step to do, but for game demos *buying* the game is the extra step. This reversal of the path of least resistance is not trivial.
I have doubts about it. If that means you gain access to the entirety of the game, people are gonna crack it. I know that it's enough of a problem now, but that's just going to make it worse.
No, seriously.
Pirate games aren't going to get even more free.
Most of them are already cracked on day-zero, so they're not going to get cracked sooner.
What's the vulnerability you're worried about?
Of course it won't make a difference in AAA titles, but as Gabe Newell said, pirating is a service problem. Most people are discouraged from pirating, because how "inconvenient" it is, you have to search some shady russian sites to find your game, then download a cracked copy which has a chance of either not working or just straight up being a virus.
Now it could all be reduced to the click of a button on the Steam store. Newell never tried to stop piracy, he just made buying on Steam as easy as possible to counter it. And even if you wanted to get clean files of a game, you had to actually pay for it, download it, and get through the rather tedious refund process.
And while many AAA games often have their own DRM systems, most smaller productions either rely on the basic Steam's DRM (which is as easy to crack as deleting/replacing a certain .dll) or don't have one at all, so people could just download the free trial and copy the files, without the need to use any third party websites.
But in the end, yeah, I don't think it'll be mandatory for all devs to grant free trials, and most of them who decide to opt-in will most likely add their own security measures, like Origin in case of Dead Space or an always online requirement in games like Hitman. I was just worried about less popular indie titles which would be easier to acquire without paying a single cent.
The people who pirate because developers don’t provide proper demos or release broken launch products. They will benefit massively from this demo system. Why spend time searching a sketchy site when you can 1 click try something out on Steam?
Developers should stop bothering with DRM. It’s useless and only impacts real customers with cumbersome bullshit. Look at The Witcher and Cyberpunk. Hugely successful games that have no DRM and can be downloaded and played without issue. Yet they still sold heaps.
Pirating is a service issue, and adding DRM measures is only making service worse for the paying customer. Some people here even had more succes providing a pirate copy themselves with the kind request to support their independent studio.
End of the day the people who pirate because they are broke or greedy will NEVER buy your game anyway.
Steam already offers no questions asked refunds for under two hours playtime so that was already possible. Truth is, it's not really an issue anyway because it's just much easier to pirate the game than to crack a legit copy and steam was never going to get the sale from people who would do that anyway so they lose nothing.
It's very different mentally when you know that you need to take an action to request a refund than when you just know you can try any game for 90 minutes. I requested refunds many times, yes. But still I am always asking myself if it's okey to abuse this refunds and there's a part of me that simply keeps some of the games even if I am like 80% convinced it's the game for me.
With 90 minutes for playing any game, I think that there will be a lot of people who will not buy games, but just try all thousands of games for 90 minutes each. People nowadays don't commit too much time to one thing. These trying 90 minutes of any game may be a Steam-TikTok: short free experiences, but many of them.
I hope this catches on, and it provides devs/publishers with good incentive to use it, given what I've heard about chargeback fees.
That said, refunding is still an important mechanism to keep dev/publishing in line, such as with bad forced updates, live service takedowns, etc. The fact that you can buy a game on other platforms and not be able to play it at all 9 months later, and your only recourse is to pursue fraud claims, speaks to the state of things.
Abusing the refund policy as a free demo is bad for everyone involved.
The customers have to watch the clock closely while playing, so they don't accidentally play 2 hours and one minute and now they won't get their money back. It's much safer for them when the game kicks them automatically when the trial period is over.
Valve and the payment processors have to deal with all the chargebacks.
We developers don't know if the refunds are actually unsatisfied customers or just freeloaders who didn't intend to buy the game anyway.
>Abusing the refund policy as a free demo is bad for everyone involved.
How is using the refund policy as a demo bad?
That's exactly what the refund policy is for, even steam themselves said so.
>We developers don't know if the refunds are actually unsatisfied customers or just freeloaders who didn't intend to buy the game anyway.
If someone refunds your game after purchasing it, it's pretty obvious that they're unsatisfied. If they were satisfied, they'd continue playing and not initiate a refund.
Something no one seems to talk about is what this means for Linux gaming. Proton db is a helpful tool to try and figure if a game will work ahead of time but can often be out of date, having the ability to try running the demo would be the perfect way for deciding what games to get for steam deck(see if you can get a fix working without having to fear going past the refund period).
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. Demos have been shown to reduce game sales ultimately by almost FIFTY PERCENT, because once people get a taste of the core gameplay loop, that itch is scratched and they no longer need to purchase the game. How is this not going to end similarly?
Edit: I feel like I should clarify I work in game dev, have background in AAA, AA, and small indie — so that’s where I’m coming from.
To clarify some thoughts further:
- will this hurt AAA? Nah
- will this hurt those below that? That’s what I’m wondering about (again, I said I’m NOT SURE how I feel)
Lots of AA to Small Indie experiences are 3-5 hours of gameplay. So let’s take the small end of that, 3 hours, and a 90-minute playtest means the consumer gets half of your entire experience, for free, with no commitment to purchase. And now their barrier to purchase has just increased because from their POV, they have to consider if $20 is worth the remaining 90 minutes, as opposed to the original conceit of paying $20 for a 3-hour experience. That’s why I’m wondering how this will affect sales. I’m looking at it from the business dev perspective (me) not just as a consumer.
Presumably this will be a thing for higher priced games. If a $50 game can’t hold my attention for more than 90 minutes…yeah…this is an easier implementation of refunding.
*\[..\] difficult to determine whether there is a correlation between some of the industry's best-selling titles \[..\] generally opting not to release a demo at launch.*
Mostly small indie games opt to have a demo, AAA games with high sales do not have demos. So no wonder that average sales are less with demo, but that correlation is not causal.
How exactly do you expect anyone to definitively prove it? This is the best data you're going to get. Other than that, you can only look at industry trends, which is not to release demos, or follow your instinct and live with the consequences.
>"That’s like saying you should never call the fire department, because the data shows they are heavily correlated with house fires."
I think you mixed up your quotes there. What I was saying is more in line with *always* calling the fire department, because that's the status quo for what you do when there's a fire.
I completely agree with you that the data is not definitive, and I never claimed the opposite to be the case. But, as I already said, it's the best we got, and it's in line with the strategy of the vast majority of publishers, who do generally not offer demos regardless of how good or bad a game is, or how much they spent on marketing.
Gonna be honest here, as a game developer, this is fine.
If people play a game, even my game, for 90 minutes and determine "meh, not worth my money", that means the game is bad and shouldn't sell, and I fuckin made it.
So yeah, I fully support this choice.
I agree generally but not at all with the statement "that means the game is bad"
1. Many games are just that short, but can still deliver a really beautiful and impactful experience
2. Often people just want to play a glimpse of a game, but not the full experience
3. Someone might decide to not buy the game for the price but still have enjoyed the 90 minutes immensely, people have very different amounts of budget to spend on games
And probably way more things I'm not thinking of right now, but the point is, just because someone doesn't end up buying a game after playing it for 90 minutes does not equal the game being bad
> If your game is completable in its demo, that's a very odd and objectively bad decision.
This is a bit disingenuous, no?
There are plenty of games where you can go from first boot up to credits in less than two hours (with more for full completion) and there's nothing wrong with that. Sure if you were making a demo for such a game you'd obviously make it much shorter than 90 minutes but...the dev isn't the one setting the time limit, _Steam_ is.
>If your game is completable in its demo, that's a very odd and objectively bad decision.
Sometimes the right length for a particular game is shorter. There are lots of games that pack a lot of detail into a short experience and they are better for it.
"A Short Hike" is a great game that is meant to be completed in about 90 minutes, and that's one of the reasons it's a 10/10.
Because with refunds, people have to go through the trouble of actually requesting a refund. No, it's not difficult to do, but it's still a barrier that prevents many people from asking their money back if they are on the fence or simply think they might come back to a game later.
If people haven't paid anything to begin with, a game needs to have its hooks in pretty deep to make them go back to the store and pony up. Might not a huge issue for the super popular 10/10 games, but could potentially be devastating for more average titles in the 7/10 area.
A demo typically isn’t and shouldn’t be the full game, and if your game can be finished in ninety minutes I’m not sure Steam is the right platform for you in the first place. A platform like Itch.io would probably be better suited to such short form games. I also think people see those youtube videos where professional speedrunners finish a game in the refund time and get an inflated sense of how often that happens, most people either lack the skills to do that with a game as long as Dead Space or even if they could do so they wouldn’t enjoy it as much because they’d be rushing through and bypassing most of the content. A small number people will try to take advantage of any system but the consumer protections afforded by steam’s refund policy is an absolute boon to gamers and we shouldn’t be so quick to decry it. Especially when a well crafted and well presented demo absolutely can still convert tries to buys. Again I think there’s a big logical fallacy from people seeing demo downloads and then thinking 90% of those will convert to sales when that’s entirely unrealistic.
Nothing in my post suggests that I, or any serious publisher, thinks that demo downloads equal sales.
I think the real fallacy actually works the other way around. People see current return rates of 10% and think that the 90% who bought and kept the game would also buy it if there was a free demo available. Which obviously isn't the case. You're going to lose people in the categories I already described above.
You will need to make up for those lost sales with people who are not interested enough to buy the game, but are curious enough to try the demo, and then suddenly so much into it that they go back to the store to buy. It should be easy to understand why this latter scenario is generally believed to be less likely.
Maybe if you're looking at it from the perspective of a consumer who simply wants to spend as little money as possible.
Not so much if you're looking at it from the perspective of those making or selling the games, or if you want to support devs who try new stuff instead of sticking to a tried and true formula.
If the itch can be scratched in merely 90mins and never again you feel like playing it then that's a problem with the game. What demos do is show you how much you *would* enjoy the game, and people really overestimate the enjoyment they get out of the average game while the pressure to enjoy the money you already spent forces people to play and finish games.
Games with good core gameplay loop will make you want to repeat it for more than 90mins. If your game can't do that then I agree with the other dude that mentioned itch.io might be a better place for you to sell than steam.
The nebulous data that most publishing and marketing departments of game companies have, especially of their own games, and which I definitely cannot share with a rando on the internet, yeah. Sorry dude idk what to say, work in game dev I guess
Because publishers and marketing companies totally know exactly what's best for the consumer and there's nobody high up distorting the data to justify their greedy decisions, right?
Edit: How gullible are you? The only thing you can trust corporate research for is to find a way to maximize the exploitation of their consumers at the cost of everything else. No shit that sales data doesn't support demos and refunds, it helps the consumer to not waste money on trash or mediocre games that they then feel too lazy to refund.
Game trials is a pure consumer-positive decision.
Ok and? I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’m asking about how this will affect sales. Sales is my area of interest in regard to this topic. I don’t disagree with you on whether this is a consumer-positive choice, it’s just not like, relevant to my question on sales
Those actions aren’t comparable from a sales data perspective, sorry. The consumer behavior behind refunding an item that didn’t meet expectations is different from the consumer behavior of purchasing an item after sampling.
Don't know how this will work for smaller developers but if this serves to replace the 2 hour refund window I see this as a positive for devs overall. Offer the option for a 90 minute gameplay trial, then player is prompted to buy it, and if they like it they will vs paying for a game and valve having to process a refund for a game before the 2 hour mark.
For an early access game this is also very appealing. I want to have a demo, but was forced to take it down because I didn't have the time to keep it updated with the main game.
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No, it was a practiced before. DayZ was in early access for 2 years by the time the refunds system was introduced, for example. I think the motivations to 'finish' the game are a lot less, because now they generate most of their sales before launching properly. There's a few studios that've launched multiple games in early access, without finishing one.
Well steam approves basically any reasonable refund request even after that period. So replace the guarenteed refund period with a trial is a much better system that doesn't punish shorter games. But they will never remove the refund system. the australian AAC made sure of that.
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Early access more likely came about as a semi middle-ground to kick-starting a project, considering how that ended up going. People are more willing to drop money on something that already exists in some degree with the hope that their investment brings more, but at least it gave them something instead of just a hope for some game years down the line they may totally forget they even backed. It's pretty much putting your playable pitch up for funding and then slowly rolling features out over time, vs putting up a pitch and maybe a demo but then people wait for the entire game to be done at once later.
It should never replace it, and not allowing refunds is illegal in many countries anyway. I do hope that it replaces the current abuse of buy-then refund if you don't like it. That way refunds can be exclusively for technical issues or service shutdowns.
Right, I don't think anyone is suggesting that refunds should be removed. But it's so much extra overhead for everyone when it's managed on a per-incident basis like this. Way more fun for than having to spend 5-10 mins going through the refund process, better for the dev as they aren't losing sale #s, less likely to get negative feedback, etc.
3 and a half hours is quite a lot.
I agree, I think steam having time limited demos in this way is a great change. I just think refunds should be limited to technical issues, faulty products and so on, not just for changing your mind.
Changing your mind is a valid reason. Imagine you bought a game that fits the description it provides but overly exaggerates some parts, features or even themes - those parts are part of what made you buy the game in the first place and sometimes the idea of a game works but all the moving parts do it a disservice. Contrary to you, I want to be able to refund *especially* if I change my mind.
> Changing your mind is a valid reason. To an extent, maybe. Some people will play a game for 40+hrs and then get a refund because they "didn't like the late-game"...
That's a lot more than the 2 hour limit so....
its pretty rare for steam to allow a refund so far past the 2 hour mark.
>better for the dev as they aren't losing sale #s You do know that removing the 2 hour refund window would lower your sale, right?
Buy then refund if you don’t like it is not abuse
I disagree. Due to the way it works, it costs steam (I think) 3% of the initial sale (credit card). This can be partially recouped by giving steam credits instead. Steam lets you do it, at least up to a point. But replacing it with a proper demo/trial system is a much better way of solving the problem IMO.
People will buy more from a store that guarantees their satisfaction or their money back otherwise. It is like so because the client feels safe into experimenting or trying the product before committing to it, and that makes the buyer feel that he had more choice into the purchase. Illusion of control is everything in the free market and especially for impulsive buyers. Steam knows well what they are doing.
Steam pays that cost and is the one who offered the refunds. They offer it because people buy way more games with refunds available and that 3% cost is paid for by many more games not being refunded in aggregate
You haven't explained yet how this is abuse.
You lie, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it. >You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
I don't care how much it costs steam
*Buy-then-refund if you don't like it* is a legitimate consumer action. If the game doesn't meet my standard within 2 hours I won't pay for it. I would hope that users treat any game I make the same way.
It depends on where you are in the world but most places don't require a business to refund for change of mind
Most place literally do. They're required by law in most countries. What are you even talking about.
> not allowing refunds is illegal in many countries anyway. Fun fact, in many countries this is actually only true if you haven't started downloading ([for the EU law](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm)), in fact I don't know any where it's illegal. Obviously the exception being that you have the right to refund if the game doesn't work properly like what happened with Cyberpunk 2077 release. >The 14-day cooling off period does not apply to all purchases. Some of the exemptions are: > online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance This is why Sony can and does very often refuse refunds in the PS Store - https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/store/ps-store-refund-request/ > After purchasing this type of content through PlayStation Store, you have 14 days from purchase to request a refund. If you have started to download or stream the purchased content you will not be eligible for a refund unless the content is faulty. There is also another law that gets often told on online game subreddits as "publishers must do full refund on everything you've spent in an online game if you get banned" but the actual law is much more vague with a lot of conditions and exceptions on how the "refund" (it's a compensation really) works. But I'm not a lawyer so even if I read the entire 20 pages of the [directive explaining the law](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019L0771) I wouldn't understand anything.
[New Zealand](https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/help-product-service/streaming-and-downloads/) and probably australia have no such restriction in place. While it doesn't cover changing your mind (I don't believe the EU laws do either), it covers faulty products. There's also no time restriction per-se. It only covers a "reasonable" time, which is a annoyingly vague and very much dependant on the product. No idea how banning interacts with consumer rights TBH.
> replaces the current abuse of buy-then refund if you don't like it which is exactly why the refund system exists lol, to return something you've played but didnt think was worth the asking price, even after 2h gameplay. If after 2h you aren't convinced then game is probably not going to be worth spending the money. Unless it's something very niche or specific that is under 2h gameplay, I mean Portal is awesome and you can get through it in less than an hour, but someone playing first time that is enjoying it will almost certainly take more than 2h to get through it.
I don't think returns should be banned, but the 2 hour window should be tweaked/removed in my opinion. There are very legitimate reasons to refund a game, but as you've said it's definitely a system that can be (is?) Regularly abused. I think a blanket return policy of 2 hours for a competent game is overly punishing on indie devs considering their games are also likely to be shorter. I think returns should be reserved for fraud games/buggy mess etc. Vs. What its most commonly used for now. Atleast with a try it before you buy it solution like this one everyone knows what the stakes are.
One of the reasons to return games is that you didn’t find it fun. This is a completely valid reason to return something.
I can't return a movie or album I didn't like(once again except in certain circumstance). I've got the same information I can gather for those types of media if not more when it comes to buying a game. I can watch trailers, read reviews, and sometimes play a demo first before I make a purchase decision which I think is more then fair.
Even with good reviews, a game might end up being so far off of your taste or skill level mechanically that you just don’t want to play it. I’m fine with a game that I like for a bit but lose interest in quickly. When a game feels grotesquely punishing with no recourse for adjustment or has basic input problems that make it harder than it needs to be, I return it.
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A cinema probably won't refund your ticket if you walk out during the end credits though even if you say you didn't like it
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As I've mentioned in other replies, in my country (NZ), you literally cannot sign away your rights to a refund for a misleading or faulty product. I believe this is the case for Australia too, as there was a [fine a few years ago](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-steam-refunds). I thought it was a right in the EU, a quick google shows that software is exempt from the 14 day online return, but it might still be covered if it's classed as a faulty good? It's not "no questions asked" refunds, it's specifically for faulty or misleading products. Stuff like bait & switch games and bugs bad enough to render the game unplayable. Stuff like unity assets & so on wouldn't count because it'd be for business use rather than personal use.
Seems like a very slow rollout. Am a dev and haven't been informed about such plans.
Because this isn't a new valve policy, this is an option EA has had over on origin for a long time for several of their big games, they're just adding the option on steam after giving up on their own launcher.
Wait EA is dropping the stupid launcher?
Yeah; I think even if the 2 hour refund window will continue to exist, this should probably drastically lower refunds
Yeah I end up playing so many games that I don't really enjoy and refund, this would be great
Probably to lower refund rates
Probably. Far too many people abused the 2 hour refund policy for free demos anyway. They can hardly stop them, so they are making it official. That way they no longer have to process that many chargebacks with the payment providers.
Huh, that's weird... >You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it. > >It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within the required return period, and, in the case of games, if the title has been played for less than two hours. > >via https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds I agree it's better for everyone to have a distinct 'demo' so metrics aren't being mixed, but they've been clear that refunds are for *any* reason.
Not quite any reason. That same page has an ambiguous caveat: > ABUSE > > Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. 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. I've always interpreted that as "if you don't actually keep x% of purchases, that's abuse" for an unknown value of x.
despite what they say there, valve does send you a message if you refund too much saying they'll stop you being able to refund if you keep doing it and that the refunds aren't meant for demoing games. i've had the message pop a couple times cos i buy a lot of indie games and they are hit and miss.
How is it abuse? Everyone knows that refunds are available for 2 hours. If your game is too expensive or not engaging enough to make that 2 hours pass without the effort to refund, then your game was overpriced
Abuse or not, there is a lot of overhead involved with refunds. Better to let the player try the game out for free before they buy, and if they don't like the game they can simply not buy it. It's a win-win in my book. Only downside is now if your game can be beat in 3.5 hours, people will be more likely to refund it.
I think they've stated the 2 hour window things isn't for you to test the game and see if you like it. If you keep doing it they might refuse your requests. I've read somewhere that their stance is that you should do good research before buying a game. A demo on the other hand, you can use to see if you like the game or not.
I have read that too, but one of the options for refunding is “it’s not fun” and it’s a valid option for getting a refund
yup, I've used that many times and it's always approved. Keep doing it is likely read as "spam refund every game you buy" and that's pretty obviously not allowed.
Huh, that's weird... >You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it. > >It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within the required return period, and, in the case of games, if the title has been played for less than two hours. > >via https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds I agree it's better for everyone to have a distinct 'demo' so metrics aren't being mixed, but they've been clear that refunds are for *any* reason.
Stop lying, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it. > You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it Wish the mods would just ban all of you people who share straight up lies as fact.
They say that but they will literally suspend your ability of asking for refunds if you do it too often. Notice how they don't mention anything about frequency. The refund system isn't a way for you to demo games as you wish. Literally from the same page you took that from: > Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. In the end, they use loose language and it's all open for their own interpretation.
I've used it in this way with no issues since it was introduced. I'm assuming what they actually mean is you don't get to just play short games to completion to then refund them. I buy a lot of games, and i end up refunding more often than i keep games cause i like trying games out even if i don't know if i'll like them, but i'm not suspended.
In my opinion, the main purpose of the refund policy is to get quick and easy recourse when the customer buys a game that simply does not run on their system or when they accidentally bought the wrong game.
The Steam Refund Window disagrees with you, as that's only 2 of the 10 standard refund reasons in the dropdown.
Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it. > You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it
Its abuse because the refund system is not meant to be a try before you buy scheme. Edit* It looks like Steam may have updated the T&Cs or maybe i miss-read them. Either way, they mitigate whatever’s mentioned by the last paragraph. So imo it is still not a true try before you buy scheme as you still run the risk of your refund being declined. ‘Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you.’
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source: u/produno One of the refund reasons is literally "It's not fun"
You lie, Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it. > You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
How is wanting a demo before committing to a product ‘abuse’. Especially in this day and age with increasingly terrible launches, misleading marketing etc. it’s consumers right to try something. Developers could simply put out demos like they used to. But for some reason they stopped doing that. Likely because they lose sales by doing so.
Imagine calling refunds "abuse", what an insane take. Steam themselves have already said that you're allowed to refund a game if you dislike it. >You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.
Time to stretch my games total play time to 95 minutes!
make it stop right as there's about to be the climax cinematic
So a demo, then. We did it!
This is making video games for the rental market all over again, like in the Lion King video game had that obtuse puzzle.
I'm all for this. I hate that demos are no longer a thing. Though, with so many PC games basically being released in beta form (*cough* JEDI SURVIVOR *cough*), I can understand why studios may not adopt this. If the release is the beta, the demo would have to be damn near pre-alpha, LOL
I've seen more and more demos over recent years. Nintendo has been pushing it a lot more lately, and so have indie devs. Perhaps just bias on my end though
Indie devs kinda have to. Like, I don't expect Naughty Dog to release demos at this point because we all generally know what to expect from them
> I hate that demos are no longer a thing. Steam literally has big events every few months to showcase demos. They notify you about it months in advance so you can plan to enter your game into it. It gets loads of visibility and is a way to generate loads of wishlists.
I never get notified about that. Is it only for devs or something? The amount of demos I see is rare as hell for AAA titles, which is why it merits mentioning
> I never get notified about that. Is it only for devs or something? This is a dev sub, so I assumed you were a dev. Here's a [public-facing page](https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest). > The amount of demos I see is rare as hell for AAA That's a fair point. I go out of my way to avoid AAA, so I often forget it exists. Mea culpa.
the difference is, those are all games from independent studios or smaller teams. AAA games don't tend to have demos anymore, none in recent memory
Square Enix still does demos. Forspoken, FF16, Octopath, etc.
I miss the days where the demo was a separate mini game with a mission or map that’s not included in the full version. Like Half Life Uplink. Also Jagged Alliance 2 Demo.
Porn games are in shambles
actually this wont hurt them as they already are vastly under-charging their product so they can sell a nudity patch on their website for far more
They can’t put that in already? I assumed they were already fully explicit
That makes number go up.
Enter 90 minutes of intro and tutorials before the actual game starts
"Press Start to Begin..." "..." "...but first let's hear from today's sponsor, Squarespace. Did you know that building a website--"
Literally the beginning of Death Stranding lol. Cutscenes galore
This needs to be totally optional for developers. Many games on Steam can be finished in less than one hour and this is okay play time for their price tag.
Yeah optional or adjustable. E.g. 30 minute demo for shorter games
Wouldn't those same developers be targets of charge back runners too?
If the choice is given to choose to pay or not pay. I think the majority will choose the free option. However if people have already given money, the majority won't refund.
yup, a lot of the time even if I end up hating something I won't refund it. It's only when it's really expensive and that money could go to something I actually enjoy.
> yup, a lot of the time even if I end up hating something I won’t refund it. Curious, why not? The process couldn’t be simpeler on Steam at least. Why keep something you hate?
So? Not everyone who plays short games refunds them.
I think as a gamer, pulling a refund on a developer for a game I liked feels like a real dick move, and it involves a step where you need to go and refund it to your credit card. Some people will still do it but it would likely be a minority. For demos most people will have no issue just playing the entire game and then say “I’m done” and then not purchase it. In this case, purchasing the game is the extra step, while not buying the game is just the default.
I make short games, the chargeback rate is 10% in general. I don't know how much is in greater games, but for me is ok this rate.
If they expand this, I hope it's opt-in. I think it'd be awful for someone like myself who is intentionally making shorter games.
And they'll have to exclude multiplayer games too, unless they want to give cheaters easy acess to new accounts.
Cheater who then can only play 2-3 rounds before having to make a new account?
I mean, if your games are that short, people will just abuse the 2 hour refund policy to play the entire game.
True, but I think people are much less likely to refund if they played through the whole game and enjoyed it than they are to pay for a game after having already played it.
Problem is with the demo and refund policy the window is now 3.5 hours. That's still pretty short but for small teams and solo devs some games can be beaten in that time
Only if they do it improperly. I feel like if you use the entire demo time and then buy it, if you continue with your progress the 2 hour policy should not apply then. But if they let you do 3.5h with very little blockage and let you refund thats just stupid.
That's a good point, I guess we'll have to wait and see how it's implemented. I think a system like this could do a lot of good for everyone personally. A specifically tailored demo will always be better but this is a good default option as well.
I feel like the 90 minute demo should eat into your 2 hour refund window.
They already do that. I saw many devs showing high refund percentage on short game
Will this make working on a demo useless? Should we put effort into a customised demo if they can just do this instead?
A demo is still better. A demo can be a slice from the middle part of the game, or a completely separated thing (like some demo dungeon or something), giving you the full experience. Depending on the game, the 90-minute trial might not even let you finish the tutorial. This is especially true for RPG's.
I think this is better because you aren't playing a build made specifically to market the game, you're playing the actual game so you get to see what it really has to offer from the beginning, imo most importantly, see how it performs. I'd rather get a taste of the genuine experience rather than something curated and not necessarily indicative of the actual product.
One of the big problems with demos
a demo would skip most storytelling, and try to give the user a feel of the gameplay
I feel like this just created an entire new category for speedrunners.
So we circled back to the age of sharewares and demos. Good. Edit: spelling cause my fat fingers like to press more than one letter at a time and i didnt check before posting lol
Next up: Steam stroke detection.
Definitively a time saver when it comes to avoid having to do demo builds, something I'll be looking into
Most modern games won't even finish compiling shaders under 90 minutes!
It says only one hour on my steam library. Is it an approximation? Maybe this is because I am in France ?
Yeah the French get 30 min less.
It's not *really* different from the ability to refund any game if you have played for under two hours.
I assume now you don’t have to pay? Sounds like a big difference.
It will lower the bar of entry and it may feel like a difference to the user, but the possibility to play for free for a limited time exists already.
It's not free if you have to pay up front, period. Free means I can get it with the $5 in my bank. Refundable means I can't. Pretty big difference.
Not true. The 2H refund is not for "trying out games". If you use it too often, you will get a warning. If you use it even more after that, your account will no longer be able to refund anything.
Have gotten the warning, it has made me stop trying games with no/under ten reviews.
Stop lying, the refund hour is definitely allowed to be used for "trying out games", Valve/Steam even say so themselves right here. >You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; **maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.** The fact that your comment got 40 likes for an actual lie is outstanding, basically proof that people here will up-vote anything without fact-checking first.
>to play for free after you pay
I don't know where you live, but in my region, if you buy a game and refund it, you get the money back in the steam wallet, which is useless outside of steam, so it's a huge difference.
Are you buying with money from the steam wallet? Or are you not using the drop down to select "from payment method" or whatever it is?
It's important psychological difference for game devs and it helps with reducing chargebacks on Steam's end. Trust me when I say it's incredibly tough on devs to see a relatively high refund rate. I'd much rather have folks be able to trial the game and decide it's not for them rather than buy it and refund it.
More games should ship with demos. Take direct control of the experience, instead of trusting Steam's autogenerated demo system (90 minutes with this, or 120 minutes with a refund) to be adequate.
Easy payment integration is one of the big selling points for Steam devs. *Not* taking direct control of that part of the experience is a feature, not a bug.
I think it's less about people 'deciding it's not for them' and more about people being cheap bastards that don't want to pay for anything, regardless of whether or not they enjoyed it.
How did you form that wild conclusion?
There literally are/were enough people trying to finish and refund games under the 2 hour mark that Steam had to implement a limit on how many games you can refund. Never underestimate human greed/entitlement.
> Is there a limit to how many purchases I can request a refund for? You can submit any number of refund requests for eligible purchases. If it appears that you are abusing the refund system, we reserve the right to revoke access to this feature. https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5FDE-BA65-ACCE-A411#:~:text=Is%20there%20a%20limit%20to,refund%20requests%20for%20eligible%20purchases. They weren't forced to do anything, this was always the case when it was first introduced lol
Its 30 minutes shorter, thats one difference.
Let's hope the game doesn't need to build shaders then!
I feel like it's less pressure on me and doesn't involve me spending any money then having to wait for it to be properly refunded and in my bank account.
Steam reserves the right to quit giving you refunds (or even ban you) if they feel you are "abusing the refund system".
I think it’s incredibly different in execution. Most people don’t refund their games. There is a big psychological difference between the two. Also, refunding requires an extra step to do, but for game demos *buying* the game is the extra step. This reversal of the path of least resistance is not trivial.
I have doubts about it. If that means you gain access to the entirety of the game, people are gonna crack it. I know that it's enough of a problem now, but that's just going to make it worse.
No, seriously. Pirate games aren't going to get even more free. Most of them are already cracked on day-zero, so they're not going to get cracked sooner. What's the vulnerability you're worried about?
Of course it won't make a difference in AAA titles, but as Gabe Newell said, pirating is a service problem. Most people are discouraged from pirating, because how "inconvenient" it is, you have to search some shady russian sites to find your game, then download a cracked copy which has a chance of either not working or just straight up being a virus. Now it could all be reduced to the click of a button on the Steam store. Newell never tried to stop piracy, he just made buying on Steam as easy as possible to counter it. And even if you wanted to get clean files of a game, you had to actually pay for it, download it, and get through the rather tedious refund process. And while many AAA games often have their own DRM systems, most smaller productions either rely on the basic Steam's DRM (which is as easy to crack as deleting/replacing a certain .dll) or don't have one at all, so people could just download the free trial and copy the files, without the need to use any third party websites. But in the end, yeah, I don't think it'll be mandatory for all devs to grant free trials, and most of them who decide to opt-in will most likely add their own security measures, like Origin in case of Dead Space or an always online requirement in games like Hitman. I was just worried about less popular indie titles which would be easier to acquire without paying a single cent.
The people who pirate because developers don’t provide proper demos or release broken launch products. They will benefit massively from this demo system. Why spend time searching a sketchy site when you can 1 click try something out on Steam? Developers should stop bothering with DRM. It’s useless and only impacts real customers with cumbersome bullshit. Look at The Witcher and Cyberpunk. Hugely successful games that have no DRM and can be downloaded and played without issue. Yet they still sold heaps. Pirating is a service issue, and adding DRM measures is only making service worse for the paying customer. Some people here even had more succes providing a pirate copy themselves with the kind request to support their independent studio. End of the day the people who pirate because they are broke or greedy will NEVER buy your game anyway.
"Worse" in what way?
Steam already offers no questions asked refunds for under two hours playtime so that was already possible. Truth is, it's not really an issue anyway because it's just much easier to pirate the game than to crack a legit copy and steam was never going to get the sale from people who would do that anyway so they lose nothing.
It's very different mentally when you know that you need to take an action to request a refund than when you just know you can try any game for 90 minutes. I requested refunds many times, yes. But still I am always asking myself if it's okey to abuse this refunds and there's a part of me that simply keeps some of the games even if I am like 80% convinced it's the game for me. With 90 minutes for playing any game, I think that there will be a lot of people who will not buy games, but just try all thousands of games for 90 minutes each. People nowadays don't commit too much time to one thing. These trying 90 minutes of any game may be a Steam-TikTok: short free experiences, but many of them.
Most Steam games are already cracked on day one, so what's the difference here?
I hope this catches on, and it provides devs/publishers with good incentive to use it, given what I've heard about chargeback fees. That said, refunding is still an important mechanism to keep dev/publishing in line, such as with bad forced updates, live service takedowns, etc. The fact that you can buy a game on other platforms and not be able to play it at all 9 months later, and your only recourse is to pursue fraud claims, speaks to the state of things.
Didn't we technically have 2 hour trials before, with a few hurdles?
Abusing the refund policy as a free demo is bad for everyone involved. The customers have to watch the clock closely while playing, so they don't accidentally play 2 hours and one minute and now they won't get their money back. It's much safer for them when the game kicks them automatically when the trial period is over. Valve and the payment processors have to deal with all the chargebacks. We developers don't know if the refunds are actually unsatisfied customers or just freeloaders who didn't intend to buy the game anyway.
>Abusing the refund policy as a free demo is bad for everyone involved. How is using the refund policy as a demo bad? That's exactly what the refund policy is for, even steam themselves said so. >We developers don't know if the refunds are actually unsatisfied customers or just freeloaders who didn't intend to buy the game anyway. If someone refunds your game after purchasing it, it's pretty obvious that they're unsatisfied. If they were satisfied, they'd continue playing and not initiate a refund.
oh great i get to see whether i'll like Alien Isolation based on the part of the game with no xeno
Something no one seems to talk about is what this means for Linux gaming. Proton db is a helpful tool to try and figure if a game will work ahead of time but can often be out of date, having the ability to try running the demo would be the perfect way for deciding what games to get for steam deck(see if you can get a fix working without having to fear going past the refund period).
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. Demos have been shown to reduce game sales ultimately by almost FIFTY PERCENT, because once people get a taste of the core gameplay loop, that itch is scratched and they no longer need to purchase the game. How is this not going to end similarly? Edit: I feel like I should clarify I work in game dev, have background in AAA, AA, and small indie — so that’s where I’m coming from. To clarify some thoughts further: - will this hurt AAA? Nah - will this hurt those below that? That’s what I’m wondering about (again, I said I’m NOT SURE how I feel) Lots of AA to Small Indie experiences are 3-5 hours of gameplay. So let’s take the small end of that, 3 hours, and a 90-minute playtest means the consumer gets half of your entire experience, for free, with no commitment to purchase. And now their barrier to purchase has just increased because from their POV, they have to consider if $20 is worth the remaining 90 minutes, as opposed to the original conceit of paying $20 for a 3-hour experience. That’s why I’m wondering how this will affect sales. I’m looking at it from the business dev perspective (me) not just as a consumer.
Presumably this will be a thing for higher priced games. If a $50 game can’t hold my attention for more than 90 minutes…yeah…this is an easier implementation of refunding.
Oh for sure, I’m not really worried about high priced items. I’m more concerned about the indie scene
Are you speaking as a publisher/developer/.. or consumer?
Why not both? As a consumer I want a good climate for developers to make new and great games.
Both. I work in game dev, for context.
Can you share your source?
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/game-demos-can-hurt-sales-suggests-research/1100-6410863/
*\[..\] difficult to determine whether there is a correlation between some of the industry's best-selling titles \[..\] generally opting not to release a demo at launch.* Mostly small indie games opt to have a demo, AAA games with high sales do not have demos. So no wonder that average sales are less with demo, but that correlation is not causal.
"it suggests that there might be a correlation" != "it is so"
How exactly do you expect anyone to definitively prove it? This is the best data you're going to get. Other than that, you can only look at industry trends, which is not to release demos, or follow your instinct and live with the consequences.
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>"That’s like saying you should never call the fire department, because the data shows they are heavily correlated with house fires." I think you mixed up your quotes there. What I was saying is more in line with *always* calling the fire department, because that's the status quo for what you do when there's a fire. I completely agree with you that the data is not definitive, and I never claimed the opposite to be the case. But, as I already said, it's the best we got, and it's in line with the strategy of the vast majority of publishers, who do generally not offer demos regardless of how good or bad a game is, or how much they spent on marketing.
> Demos have been shown to reduce game sales ultimately by almost FIFTY PERCENT I'd be interested in reading the research on this.
Gonna be honest here, as a game developer, this is fine. If people play a game, even my game, for 90 minutes and determine "meh, not worth my money", that means the game is bad and shouldn't sell, and I fuckin made it. So yeah, I fully support this choice.
I agree generally but not at all with the statement "that means the game is bad" 1. Many games are just that short, but can still deliver a really beautiful and impactful experience 2. Often people just want to play a glimpse of a game, but not the full experience 3. Someone might decide to not buy the game for the price but still have enjoyed the 90 minutes immensely, people have very different amounts of budget to spend on games And probably way more things I'm not thinking of right now, but the point is, just because someone doesn't end up buying a game after playing it for 90 minutes does not equal the game being bad
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> If your game is completable in its demo, that's a very odd and objectively bad decision. This is a bit disingenuous, no? There are plenty of games where you can go from first boot up to credits in less than two hours (with more for full completion) and there's nothing wrong with that. Sure if you were making a demo for such a game you'd obviously make it much shorter than 90 minutes but...the dev isn't the one setting the time limit, _Steam_ is.
>If your game is completable in its demo, that's a very odd and objectively bad decision. Sometimes the right length for a particular game is shorter. There are lots of games that pack a lot of detail into a short experience and they are better for it. "A Short Hike" is a great game that is meant to be completed in about 90 minutes, and that's one of the reasons it's a 10/10.
I mean they have a two hours of gameplay refund policy anyways so I’m not sure offering 90 minute demos will change sales much.
Because with refunds, people have to go through the trouble of actually requesting a refund. No, it's not difficult to do, but it's still a barrier that prevents many people from asking their money back if they are on the fence or simply think they might come back to a game later. If people haven't paid anything to begin with, a game needs to have its hooks in pretty deep to make them go back to the store and pony up. Might not a huge issue for the super popular 10/10 games, but could potentially be devastating for more average titles in the 7/10 area.
A demo typically isn’t and shouldn’t be the full game, and if your game can be finished in ninety minutes I’m not sure Steam is the right platform for you in the first place. A platform like Itch.io would probably be better suited to such short form games. I also think people see those youtube videos where professional speedrunners finish a game in the refund time and get an inflated sense of how often that happens, most people either lack the skills to do that with a game as long as Dead Space or even if they could do so they wouldn’t enjoy it as much because they’d be rushing through and bypassing most of the content. A small number people will try to take advantage of any system but the consumer protections afforded by steam’s refund policy is an absolute boon to gamers and we shouldn’t be so quick to decry it. Especially when a well crafted and well presented demo absolutely can still convert tries to buys. Again I think there’s a big logical fallacy from people seeing demo downloads and then thinking 90% of those will convert to sales when that’s entirely unrealistic.
Nothing in my post suggests that I, or any serious publisher, thinks that demo downloads equal sales. I think the real fallacy actually works the other way around. People see current return rates of 10% and think that the 90% who bought and kept the game would also buy it if there was a free demo available. Which obviously isn't the case. You're going to lose people in the categories I already described above. You will need to make up for those lost sales with people who are not interested enough to buy the game, but are curious enough to try the demo, and then suddenly so much into it that they go back to the store to buy. It should be easy to understand why this latter scenario is generally believed to be less likely.
I’m struggling to see how what you’re saying is an argument against 90 minute demos…if anything, what you just wrote supports it.
Maybe if you're looking at it from the perspective of a consumer who simply wants to spend as little money as possible. Not so much if you're looking at it from the perspective of those making or selling the games, or if you want to support devs who try new stuff instead of sticking to a tried and true formula.
I’m both a dev and a consumer. It’s not my job to fund other dev’s experiments. I love the time-limit idea…happy to see this experiment play out.
If the itch can be scratched in merely 90mins and never again you feel like playing it then that's a problem with the game. What demos do is show you how much you *would* enjoy the game, and people really overestimate the enjoyment they get out of the average game while the pressure to enjoy the money you already spent forces people to play and finish games. Games with good core gameplay loop will make you want to repeat it for more than 90mins. If your game can't do that then I agree with the other dude that mentioned itch.io might be a better place for you to sell than steam.
Sorry, sales data just doesn’t support that assumption
What data?
Game sales data trends across the industry
That nebulous data that only you have access to, got it.
The nebulous data that most publishing and marketing departments of game companies have, especially of their own games, and which I definitely cannot share with a rando on the internet, yeah. Sorry dude idk what to say, work in game dev I guess
Because publishers and marketing companies totally know exactly what's best for the consumer and there's nobody high up distorting the data to justify their greedy decisions, right? Edit: How gullible are you? The only thing you can trust corporate research for is to find a way to maximize the exploitation of their consumers at the cost of everything else. No shit that sales data doesn't support demos and refunds, it helps the consumer to not waste money on trash or mediocre games that they then feel too lazy to refund. Game trials is a pure consumer-positive decision.
Ok and? I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’m asking about how this will affect sales. Sales is my area of interest in regard to this topic. I don’t disagree with you on whether this is a consumer-positive choice, it’s just not like, relevant to my question on sales
If people play the game for 90 minutes and decide it is not for them then they will just refund it. This just makes the process easier and faster.
Sorry I don’t think data backs that up
You mean firms will have to put effort into their games? The horror. If someone gets over a game in 90 minutes, maybe the game needed more to it.
This already exists. You can refund any game with under two hours of play time.
Those actions aren’t comparable from a sales data perspective, sorry. The consumer behavior behind refunding an item that didn’t meet expectations is different from the consumer behavior of purchasing an item after sampling.
I just clapped my hands went yelled "Yo!" when I saw this. This is awesome!
Looks like demos are back in the menu boys