This is all assuming valve wants to put actual people in to read over, regulate, and manage all refunds manually, which, it's valve, so they won't.
[QUOTE=redBadger;51025517]This is all assuming valve wants to put actual people in to read over, regulate, and manage all refunds manually, which, it's valve, so they won't.[/QUOTE]
Isn't that how it's handled currently? iirc anyway
[editline]9th September 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;51025522]Just raise the automatic cut off to a day. Whilst it can be abused iirc the system doesn't let you refund a lot of games within a very short time spam.[/QUOTE]
that wouldn't work for games that are too big to download in one day
[QUOTE=Mining Bill;51025939]Isn't that how it's handled currently? iirc anyway
[editline]9th September 2016[/editline]
that wouldn't work for games that are too big to download in one day[/QUOTE]
day after first play
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;51025982]I meant play time.
24 hours of game time is a lot of time.[/QUOTE]
I agree on principle but 24 hours is more than enough to finish most games, and theres a not insignificant amount of people who might scumbag the system
How about remove the time limit if the game gets a certain percentage of negative reviews that have genuine criticism?
[QUOTE=DEMONSKUL;51026168]How about remove the time limit if the game gets a certain percentage of negative reviews that have genuine criticism?[/QUOTE]
But how do you determine genuine criticism through an automated system? Because doing it manually would probably result in the same situation we're in due to the vast library Steam has. And if it is an automated system, what is to stop people from gaming the system to remove the time limit?
There's a manual system already in place for refunding games if you have a valid reason and you're past the automated cutoff. It works well enough.
Unlike GoG, valve has [I]zero[/I] interest in manually curating their library or offering more than the absolute minimum of quality control and support. It's not really in their interests, given that they like showing off a large selection of available products and having new content constantly on display. Everything they've done so far points toward that.
Tarmack is right, a switch to a 30-day policy would be a paradigm shift. Steam is simply too big for a change like that to go along smoothly, if at all. He talks about a "short period of a couple months where there'd be a spike in refunds" and he's absolutely right, but these aren't matresses, they're games. The bulk of lifetime sales come in the first few weeks, so Valve would put an entire month or two of releases at risk of not being profitable. Devs, bad and good, big and small, would lose their shit.
If there was a way to scale refund time according to the total expected playtime (for first playthrough), then that'd be optimal.
A faulty example would be gathering data on playtimes for when people achieve a game's end-game achievement, and use an average of that playtime across hundreds/thousands of players to get an acceptable refund time for that specific game. Until enough data is gathered, the refund time will remain at the default 2 hours.
It's faulty because it's easily abuseable, would make developers discouraged towards creating such end-game achievements, etc etc. But a better system that would work on the same principle could be the solution.
[QUOTE=mrkaki;51028593]If there was a way to scale refund time according to the total expected playtime (for first playthrough), then that'd be optimal.
A faulty example would be gathering data on playtimes for when people achieve a game's end-game achievement, and use an average of that playtime across hundreds/thousands of players to get an acceptable refund time for that specific game. Until enough data is gathered, the refund time will remain at the default 2 hours.
It's faulty because it's easily abuseable, would make developers discouraged towards creating such end-game achievements, etc etc. But a better system that would work on the same principle could be the solution.[/QUOTE]
Even then, who gets to decide the arbitrary amount of time that a game should be played and is acceptable for refund? Who gets to decide why half or a quarter of the total expected playtime is the reasonable cut-off for a refund? What about games that have interesting content in the beginning but drag off half way through with super repetitiveness? What about games that start very slow but have a great amount of content in the second half of the game? I kind of get what you're saying but at the same time I'm not sure how these arbitrary cut-off times are decided and if they're still a good idea
[QUOTE=latin_geek;51026583]
Unlike GoG, valve has [I]zero[/I] interest in manually curating their library or offering more than the absolute minimum of quality control and support.
[/QUOTE]
They did, see hatred. Before valve opened the floodgates everyone was complaining that getting on steam was too hard and how valve shouldn't be able to choose what games are sold on steam.
[QUOTE=themooselord;51029081]Before valve opened the floodgates everyone was complaining that getting on steam was too hard and how valve shouldn't be able to choose what games are sold on steam.[/QUOTE]
To be honest that was when everyone believed in crowdfunding and early access, only to later realize that it leads to game devs slacking off or even running away with the money
If within 2 hours a game fails to grab you or give any enjoyment then it's pretty valid to base a refund on that
Barring games with big unskippable cutscenes 2 hours are more than enough to determine if you like a game or not. Personally I don't see an issue with the current system. A day should be more than enough to do that.
[QUOTE=mchapra;51029249]If within 2 hours a game fails to grab you or give any enjoyment then it's pretty valid to base a refund on that
Barring games with big unskippable cutscenes 2 hours are more than enough to determine if you like a game or not. Personally I don't see an issue with the current system. A day should be more than enough to do that.[/QUOTE]
There's about a dozen reasons why it might not be. Just a few examples:
In the case of story focused games they might end up completely dropping the ball at some point later on. Some gameplay focused games can also end up completely falling apart, and a lot of games put a lot more effort into the first parts of the game.
On the opposite end, many games don't really take off until later on, again especially common with story focused games and RPGs. There's an absolute ton of RPGs out there which even the staunchest fans will tell you don't get really good until 10+ hours in. And if you don't end up enjoying it then, well, you're just screwed.
And sometimes a game seems like it might be building up to a lot of depth, that it's just taking it's time to get there, but then it never actually does develop any depth.
And on a more technical front, if you're having technical problems you might end up having the game open for a significant period of time before even really starting to play it.
Could happen by pure coincidence too. Maybe you start playing the game when it turns out you have to go do something real quick. You leave it on because you figure it'll only take a few minutes, but then it turns out to take much longer.
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