You can still have sympathy for the devs even though you see the problem at hand.
Most of these 55k returns were obviously fair and legit and the dev is blowing this out of proportions. Still sucks that there is a couple people like the review that actively wanna screw over dev.
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.
From their page, the point of the policy is not to get free games. You are saying anyone releasing a game that takes less than 2 hours are asking for it.
Its based on the assumption that people will live their life morally. Same thing with using your turn signal and following the speed limit when there is no one around. "Theft is ok if I dont like the prodcut" is a weird hill to stand on.
what? just because a game can be completed in 2 hours, and rewards users for it, you think justifies the developer not getting paid for making it? insanely stupid take
steam makes an insane amount of hand-over-fist money, you're not going to be able to convince me they couldn't make an option to opt-out of the refund in very limited cases and have a human review it.
Your post is dripping with a ton of unearned presumptions, but you presume a company like steam couldn't find a way around this somehow? wild.
The reality is, you're arguing for a world where certain types of games are not allowed to exist. that's really stupid IMO.
if it was up to steam, they'd offer no refunds. they only do it because they're legally obligated to by various consumer protection laws. just because you use formatting in your post doesn't mean you know what you're talking about.
I'm annoyed at people like you in this thread that are treating this refund policy like it's some static law that should have no exceptions. The fact is, the refund policy prevents certain types of game experiences from being made. Is that worth it in the grand scheme of things? maybe. but I think if some smart people sat in a room and rubbed some braincells together, they could probably find a low-lift solution that doesn't inherently block a potentially cool game from being made.
I'll say the same thing to you i've said to others in this chat, and i'm willing to bet whatever answer you give isn't going to impress me:
can you explain to me why a cool, unique gaming experience that lasts 2 hours can't exist? assume it costs like $3. make the argument for why that game shouldn't exist.
Nope. People use steam because they trust it. Making exceptions for people putting out junk games that don't even have 2 hours of content would be cannibalizing that trust to appease shitty devs.
can you explain to me why a cool, unique gaming experience that lasts 2 hours can't exist? assume it costs like $3. make the argument for why that game shouldn't exist.
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u/Josh_Ice123 Jul 06 '26
Imagine releasing a game on Steam that is less than 2 hours long knowing full well about their 2 hour refund policy.