Steam now allows you to return games for full refund

[Chris3123]

Ok, now this is really cool. Steam just started a return policy.

Steam Refunds

The gist: You can return any game you have purchased on Steam for a full refund within two weeks of purchase (for any reason), as long as you have less than 2 hours of gameplay logged. Same goes for DLC, as well. More details at the link above.

Important note, though:

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.

So, I guess using the service as a way to play a bunch of 2-hour demos is frowned upon.

 

[Reverend]

Well it's about damn time. They've essentially been violating basic consumer rights for going on a decade, I'm shocked it took them this long.

Call me cynical, but I wonder if the real reason behind this is that they want a way to curtail the flood of garbage unity engine asset copy/paste games and non-functioning products hiding behind the shield of the Early Access system, without having to actively curate their own store. With people able to refund if it's immediately obvious the game is crap, it'll obliterate the profit margin for these people.

 

[SPCTRE]

I could not care less.

I never bought a broken game or a game that was shit because I actually know what I buy beforehand.

Crazy, I know.

 

[Reverend]

^Me either, but there appear to be a lot of fools out there who do and it's only encouraging more crap to flood the store in the hoes of turning an easy profit.
I'd rather not see Steam degenerate to the level of Apple's app store.

 

[SPCTRE]

^Me either, but there appear to be a lot of fools out there who do and it's only encouraging more crap to flood the store in the hoes of turning an easy profit.
I'd rather not see Steam degenerate to the level of Apple's app store.

To be fair, that degeneration has already kinda happened. The curator system and their other attempts don't solve the fact that Steam is flooded with crap.

Also, the "the hoes of turning an easy profit" would make a great (albeit sorta verbose) band name

 

[Kronos]

I wonder how long this will last before the system is flooded with people buying games and returning them because their are either total garbage or they beat them in 45 minutes.

I know they said they will look out for people doing that, but what happens when everyone does it?

 

[Reverend]

^Me either, but there appear to be a lot of fools out there who do and it's only encouraging more crap to flood the store in the hoes of turning an easy profit.
I'd rather not see Steam degenerate to the level of Apple's app store.

To be fair, that degeneration has already kinda happened. The curator system and their other attempts don't solve the fact that Steam is flooded with crap.

Also, the "the hoes of turning an easy profit" would make a great (albeit sorta verbose) band name

It's certainly headed in that direction but things haven't fallen into utter ruin just yet, which is why I'm hoping this may at least help to stem the tide.

I wonder how long this will last before the system is flooded with people buying games and returning them because their are either total garbage or they beat them in 45 minutes.

I know they said they will look out for people doing that, but what happens when everyone does it?

Well considering that "everyone" supposedly consists of over 155,000,000 active accounts with anything from 4 - 8.5 million logged on at any given time, I'd say that scenario is decidedly unlikely.
I'm sure there will be a lot of people trying it on, despite the warning but even so I'd say the worst case scenario is that the time it takes them to process refund requests get more and more drawn out until they have to find a way to semi-automate the process.

Really, it shouldn't be too hard to spot those who are blatantly abusing the system.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Curbing abuse is going to be really easy.

Track metrics for how often users make purchases/how much they spend. Also track their "refund rate," which could consist of dollars refunded over dollars spent, over time.

Look very closely at anyone who has a high ratio of dollars refunded to dollars spent. Are they putting in just shy of 2 hours on each game, and then they request a refund?

You could totally automate this to flag potential abusers so someone would just need to look over the people who've automatically been flagged and throw the switch: are they abusing the system, or not?

Also, this shift in policy may have something to do with the Australian lawsuit against Valve, though I know other countries have been unhappy with Valve's "no refund" policies, as well.

 

[Rincewiend]

Also, this shift in policy may have something to do with the Australian lawsuit against Valve, though I know other countries have been unhappy with Valve's "no refund" policies, as well.

Something similar is going on in Europe...

 

[Owain Taggart]

Sadly, that won't help me return Starforge which I bought before they made a switch from 32-bit to 64.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You only have a 32-bit OS/system?

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, haven't made the switch yet. At the time I had upgraded, there wasn't yet enough of a 64-bit push to warrant it, and everything I needed to use was 32-bit. It's only been within the last year or so that I've really seen a push towards it, especially in games.

 

[Taylirious]

Is anyone getting a Steam Machine? I like the idea of the controller.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/11/e3-2015-pc-virtual-reality-console-steam

 

[Reverend]

The controller looks interesting, but there's no point me getting a steam machine as I already have a gaming PC and it cost less than half to build as some of those with comparable specs cost to buy.

The link might be worth considering though.

 

[SPCTRE]

Steam machines are great for a very specific audience, at a super narrow sweet spot between enthusiast and casual. If you're too much on the enthusiast side of things, it's not a compelling hardware offering, if you're too much on the casual end, it's simply too expensive and you're likely not that much into deeper, PC-specific gaming experiences anyway.

 

[Reverend]

I'm not so sure, I think they might have priced themselves out of the market. Most of the high priced models seem to be grossly overpriced, on the order of twice what it would cost to build from retail parts. As for the lower spec machines, IIRC most seemed to be more or less the same power as a PS4 or XBone, only at a higher price.

If they're serious about getting SteamOS into the living room, then they need a much more competitive product in the long run.

 

[SPCTRE]

I'm not so sure, I think they might have priced themselves out of the market.

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. The target audience is insanely narrow, to the point that there are well-founded doubts that it even exists.

The price sensitivity has to be extremely low to even consider a Steamachine (tm), which would necessitate a certain level of enthusiasm - but the system isn't really attractive for enthusiasts beyond a "look at the stupid thing I got because I could" level.

So yeah, it was kind of a headscratcher from the start.

 

[Runetouch]

It's with Arkham Knight's release that this refund policy shows its advantages.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, I've been hearing it's had a rocky launch, to say the least.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, I've been hearing it's had a rocky launch, to say the least.

It's not just rocky, it's been pulled from steam.
Of all the dodgy, broken ports of AAA titles I've seen and heard of over the years I've never heard of a publisher yanking a title off the shelves, much less within *days* of launch. The closest thing I can think of in terms of a dramatic developer response to criticism is ME3's "Extended Cut" DLC.

I can't help but wonder if there's a direct correlation between this decision and the existence of Steam's new refund policy.

Normally what they do is fob off the community and patch it piecemeal until it's fixed or until people just loose interest. Indeed, I gather Arkham Origins is still not without some significant bugs.

And the moral of the story? Do. Not. Pre. Order. Video. Games. Ever!