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[Astral]

On the one hand, fiascos like the new Sim City will make AAA publishers think twice before releasing a broken game, on the other hand it's going to make them even more conservative than before, so prepare for Call of Duty 28 down the road, as they feel they have to stick with what works rather than branching out into new or innovative concepts.

Early access games will be hit sort of hard as well. How bad off would a lot of the early access games be if people simply bought, played, and uninstalled for them not being feature complete, or in some cases eternal Early Access? In a similar vein to the above, I'm wondering if it's going to push some early access games to "release" early. I've never really agreed with the early access program as it currently exists, because you're basically paying to beta test someone else's game (rather than being paid to do it), and we get enough of that from AAA developers releasing buggy products from day one as is.

[NullForceOmega]

I suppose that that is a valid criticism, I think that having a concrete return policy is still a step in the right direction tho'.

[Astral]

Oh, I'm all for the refund policy, as it means that I'm less likely to be outright punished for making a bad decision on attempting to support a game with my money, but it feels like they didn't quite think it through all the way. It hurts indie devs more than AAA publishers, to be sure, since smaller studios or games that tell a story are more likely to fall within the 2 hour range, meaning that unscrupulous persons could complete a short game, refund it, and not have to worry about it again.

Not that they're prevented from finding alternative means like torrents, but the idea is there.

One interesting things I noted from Steam's site:

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.

[alway]

Or in other words, no big title will have any chance of going on sale while it is still moving copies. After all, if the additional sales were totally offset by the previous 2 weeks of sales dropping tremendously in value, there would really be no point in offering a sale.

[Neonivek]

Wow would this program have saved my butt quite a few times.

[a1s]

Early access games will be hit sort of hard as well. How bad off would a lot of the early access games be if people simply bought, played, and uninstalled for them not being feature complete, or in some cases eternal Early Access?

Early Access games are not meant to be feature complete. As for never getting finished there's the '14 days' clause. I'm not bitching, by the way- EA is meant to be a gamble. As a character in a long-forgotten game used to say: " If you pay the musician before he plays, you will get a song with too much rum in it or too much pain."

Or in other words, no big title will have any chance of going on sale while it is still moving copies. After all, if the additional sales were totally offset by the previous 2 weeks of sales dropping tremendously in value, there would really be no point in offering a sale.

You're assuming (like an economist) people will do this. And they won't. (they might if it saves them $15, but unless they enjoy bargain hunting as a sport, not for cases where you save $0.99.)
Also note that if you play the game for 2 hours, you don't get a refund. This is only for when you bought a game you were 'meh' about to begin with.

[Darkmere]

I'm fine with it, though I'll probably rarely use it. I have enough of a backlog I tend to research or delay buying a game til it goes on deep discount anyways.

If you CBA to put more than 2 hours of content in a game, you kinda deserve it in my opinion. If a game's that short and costs more than 50 cents I'm not going to buy it either way. I think the shortest completed games on my list run from 8 to 12 hours (portal, bulletstorm. Braid was 6 hours) and that's about my limit, even for a sale.

Still, something is far better than nothing.

[BurnedToast]

Apparently, one of the devs of "Gone Home" is mad about this because Gone Home can be finished in less then 2 hours, so the game is essentially free now.

Maybe they shouldn't try and charge $20 for a 2 hour game.

I'm actually somewhat serious about that. People who download it with the intention of refunding it so they can play for free could already pirate it, so I think we can ignore them - they were going to steal it anyway So that leaves people who download it, find out it's 2 hours long, and are disappointed.

If there's enough disappointed people getting refunds that it makes a big difference in your income... maybe you should consider that you didn't deserve the money you made in the first place.

[Malus]

Yeah, the criticism against this policy is a little bit absurd. Obviously if someone is buying a bunch of DRM-free indie games and then refunding them half an hour later (because they copied the .exe's to a different directory, or something) then it's pretty easy for Valve to flag their account and restrict their refund ability. A huge benefit of Steam's system is the ability to redownload, automatically update, use cloud saves, etc -- I have enough faith in people that if they're going to abuse this system to "pirate" games, they'd much sooner just run off to a torrent site and skip the hassle of paying for a game then waiting on a refund that might possibly get rejected or flag their account.

I submitted a refund request for Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons, a game which has the dubious honour of being the only one out of the 800+ I own on Steam that I genuinely regret spending money on. Given that I bought it 6 months ago, I'm curious whether the request will go through. I only have 50 minutes in it, so who knows.

[GiglameshDespair]

Apparently, one of the devs of "Gone Home" is mad about this because Gone Home can be finished in less then 2 hours, so the game is essentially free now.

Maybe they shouldn't try and charge $20 for a 2 hour game.

I'm actually somewhat serious about that. People who download it with the intention of refunding it so they can play for free could already pirate it, so I think we can ignore them - they were going to steal it anyway So that leaves people who download it, find out it's 2 hours long, and are disappointed.

If there's enough disappointed people getting refunds that it makes a big difference in your income... maybe you should consider that you didn't deserve the money you made in the first place.

Apparently, one of the devs of "Gone Home" is mad about this because Gone Home can be finished in less then 2 hours, so the game is essentially free now.

Maybe they shouldn't try and charge $20 for a 2 hour game.

I'm actually somewhat serious about that. People who download it with the intention of refunding it so they can play for free could already pirate it, so I think we can ignore them - they were going to steal it anyway So that leaves people who download it, find out it's 2 hours long, and are disappointed.

If there's enough disappointed people getting refunds that it makes a big difference in your income... maybe you should consider that you didn't deserve the money you made in the first place.

I suppose people might want to try that so they don't have to rely on piracy, which might have viruses and stuff in, or ISPs watching what they do. I doubt it'd come up much, though.

Yeah, the criticism against this policy is a little bit absurd.

Whatever it is, people will complain about it on the internet.

[Hanzoku]

Cool, and finally. I have a few games that I wouldn't mind refunding, but that was mostly to my own lack of reading. I honestly thought that if they stuck, say, Fallout 2 on Steam to download, that it would also be updated to work with modern computers (in the same fashion as GoG does). That wasn't the case, but since I was out only a euro or so, I shrugged and learned to read the system requirements better in the future.

[Stuebi]

Ihave a couple games wehre I will try this. Since it's newly implemented, maybe there's a chance I will get refunds on some games I bought a while ago and never played.

Also, about the Devs complaining:

If your game is under 2 hours long, dont' you think people would just pirate it instead of going trough the refund hazzle? Anyone with access to google could get Gone home in under 10 minutes for free. The refund policy doesnt change a thing about that, with the exception that people who were dissapointed by your walking simulator can get their money back now. 

[Ultimuh]

I wish to disown certain games I have on Steam.
I don't care if I don't get my any money back, if only you could gift games you no longer want to people.

[BigD145]

On the one hand, fiascos like the new Sim City will make AAA publishers think twice before releasing a broken game, on the other hand it's going to make them even more conservative than before, so prepare for Call of Duty 28 down the road, as they feel they have to stick with what works rather than branching out into new or innovative concepts.

Early access games will be hit sort of hard as well. How bad off would a lot of the early access games be if people simply bought, played, and uninstalled for them not being feature complete, or in some cases eternal Early Access? In a similar vein to the above, I'm wondering if it's going to push some early access games to "release" early. I've never really agreed with the early access program as it currently exists, because you're basically paying to beta test someone else's game (rather than being paid to do it), and we get enough of that from AAA developers releasing buggy products from day one as is.

I'm wondering if this will make early access games less expensive or more...

What every dev should know is that when it comes to purchases, at least in the US, 80% of buyers don't do the paperwork for rebates, I.e. partial refunds. It's an extra step the buyer has to make. Lack of returns is probably not that high a percentage but I doubt it's far off. Rebates are offered for the lazy because the lazy don't cash in. Companies don't expect to lose as much as they gain. Steam makes you jump through hoops for similar reasons.

[BurnedToast]

I wish to disown certain games I have on Steam.
I don't care if I don't get my any money back, if only you could gift games you no longer want to people.

If you don't care if you don't get any money back, the steam subscriber agreement lets you terminate a subscription (which is what the games technically are) at any time.

Send a letter to steam support asking them to remove it, and make it VERY clear you understand you won't get any refund of any sort, and that you understand that you can't change your mind and get it back later and  they will probably remove it for you. I've never done it myself, but I've had a friend do it and they removed a few really terrible games from his account.

It might help to quote the relevant section of the agreement, though you will have to find it on your own since I don't remember which one it is.