Refund Ruckus

Naturally before we begin this subject I want to make it clear that my stance is once again sort of around a "common sense" intuitive thought process. I'm not claiming to be a business expert, nor do I know the hardships of game development, and selling your games. That being said, I felt I had a surprising amount to be said with the steam refund policies getting their 1st major criticism.

Steam had a nice little refund policy lately. Its been needed and demanded for a long time, and they really gave in with a nice and realistic list of rules, and even some generous stuff in there. However one of the rules was that the game must not be played for more than... oh, 2 hours. So naturally this lead to the question of whether or not short games could be exploited. Now this happened, so... yes? Well maybe not, at least in theory I don't think much wrong doing is going on here. Instead I think we're seeing a weird form of voting with your wallet.

So for starters, have you ever known anyone that wanted to refund Journey? Have you heard someone wanting to take a moving, funny, or just fun game and send it right back to exploit a cheap time system? I haven't seen this type of person. Common sense says that if a product was good, you bought it, and you keep it so that you can enjoy it. It is yours after all, and even once you beat it, if it was really good you'll just come right back. So what games would be refunded? Well ones that simply didn't mean anything to you. It was a toy, you played with, were distracted by, and then you bury it in your toy box and forget it exists. If you can get your money back for that because of how shallow it was, then why wouldn't you?

I checked out the game in question, and I hate to come off as insulting (because despite what I'm about to say, the game has solid effort put into it, and I have no reason to come off as mean) but the game looks like its one of those flash things I would have played long ago at school (or actually mechanically less complex). Its a fixed movement one button game where you time your jumps, and collect stuff while getting upgrades along the way. Now the developer is charging a modest $2 for it and that sounds alright, and the random generation hopefully keeps some players interested, but does that kind of game actually have a decent type of staying power? Is that something people actually want to keep around? Is that something they really want to be paying for? On steam, I honestly don't think so, and I can see it as a perfect example of people kind of voting with their wallets and saying this wont last long with them, so they send it right back. That isn't the type of game I can see having big success within the PC market. What they're getting isn't people who simply rob the developer, rather they're giving you their word that they aren't interested in ever touching your game again. That's a harsh reality, but I mean come on and think about what market you're putting this out on? That's not to say steam is full of gems or only the finest of games, but they do in fact have the mainstream face of PC gaming, and naturally the demand for a game like this isn't as strong as the more complex indie titles out there, or even some of the ambitious early access and F2P stuff, and then there's AAA games of course.

Although if you want a counter-argument, the best I found is Puppy games saying off a tweet:

"Again just for the record: the next idiot to say "why don't you make games people don't want to refund then" can shove their opinion up thei". 

...Twitter wouldn't even let them have enough room to finish a petty insult, never the less would it let them try to even bother coming up with a decent argument. Unlike one of the effected developers though, I don't want to come off as mean. I'm not degrading their games because of any simplicity. There is a market and an audience for them, and likewise theirs a modest kindness to them placing such humble games out there, but they can't turn around and expect them to be more than that. They can't sit there and suggest that they'd be rich off of sales if it weren't for that dastardly refund policy. The statistic brought up shows 18 sales for a $2 game that was ported over from the mobile, they aren't losing a major thing worth claiming the system is broke. They aren't treating this as a modest small game, they're treating this as a big part of the system, and I'm not sure that's the right way to go about it. If they make small games like this, they're going to make a sale count and audience that match this, and if it took refunds to make them realize this... then I can't say I feel bad about it. Considering their twitter has jokes like "maybe we should do 2 hours of splash screens like AAA games do" I'm not sure they get how refunds, or even gaming for that matter, work in such an open market (yes it was a joke, but it wasn't even that good of one because that's just how far removed it is from reality. Saying tutorials would have made some sense though). Oh and then they were also comparing present refunds to that of old ones... back when steam barely did actual refunds, unless the user found a genie to wish it so. Again I'm not sure they're approaching this issue with a reasonable mindset.

So is that to say that this is really still right though? Well... no, not completely, but I don't think its wrong in the same way these devs seem to be passing the blame onto refund policies (sorta, they don't hate refunds, but they're still casting blame on the present system). For starters I do think it might be morally wrong to refund a game you beat, but that's just on my own principles. I also wouldn't buy a game like these to begin with, and maybe if I did I would be singing to a different tune. I also think there's a batch of people out there that may just exploit the system because they know they can, but eventually that may catch up with them if steam notices. That's also not to say they would have paid for your product anyways. Its the "lost sales" piracy argument, these guys were looking for a free game to throw back after playing, and nothing more. You never had a legit sale coming from them.

They bury their gold, not spend it

However what I think ultimately matters is that steam finally has a refund policy. Yes it can be exploited, but it ultimately does way more good than harm, and there's not exactly an easy solution here unless valve takes a bigger step up and monitors the games that are released (which isn't a bad idea in itself really). Valve could idealy take up that process and figure out which games are truly so short that you should not have the same refund policy as say... getting a Ubisoft game that doesn't work. Heck maybe it would even end with time extensions, or just a solid 7 day policy like normal refunds for those kind of games, but still I'll accept baby steps here. It also means that asset stealers, broken games, cash grab early access stuff, and things of that nature will see far less success if they ever had any to begin with. If in the process some smaller flash-like mobile port games get caught in the cross-fire, well at the expense of sounding a little cold I'm going to have to say that's a worthy loss.

So in the worst possible case I think what could happen is game companies that make these small disposable games would possibly pack up and keep their games to the mobile market, but honestly I don't think that's a major deal breaker. These ports don't seem to be very costly, and honestly the mobile market isn't the most forgiving place either. To remove the games would be just to shut off a revenue spot, even if a very small one. ...and what about bigger small games? Well let me ask it in the most extreme once again: Do you think steam's userbase would massively refund journey if they could? Yes that's an extreme example since it goes to possibly the most high quality example, but I think the mentality rests around that answer. The userbase that actually buys guys like Proteus, fifty flights of lovin', or donates to glitchhiker, is already a small niche people. Most developers making those games seem to happily sign onto that idea if they truly decide to go through with this sort of game design. They do earn a following, just a small one. For every angry mob hating over Gone Home, there was a website or blog out there calling it one of the best games they played all year. There are people out there that love and adore these games, and I don't think they'll suddenly cannibalize their own joyous small game bin just because there is suddenly a refund policy for them. If anything a refund policy just might open up the audience entry gate, making people take risks on these games they aren't so sure about, or maybe even taking risks on specs.

Small games will bring in smaller sales, that's just a fact, but it also does have a place and has their share of sales regardless of any refund policy. The key is just making sure the games are meaningful, be it in a pretentious artsy way, or simply because it was so fun that it'll keep people coming back beyond two throw-away hours. If you can't do that, you're the problem, not the "idiots" telling you to make a better game, or a consumer friendly refund policy, or even the guys that are cheating the system to play a game they were never buying to begin with. Its about the quality of the product and if it was worth investing the asking price.

Small games are still here to say, as long as they're worth your time