it isn’t a loophole if it is working as intended and the original headline doesn’t say that
also he claims 270k sold and 55k refunded but the game has been out for just under a year and steamdb shows an all-time peak of 401 players?
https://steamdb.info/app/3570070/charts/
edit: might have been a bit harsh, the owner estimates range 160-200k
It’s not working as intended for people to refund a game that they enjoyed and finished, or else the refund window would have been 100 hours.
I kinda love short games, I don’t have time to put 100 hours in every game I buy. I bought this game in part because it seemed like a bit of silly fun, and was priced appropriately.
I hate to say it, but the business model always affects the game design. The “meta” is to make a game that’s longer than 2 hours if you want to avoid this, or that the player otherwise won’t want to part with after that 2 hours is up.
If your game doesn’t provide more content than 2 hours that’s kinda on you IMO
And I say that as an indie game developer. Like it someone just thought it was neat to play for an hour then they were completely done touching my game… Why would I be shocked they refunded it? They might have refunded it because they expected… Dun dun dunnnn… More content?
It’s a fuck load of work to make a game. It is kinda ridiculous to go to all that trouble then just stop after making 2 hours of gameplay, like 2 hours total without even a good sandbox.
Eh, not every game needs more “content”. Clickolding and And Roger are, as I understand it, very good at what they do, but you can finish them both in an hour. It would probably be to their detriment to make them any longer.
A tale as old as time. There’s people who buy clothing for a wedding or some other event, for example, and then refund it since you have a 14 day refund window in europe (or at least the DACH area) for basically anything you buy. Companies like zalando have a global 50% return rate across everything they sell.
Sadge, but you can’t make everyone happy. Overall, I’d argue that the 2 hour return policy for steam is overall more of a benefit to consumers than it is a detriment for developers. And then again, you can always add a bit more content to the game to make it longer.
It would be good to know the refund rate on other games before deciding if this is a problem specific to short games. Maybe that 90% positive review would have been much, much lower if people couldn’t get refunds. A $5 game with 70% reviews is not getting 250,000 sales.
The owner’s whining about it but they clearly have a success and overall profit. He needs to be more humble - so many other indie devs never have a breakout game. His worry over players getting enjoyment for free when devs asked for money is valid, though… It’s a difficult one. As for the alleged argument from some reviewers saying “games being completable under 2 hours should be free,” that’s obnoxious - I have completed €30 games like Left 4 Dead and Halo in 2 hours.
For a lot of people there needs to be a certain amount of perceived value per dollar. The article said the game is $5 full price. If I spent $5 and beat it in under 2 hours, I’d refund it too.
If it’s good enough that I finished it I’m gonna let the creator keep the money (and pay close attention to the reviews next time, because I agree that less than 2 hours is a little short for that amount of entertainment) and make myself feel better by treating it like a donation to a good cause.
