While I certainly understand arguments for "didn't like" returns -- and am sympathetic -- personally I take game purchasing as I take movie-going...

... as long as the movie works -- was projected correctly -- the responsibility for the content of the movie is on me. The cinema is responsible for the experience, not my personal likes and dislikes.

At the same time, I certainly understand the feeling of purchasing a game that you thought you'd enjoy... but then kinda hate.

I think that's simplistic and doesn't really account for the various ways a game can be a bad experience. For example, games' ads rarely reveal that framerate is locked to 30 fps and gives you a headache, controls are shit, combat mechanics are clumsy, and you're not feeling the story at all. Quitting a 30-hour game in the during the first two hours is like walking out of a movie theater during the first five minutes.

It's rare for me to come across movies -- after checking reviews -- that are so bad I want to quit after five minutes. With games, it happens all the time.
It sounds like you're arguing that adding customer service would be bad for business. I agree, if that also means customers have to jump through hoops to return a purchase they're dissatisfied with.

I'd imagine Steam is doing what they're doing because it is good for their business and good for their customers. As it turns out, there are people wishing other stores would offer equally good feats.

I think the difference here is "non-digital" products.
If you order a physical object and return it you no longer have access to the physical object.
As people have pointed out, DRM-free downloads means it's very easy to get a refund and still have access to the product which is unfair.

I guess they could track downloads and prevent a refund if you've taken possession (downloaded) the product, but that's not going to help for a "didn't like" refund since you can't tell until you download it.

It's a tricky situation as you want to accommodate customers, but likewise a business has to protect itself from abuse too. Honesty and trust would be nice, but a few bad apples always ruin it for everyone.

The "slant" (I can't think of a less antagonistic term, but I don't mean it antagonistically, honest) against a "didn't like" refund option here is a bit sad.

Yes, there are plausible reasons gog doesn't have a "didn't like" refund option.

That doesn't mean that it shouldn't or that it is ok that it doesn't.

PS: You can get a refund for a movie ticket if you leave before it finishes. I have done so (some rubbish Depp movie where he played an unfunny pervert spy). I'd feel it should be the same with a game. If you ask for a refund after finishing the game, obviously that's unfair, but otherwise, I feel it is a valid reason to want a refund.

In GOG's case, it's not, because GOG has no possible way to determine the distinction those who played the game briefly and didn't like it and deleted it forever, versus people who wanted to scam the system for a free game, i.e. those played the whole game and still asked for a refund, or those who downloaded and kept a copy of the game to play through later and still asked for a refund.

As for OP, Steam infests its games with the DRM that is the Steam launcher, so it cannot be reasonably compared to GOG games for that reason.

If someone wants to scam the system for a free game, there are many way easier methods that don't involve payments, no further away than a simple torrent search.

I mean, this line of argumentation could very well just be used to justify DRM. "Yeah, but if we didn't have it, what's to stop the customer from copying the game and then distributing it for free?"

How about not starting from the presumption that the customer is an asshole?

Of course it is. I was only referring to the post that said something about stores that offer refunds for non digital products. Digital products are different even in law.

No, they were forced so by law. It's not because Steam is so nice. They were forced to implement such a refund policy. If I am not mistaken they were sued - have to look it up and see if I find a link.

Do you live on the same planet I do? If a person or company can get away with something, there are enough of them to ruin it for everyone. Nice people who do the morally right thing are in the minority. Starting with the presumption that the customer is not a scamming asshole is becoming more and more a statistically bad practice.

That's not necessarily true. Companies that promise "100% money back guaranteed if you are not satisfied!" if you didn't like their pizza you ate or the massage they gave you aren't hemorrhaging money and dying. Gog (and the developers who use it) aren't dying off because their games are easily available to pirate. The public transport system in cities where ticket purchases are done on honour (and random checks on the train/bus are rare) aren't going out of business or becoming untenable.

On the whole, if you treat people like human beings, they'll behave like human beings.

It was their cheap way of dealing with games which did not work on some systems, defective products. Rather than go through the hassle GoG support does to attempt to get a game working, Steam uses a 2 hour rule since those with over 2-hours of playtime will have a hard time arguing that the game was defective while they played that long.

In fact, if one abuses that 2-hour rule too often, Steam reserves the right to not refund the purchases. It was never intended to be a "try it and return it if you don't like it" rule where people playtest everything. Do that on Steam too many times and you'll find out.

That said, many people have reported that GoG support will usually make a one-time exception for cases that fall outside their rules. But they will warn you that it is a one-time exception.

I guess it was about this:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-29-valve-is-being-sued-by-australian-consumer-group-over-steams-refund-policy

yeah, i agree it's probably the "less hassle" approach.
here's an interesting addition to things from a steam point of view in the EU:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8620-QYAL-4516

Getting sued and calling it "voluntary refund policy" - ah well. At least they did something back then.

Yes, they really are great in this regard. First they say:

"You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it."

And then they are saying

"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."

"It appears" - could they even be more vague? How could they tell if my not disliking several games in a row is actuylly an abuse? They would have to prove this which they cannot. I don't say that I would love to abuse such policys but I am saying that such clauses almost are saying "but we can refuse anyway whenever we like" and that's wrong as well.

Just wanted to pint out that all those nice words on Steam don't have that much meaning behind it.

It's left vague so that they can refuse whenever they want. I think the intention is good, but they "reserve the right" to protect their wallets if they even get a whiff of something they don't like.

Ofc, as you say, they had to be sued into a refund policy so maybe the e=intentions are to appear good while not actually being that good.

I don't _think_ they were sued in EU but the EU laws would probably quite happily force them to implement a refund policy if they didn't have one (I hope the UK keep a lot of the EU customer protection and privacy laws after stupid stupid brexit).