Something I don't think is appreciated enough is how GOG's refund policy makes you more willing to buy titles that you might otherwise ignore. Sure, you refund them as often as not, but a few - Omicron: The Nomad Soul comes to mind for me - you'll fall in love with.

For contrast, on Steam, anytime I came across a title I was interested in but not sure of, I'd take the "safe" option and watch dozens of spoiler-y Let's Plays or wouldn't even try it. Biomutant comes to mind here: no shot I'd buy it on Steam or anywhere with a stricter refund policy, which is why I didn't until I found out about GOG.

So, firstly, Steam has a 14 day, 2 hour limit on their refund policy. See here.

Anyway, I'm gonna' have to hard disagree with you. If people want to abuse the refund policy to get and store free games, that leaves a paper trail. You know what doesn't? BitTorrent over a VPN+Tor or SPN, plus for extra points you get to propagate the software to yet more people. If your concern is "short form" games, I'll get to that.

There are a lot of modern titles that have amazing presentation and massive problems after two hours (see: RDR2) or older titles that work fine until you encounter bugs that brick the install or corrupt the save, and I don't think a consumer is responsible for that cuz' they didn't boot up a '95 install to play it on.

As for "short form" indie titles, I'd say Steam's 2h refund limit does them more harm, honestly. So many of them have to restructure themselves around it to eek past the bar, and it places too much of an emphasis on time spent playing which is how you get Ubisoft titles. Again, the alternative here is people straight up not buying short-form indie titles at all because they're ~2h in length, which is exactly what happens. Yet short-form titles still have many, many verified owners...

I dunno. So far I haven't refunded a game because I didn't like it, but then I tend to buy games long after their release (which is a norm on GOG anyway, not much of day-one releases here).

So yeah if a game had favorable reviews but for some reason I don't like it, I take that as my personal issue, tastes differ and I am not going to punish GOG and the publisher for my different taste (regardless of good reviews). Maybe I will grow to like it later, who knows?

The main reasons I'd ask for a refund:

1. The developer clearly abandons the GOG version, and it is missing important updates.

2. I happen to buy a wrong edition of a game. This happened with e.g. one of the X games, I accidentally bought only the base game, refunded it, and then bought the more complete edition with DLCs and stuff.

I think so far all my (few) refunds have been on category 2. I did think about asking for a refund for some Early Access game where the publisher apparently decided to pull the game from GOG, not finishing it here.

Well, I haven't refunded a single game yet.
That's probably, because I don't buy games under the premise of: "well, if I don't like it, I can always return it and get my money back!"
I only buy games, in which I have serious interest.
And that means, I inform myself prior to the purchase.

Now, did I purchase games, that didn't live up to my expectations?
Sure!
But that has never been reason for me to ask for a refund.
And I don't think, it should be reason for a refund.

Technical problems, on the other hand, that hinder me from playing my purchased game?
Those would be a reason for me, to ask for a refund.
But - so far - I haven't encountered such problems.

So, to answer your question: am I glad that the refund option exists?
In general - yes, of course.
But not for the reasons, you stated.

Please, tell me more about how that would work with the client that measures play time remaining optional.

Ah yes, that's right, I forgot - you don't actually care about it being optional because you can't live without the "features" it provides anyway and why you're even on GOG remains a mystery.

I have only ever refunded one game on GoG and that was because Amazon literally gave it away (a GoG code) two hours after I bought it. Hadn't even downloaded it by that point.

That's a strange opinion to have. If you don't think it should be a reason for a refund you're advocating for and accepting all the consequences, including the risk-aversion. You might think it's a good thing but I think it's a way to kill indie titles.

Well, thoughts are free...and yes: I am all for accepting the consequences of our deeds.

Anyone can think anything, the question is if it's justified. Economically, refunds are pretty much a net gain in any and all cases. That's why in a lot of countries they are legally protected: they have the reverse effect people imply.

My thoughts exactly.

I agree with BreOI72. The only valid reason, for me, to ask for a refund is a technical problem that one couldn't have predicted that would happen in his case (while may not have happened on others before).
On a funny note, apart from the "reason" that some state about refunding a game they didn't like (!), I've also recently read a case of someone who refunded a game that wouldn't start on Win7, while at the game's page is clearly stated that the game needs Win 10 or 11!!!

Pretty much this for me. There are 3 times I remember asking for a refund:
- For one game, the GOG website didn't say anything about me owning the base game when I got the deluxe edition with the soundtrack and I noticed after purchasing the game and I thought the price I paid was a little much just for the soundtrack. GOG has partially addressed the technical issue since by warning you at checkout when you already own parts of a game you are buying.
- I bought a game on special, but didn't notice the deluxe edition, because the existence of the deluxe edition wasn't indicated in the game page. I got a refund to purchase the soundtrack edition. They haven't fixed it yet where for some games, they don't indicate on the game page there are several editions. You need to click on the dev/publisher to look at their games list to find the soundtrack edition. I always do that now.
- I purchased the special edition of Gori pretty much on release and less than a week later I think, they added the Digital Deluxe Edition which had more content for significantly cheaper. I thought that was an irritating way to do a release (way to annoy early supporters for a game) so I asked for a refund to get the Deluxe edition instead

In all cases, I asked for a refund as a reaction to what I felt were mistakes that are at least partly attributable to the fact that GOG's website (or way of operating) should have been better.

Otherwise, if I don't like a game I bought, well too bad. I'll swallow the purchase. Before I buy, I'll look at clip(s) and pictures of the game, wait for enough reviews to pile up on Steam to get an idea of the general consensus, read some of the reviews, then take a peak at any reviews here and the game forums on GOG in case there are any issues specific to the GOG version and with all that, the vast majority of games I end up playing are at least fine, but for the few that are not, as long as they are not a complete buggy mess, that's life.

Ah well, at least I now get why companies invest more in advertising than the game itself in too many instances; too many people with attitudes that let them get ripped off pretty easily.

Aggregated user review scores tend to be pretty good at debunking such marketing ploys. You want to find out if a game cuts the mustard? Ask enough everyday people who've played it.

Beyond that, if the sale was done in good faith and the development work was done in good faith with a genuine desire and reasonable amount of confidence that a good experience would be provided to the buyer, than I've go nothing to complain about. My subjective assessment of that experience is my own.