Same here and i know that there were some douchebags that had their xbox 360 banned from xbox live (piracy) so they went to the store, bought a new xbox 360 and returned the old one a few days later, since people working on those shops are busy they won't go for each detail like the serial number. The money goes to the Steam Wallet, either way Steam already has your money.

I really hope you and FenixP are right about this.

Seriously, I'm terrified of having to go back to working retail. The last couple months, for the first time, I actually felt like I was happy with what I was doing with my life. Spending full time on game development and being able to pay all our bills finally.

Achievement : "Tireless Story Listener : you played the game for more than 2 hours"
Should do the trick.

Seriously Jefe, don't worry about it until it actually becomes an issue - and I don't think it ever will. Now, after the announcement, it might be a slight annoyance while it's in people's recent memories, but that'll go away soon enough.

Well the money has to come *from* someone anyway.

Ha! That's actually a great idea :)
I hope so.

Seriously, it's already difficult enough to convince players to spend a few bucks on an indie game. Most people wait for bundles or obscene sales discounts, and buy them for pennies.

Put in cards if the games don't have them already. And then make the cards drop only after 2 hours of play. Btw, can you even do that? Or is all controlled by Steam?

This sounds not very good for producers of small games. I guess, Steam should turn the 2 hour playtime thing off for small games. For Witcher 3 this is totally fair.

Maybe apply the 2hour thing only for games above $10.

You do have control over the drop rate, yes.
Hmm... that is actually the best solution I've heard. Some people have been suggesting that games could choose a time limit themselves, but that opens up the system to abuse by developers. Having it tied to price would make sense.

Hopefully they at least institute a feedback system with the policy, where the refundee is encouraged to talk about why the refund is being requested.

Interesting policy, though, that would appear to scratch a couple consumer itches:

- since demos are a rare thing these days, this may serve to fill that void.
- customers can now be a bit happier with Steam, in that they now do have a limited policy.

I bet the demo factor had a lot to do with it. 2 hours is a good amount of time to A) see if a game will work on your system, and B) if you'll like it. But at that point the money has already changed hands and the customer will be less apt to ask for a refund than they would be apt to simply uninstall a free demo.



jefequeso, I think you'll be okay. This isn't much different than trusting the consumers with DRM-free versions. It may also bring out some truth-in-advertising stuff from those publishing games, where it may become standard fare to tell how long a typical play-through will last. I mean, if you know going into it that a game lasts about two hours, then there's no room to gripe that it's only two hours long.

But I do wish you the best of luck with it. Who knows? Maybe it will prompt more sales, as customers don't have to worry about wasting money on a title for which he or she is sitting on the fence. "Hmm, not sure if I should get this one... but I can return it if it sucks, so I may as well."

Bad idea, someone could just buy the game, play it with a crack which bypasses Steam tracking time and then ask for a refund in less than 2 weeks.

Who the hell gets such ideas, I know they don't expect people to do such things but it's exactly what happens.

I'm confused, i don't understand what you're trying to say.

Let's say that you bought a game, you use your credit card and buy GTA for 60€, after downloading you realize that the game doesn't run in your toaster so you ask for a refund, they accept the request but instead of the money going to your bank account it goes straight to your Steam wallet, either way Valve still gets a profit because you can't get it out of their system.

Customer will be happy because he can ask for a refund;
Valve will have more workload since there will be more support tickets;
Publisher will be pissed because they will see less profits.

Yes, you are!

Are there any conditions regarding implementing cards? Or are you free to do so whenever you like?

Surely it would be simpler to pirate it directly.

Hmm... good point.

The difference between this and DRM-free sales is that I trust people who shop on GOG more than I trust people that shop on Steam. I've complained a lot about the anti-DRM fanaticism here, but at the same time it's that same fanaticism that means most people here probably won't try and abuse the DRM-free system. I don't have the same faith in Steam customers.

However, it's true that consumers feeling safer about their purchases might actually make them more likely to buy a game. And truth in advertising is, generally, never a bad idea, IMO.