A general refund would be in line with the idea of DRM-free, that customers can be trusted. The only reason to impose a 2 hour limit is the fear that people would play the entire game during the 2 week period then ask for a refund. If you trust that most people won't do that, the way you trust that most people won't abuse DRM-free games, then there's no reason not to make a general refund available.

So instead of holding yourself accountable for your reactionary thread that painted the public as a bunch of devious, greedy thieves (despite a deficit of facts and reason) you decide to continue the same reactionary behavior to obfuscate your previous actions?

Fine by me.

I don't see how quoting me out of context and painting yourself the victim makes you appear any better.

It just validates my criticisms and removes any doubt from the previous comments of others:

So much for that idea.

Im fine with the 2 hour limit.
2 things of interesting note though, one being i dont think theres anything to stop people from playing the whole game and refunding anyway if you play offline (right? it doesnt track time that way far as i know)... So theyr already relying on peoples honesty whether they like it or not.
It also does put stress on an indie developer to make games that are longer than 2 hours.
If i played a 1 hour game and i thought it was ok, would i consider refunding it because thats what the system says i can do? Sure, why not. So thats the thing, theyv kept the return policy so open "you can return it because of whatever".. that if they took the 2 hour time away, then if i played a game for 20 hours but i wasnt crazy about it, why wouldnt i return it and get my money back? A lot of kids would never buy games, and feel justified in doing so.
Shrug, not really sure what the solution is. Steam's policy is fine for me.

The context was refunds on GOG, where a 2 hour limit can't be enforced.

Only if that developer (or poster) is living 2 months in the past, and hasn't yet realised that nothing world shattering has happened.


Out of context on in context, it's pretty clear that he's a more sympathetic person than you are.

Tried at what?

Holding yourself accountable?

Hardly.

Begging for sympathy about a non-issue and painting the pubic as an evil menace all while playing the victim?

Absolutely.

Yes - I can't compete with baseless fear mongering, pity parties, and viewing the public as a bunch thieving jackals to earn your favor.

Sorry about that.

Thanks for bumping the thread. I think I'll do the same.

I had kind of a breakthrough last night. The whole time I thought that this cool refund policy can only been done by Steam because of their DRM because I thought DRM is actually useful for something but I was wrong and thanks to this thread I have now understood my wrongness.

So, it's as follows:

- This thread proves that customers of Steam are mostly not misusing the refund policy. Even with Steam DRM they could always just play a game for two hours and ask for a refund without reason. But the refund rate in truth is only 3% or less. They rather just use the trial period as a demo and play by the rules. jefequeso is indeed not out of a job, or at least not because of this.

- GOG says that they trust the customer so much that they do not even use DRM

- So the only thing that is needed to implement a two hour trial, then refund policy is not DRM (as I thought not taking trust into account) but a timer actually

- GOG Galaxy actually has a timer inbuilt

So we naturally arrive at a very simple implementation of this refund policy for GOG:

If someone downloaded a game solely through Galaxy (otherwise you cannot track the time) and played it only two hours (according to what the time tracking code that is inbuilt says) and asks for a refund through Galaxy - he/she shall be granted such without further asking for reasons - however at the same time the game is de-installed from this very computer and removed from the games library, so an internet connection must exist during the execution of this functionality.

This is a very simple and straight forward implementation which would a) work and b) not require many changes to how GOG currently works. As a side effect the Galaxy client would be promoted.

Of course people could cheat. They could archive the installation and continue playing later (they could also pirate the game) or they could just play for two hours and then ask for a refund even when liking the game. But as this thread proves customers are mostly not that bad. If they already bought the game, they really want to play it and enjoy it - they don't want to give it back.

GOG can indeed do the exactly same as Steam (all they need is a timer and they have it already) and DRM is again not useful anymore. I mistakingly thought that DRM has a use.

And it will make all the constant demands for demos unnecessary. The game itself is the best demo.

And I also made a wishlist entry for it:
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/refund_policy_after_two_hour_trial_period_measured_by_galaxy

This is actually a good idea, if only the highlighted parts could be trusted,
as we hear people complaining about the timer all the time (such as "time spent" achievements not unlockin),
the client has some way to go before Gog could rely on this feature. Also policy changes aren't such trivialities for Gog, and the lawyer team would have to be involved in testing that feature before incorporating it into policy.
But yes, once both Go tech and legal teams can go that route, DRM will indeed again prove its uselessness.

Far as I know, once a game is installed there's no way to force a player to run it through Galaxy. You could easily download it through Galaxy and not run Galaxy again. The only way to force the tracking through Galaxy would be if there was DRM. So except for trying to force people to install and use Galaxy (which I feel will be resented), I don't see why tying a refund policy to Galaxy would be useful.

As I said before, if you trust people, trust them all the way, and don't introduce a 2 hour limit.

Man, that would be the best gog feature since DRM-free.

Refunds wouldn't be necessary if they had demos. But they won't add them even when the publisher has one available.

Actually, there are still a lot of demos available and they keep coming out:
http://store.steampowered.com/freestuff/demos/

That was a reference to GOG. Of course Steam has it. They know the value of putting up demos. GOG doesn't though.

No, even if you run it not with Galaxy, the time keeping runtime library is still attached to it and counts the time (or if not yet they can make it so). Unless you regard a simple timer as DRM it's not true that there needs to be DRM. You just trust the customer. But you need Galaxy to check the time, deinstall the game and remove it from the library in one go. This is not DRM, I should emphasize. And the most important thing is a timer that tracks your playing time which is already included in every game, I believe, or can easily be included.

About the 2 hour limit. I think it is a reasonable compromise because if there would not be a limit and you could refund at any time than indeed many people might be tempted to take up that refund which would be like a free lunch then. However one can surely debate the right amount of time for a trial period. I think that a two hour demo period with the real game is good enough.
On the other hand I still think that the real game is the best demo there can be.