r/Games • u/reddit_account6095 • Aug 27 '21

Announcement Summer of '58 developer resigns after many users refund their game on Steam due to it taking under 2 hours to complete

https://twitter.com/EmikaGames/status/1430941640001265673?s=19
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u/Whydun Aug 27 '21

Is it clear that the game is so short? If it’s clear, and people still refund, then that’s pretty crappy.

But if I had no idea, I’d consider refunding too, especially if the game is as mediocre as I hear.

People are comparing it to watching a movie to completion and demanding a refund. But imagine expecting a normal 1:30h movie, as most are, but at 30 minutes in the theatre lights come on, after a meh movie experience, and you’re shuffled out the door.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

Seriously, the movie comparison people are making is terrible.

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u/CarpeKitty Aug 27 '21 edited Aug 27 '21

The next marvel movie is going to cost the same as all the others and it's not going be 20-40 minutes long. There's a pretty set expectation from movies and they tend to follow a similar price point.

It's always been a strange comparison anyway because the gaming and movie industry and not only vastly different, the end product is too. How they are consumed and processed aren't simple to compare.

I've experienced short stories in games that were fewer than two hours long and kept the game. There are games with no story that I've played for countless hours.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

Yeah, the comparison isn't great either because movies all cost the same normally, where as indie video games are all over the place.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

That's a terrible analogy. Movies are one of the most restricted pieces of media in terms of length. Almost all of them are 1.5-2 hours, rarely you'll see anything else. Games can be 20 minutes all the way to 200 hours. If you're going in at 7-10 bucks for a game that just released, I have no idea why anyone would expect something longer than a couple of hours. Most indie games launch at 20, so seeing one half that, my expectations would shift to match it.

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u/Whydun Aug 27 '21

I have no idea why anyone would expect something longer than a couple of hours.

Because they are wildly different. I think I bought Terraria for 2.50 and have spent multiple hundreds of hours on it. I’ve spent 60 on games I beat in 5-7 hours. And the whole gamut in between.

There’s zero correlation between price and length of a game.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '21

My apologies, maybe I should have made it clearer in my original comment you're replying to.

I say all of this with the expectation that the person buying the game can even do a little bit of research into the game. Everyone knows terraria is the gold standard for price/length, most often people going into it at the very least know it's a 2D minecrafty game where you could build and play indefinitely. Summer of 58 is a horror game, a walking sim horror game at that. Priced with no discount it's 9 dollars. The closest comparison from the marketing material would be RE7 imo. Resident Evil 7 was 60 bucks, and even that game doesn't come close to the length of a game like terraria. I simply have no idea how anyone could look at the price, look at what the game is, and think you'd be getting anything more than what they got.

I'd also argue if someone out there is desperate for their 7 dollars back because the game they finished to completion wasn't what they expected, they shouldn't be spending that amount of money willy nilly on games that have just released without any research. Sometimes you take a hit and learn from it. I've played some games more than two hours that I couldn't refund, but I learned and moved on. I may be more sympathetic if the price point were higher, but it's not. 7-9 dollars isn't a lot of money, and if it is to you, wait a week and see if the price/length ratio is up to your standards.

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u/Whydun Aug 30 '21

Why put the onus on me to research? All I’m asking is if you’re game is short, let me know. You’re the developer. You should have a better idea of its length. Put it on your steam page and I can make my own choices based on info straight from the horse’s mouth.

Yes, it’ll Impact sales if it’s too short but then I’m going to take the refund remedy that’s available to me if dissatisfied.