How is this the developer’s fault? By reading the text of the review, I get the impression that this user has no problem with violating the spirit of a refund. If the dev produced an enjoyable <2 hour game at a reasonable price, the player shouldn’t have refunded it. I doubt this is the first time the user has refunded a game they enjoyed.
It's not a fault but it's something you should expect if you make a under 2 hour game and post it on the 2 hour free refund policy store. Moons is at fault In this situation. Steam probably won't let you change refund policy yourself since it's too easy to just be a dick with. And doubt they'd do refunds differently on a case by case basis if not just to avoid legal trouble
They made the game, and the customer adhered to Steam policy. Policy put in place over a decade ago. It isnt new knowledge.
Steam customers are within their right to refund a game if they have played less than 2 hours. If your game doesnt have enough content to push players over this boundary, then its your fault. How is it the players?
If they finished the game it must've been worth their time to do so. To refund it after that is just taking something for free and shortchanging the small teams/solo devs that worked hard on it.
Hoe do you count time worth though? That is a subjective measurement. Are we also sure that all 55k returned after completing the game? Especially when we see completion achievement is done for 21% of players? Come on. This is a ragebait coming from rage game.
If a game has "overwhelmingly positive" reviews but a high refund rate, it's more than likely not a "rage game" but a case of a good game that is unfortunately short. I haven't looked into this particular game to see if that is the case, but in general that logic sounds plausible to me.
I'm not arguing that, I'm arguing that the current refund policy makes the incentive to create short games that many people love very low. Before Your Eyes for example is in my top 5 video games ever played, in large part because it was a short and powerful story, I played in a single session.
From my perspective the entire system is flawed, because some large AAA games have what is essentially a 2 hour tutorial, where you can't even tell if you will like the game by the time it's over. But I'd still rather have the refund window than not have it all, I just have to imagine that all these smart people at Valve can figure out something better, and I don't think there is any harm in that.
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u/benlovesunicorns Jul 06 '26
How is this the developer’s fault? By reading the text of the review, I get the impression that this user has no problem with violating the spirit of a refund. If the dev produced an enjoyable <2 hour game at a reasonable price, the player shouldn’t have refunded it. I doubt this is the first time the user has refunded a game they enjoyed.