I think one solution, at least for PC games, would be if Valve loosened their refund conditions just a little.
The 2 hour of gameplay cutoff is frankly not terribly flexible. Like anyone who really speed runs a game in 4 or 8 hours is probably not typical of a customer that actually wants to enjoy the game.
The 14 day thing isn't technically that bad though, save for maybe around Christmas when things might be a little hectic (and when sales are going).
That 2 hour window is just for "no questions asked" refunds. You can pretty easily get refunds further on if you demonstrate good reason, such as "its not what it portrays itself as." I've managed it a few times on whim purchases that ended up not being fun once the "true game" opens up.
I have also returned a game outside of the 2-hour window; No Man's Sky. I bought it a few years ago once it had shaped up from it's initial disastrous release, but 3-4 hours in I realized what the loop was going to be the whole time and didn't want to do any more of that. I explained myself in my return request, and the next day I was credited for the purchase.
My worst Steam experiences are the comment sections by far.
I actually hate the 14 day policy, and don't understand reasoning the behind it for a non-physical item. I've bought many games on sale that actually I don't get around to playing for months.
The reasoning is that they don’t want you to spend hundreds of bucks on a sale and then wise up a month later when you realize you didn’t actually want 90% of those games at any price.
Yeah, I've experienced this as well a few times. It can be a bit aggravating.
From a business standpoint, I wasn't sure I could justify too much more leeway on it though, outside of the Christmas season anyway, because it's worth factoring in purchased gifts that won't be "unwrapped" until Xmas proper.
Maybe let the individual devs set it on a per game basis? Like if your game is six hours long then refunds ending at 2 hours makes sense, but if your game takes 20 hours to really get rolling then maybe 2 hours isn't enough of a window and you choose another duration.
Something along these lines might be a good idea. Or maybe have it scale based on the standard running price for the game, since most devs already price their games based on how much content and playtime their product provides.
I think one solution, at least for PC games, would be if Valve loosened their refund conditions just a little.
The 2 hour of gameplay cutoff is frankly not terribly flexible. Like anyone who really speed runs a game in 4 or 8 hours is probably not typical of a customer that actually wants to enjoy the game.
The 14 day thing isn't technically that bad though, save for maybe around Christmas when things might be a little hectic (and when sales are going).
That 2 hour window is just for "no questions asked" refunds. You can pretty easily get refunds further on if you demonstrate good reason, such as "its not what it portrays itself as." I've managed it a few times on whim purchases that ended up not being fun once the "true game" opens up.
I have also returned a game outside of the 2-hour window; No Man's Sky. I bought it a few years ago once it had shaped up from it's initial disastrous release, but 3-4 hours in I realized what the loop was going to be the whole time and didn't want to do any more of that. I explained myself in my return request, and the next day I was credited for the purchase.
My worst Steam experiences are the comment sections by far.
That's fair, my experience might not be universal.
Like all tech stuff it probably depends on if there is a human reading it at the time or just an auto response.
I actually hate the 14 day policy, and don't understand reasoning the behind it for a non-physical item. I've bought many games on sale that actually I don't get around to playing for months.
The reasoning is that they don’t want you to spend hundreds of bucks on a sale and then wise up a month later when you realize you didn’t actually want 90% of those games at any price.
Yeah, I've experienced this as well a few times. It can be a bit aggravating.
From a business standpoint, I wasn't sure I could justify too much more leeway on it though, outside of the Christmas season anyway, because it's worth factoring in purchased gifts that won't be "unwrapped" until Xmas proper.
Maybe let the individual devs set it on a per game basis? Like if your game is six hours long then refunds ending at 2 hours makes sense, but if your game takes 20 hours to really get rolling then maybe 2 hours isn't enough of a window and you choose another duration.
Something along these lines might be a good idea. Or maybe have it scale based on the standard running price for the game, since most devs already price their games based on how much content and playtime their product provides.