Indie dev calls on Steam to change its refund policy
If you play a game on Steam for less than two hours, you’ll have no trouble getting it refunded. It’s an accommodation that quickly poses a threat to short games.
If you want to return a game on Steam, you need to be aware of the magic two-hour window. Play beyond it, and your chances of getting your money back drop dramatically. Stay under the two-hour limit and request a refund within 14 days of buying the game, and you’ll be fully reimbursed.
For many players, the two-hour window has replaced traditional demos. It allows you to try out games without much risk. However, as a debate that’s been hotting up on social media recently suggests, it also poses a problem for developers of very short games.
A short game with good reviews and a high return rate
Solo indie developer Mateo Covic, who publishes games under the name Zoroarts, was the one to spark the debate. In a post on X, he stated that 21 per cent of people who’d bought his game Paddle Paddle Paddle had requested a refund, despite 89 per cent of the nearly 1,400 Steam reviews at that time being positive.
Twenty-one per cent is an unusually high refund rate. While Steam doesn’t publish reliable platform-wide figures on how often games are typically refunded, a rate of under ten per cent seems to be considered the industry norm. Streamearnings.com cites a Steam average of three to seven per cent as an unofficial guideline.
Covic seemed particularly annoyed by a reviewer who’d recommended his game and called it «great», only to return it after speedily finishing it in just over an hour and a half. The game usually costs 4.99 euros (about 4.60 francs), so we’re hardly talking about mega bucks here. Covic addressed Steam directly in his post, saying, «This should not be possible.»
Source: X
By criticising Steam’s refund policy, Covic rubbed thousands of players up the wrong way. Many gamers retorted that if his game was that low on content, he only had himself to blame. I’m reluctant to delve deeper into this specific game and the possible drivers behind its refund rate, but the issue behind it opens up several avenues of discussion.
The lenient refund policy
Plenty of other game stores besides Steam offer refunds on titles played for less than two hours. Not that they’re required to by law – in fact, in most countries around the world, there’s no general cancellation right for online purchases. Although the EU is an exception here, cancellation rights for digital content often expire if buyers expressly agree to immediate delivery.
So, from a gamer’s perspective, this voluntary refund initially seems like an unusually pro-customer gesture. For Steam, the financial benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Users are more willing to buy a game after getting the chance to try it out, so the platform’s sales go up – even though it has to refund a portion of the sales revenue.
That’s why Steam has never shown any signs of wanting to return to a more restrictive refund policy. In the Paddle Paddle Paddle case, Covic angered gamers by questioning the platform’s customer-friendly approach.
However, Covic isn’t demanding that Steam scrap refunds – he just wants the policy to be adjusted. In an interview with Kotaku, he said he considered refunds to be «absolutely a player’s right» and that he didn’t feel comfortable complaining about them.
However, he did go on to say that the current refund policy could put short games offering only a few hours of playtime at a disadvantage. A two-hour window usually gives you enough time to see most of a short game. A returns policy turns that experience into a fun freebie.
If more developers were to disclose figures detailing these refund practices, it could amp up the pressure on Steam. For example, the platform might consider implementing shorter refund periods for very short games. Steam hasn’t commented on the issue yet. At this point in time, it seems fairly unlikely that Steam will make a fundamental policy change purely because of a few indie titles in the lowest price segment.
How long should games be?
Covic’s post refers to an obvious case of misuse. According to the Paddle Paddle Paddle developer, approximately 55,000 of the approximately 270,000 copies sold were refunded. Still, that’s not to say all of those refunds are misuses of Steam’s returns policy. A game falling short of expectations or simply being poor are valid reasons for a gamer to want their money back. According to Covic, many of Paddle Paddle Paddle’s refund requests were made on account of the game being too short.
Which brings up another old debate. How much game time can you actually expect per euro or franc? My colleague Domagoj believes that a game’s playtime shouldn’t be tied to its price. In his opinion, there are plenty of short, snappy games that are entertaining and worth their full price.
Few people have time to savour every second of a 100-hour game. VR experiences – which allow you to visit national parks or specific attractions without having to get on a plane – are on the shorter side too. Two hours after starting them, you’re usually done, having seen and learned a lot. Short games and experiences absolutely have a target audience and their place. Even so, many gamers seem to be under the impression that if a title doesn’t last a certain number of hours, then it’s worthless.
In another X post, Covic suggested that a game’s expected playtime could be displayed on its Steam page. That way, potential buyers would be better able to gauge how much gaming time they’d get out of a title for the price.
The thing is, that wouldn’t prevent misuse either.
The moral aspect: exploiting the refund policy
Steam is aware that its rules around returns allow for misuse. Its refund policy states:
Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam – not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you.
Given how tricky it is to prove misuse, the platform evidently relies on the goodwill of its users. The line between skilfully taking advantage of a system and abusing it is a blurry one.
Here are some examples to consider. When you go to see a film, you might spend two hours in the cinema too. But you don’t get a refund based on whether or not you enjoyed it. If you downloaded the film illegally, you’d save money – but you’d be robbing those who brought it to the big screen of a tiny slice of success. Trial periods for software and streaming services give you full, legitimate access to all the content without having to pay for it. Enjoying a game, recommending it and still getting a refund isn’t a crime. Nor is flipping through a magazine at a newsstand, reading entire articles and then putting it back. So where do you personally draw the line?
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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