You now can get Refunds on Steam

I had to request a refund from Steam for the first and hopefully last time, the experience was extremely easy all around and was totally worth it. I Really wanted to like ARK but no matter what settings I turned down or off the game would run like absolute shit. Even when it was running great it still wasn't running right. According to the system requirements I was well over and even in game it was recommended I play at Medium and High settings but even at Low the game was unplayable in its current form.

Hopefully they will be working on performance and stability issues soon but as of right now I wouldnt buy it unless you are really confident it will run, or you just like to throw money away lol. That was just a joke btw, I was really looking forward to ARK and still am if they can redeem themselves Ill be back!
 
squadr0n said:
I had to request a refund from Steam for the first and hopefully last time, the experience was extremely easy all around and was totally worth it. I Really wanted to like ARK but no matter what settings I turned down or off the game would run like absolute shit. Even when it was running great it still wasn't running right. According to the system requirements I was well over and even in game it was recommended I play at Medium and High settings but even at Low the game was unplayable in its current form.

Hopefully they will be working on performance and stability issues soon but as of right now I wouldnt buy it unless you are really confident it will run, or you just like to throw money away lol. That was just a joke btw, I was really looking forward to ARK and still am if they can redeem themselves Ill be back!
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Redeem themselves? I'm glad you got your refund but you bought a game in early alpha. Very few early access games run well when they just release.
 
Decided to file a couple of retrospective refund requests.

First one for Ultra SF4 as the description made it sound like it comes with all outfits, then low and behold after I impulsed purchased it I found out it still has a bunch of DLC that isn't included.

Second was for locomotion which refuses to change resolution without crashing to desktop every single time (weird as rollercoaster tycoon doesn't have a problem)

Don't expect them to accept it, but we'll see.
 
Corpekata said:
What would be the point?
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I think the point was fairly clear.
Besides, I'm not trying to poke holes. It popped into my head and I thought it was humorous. I doubt any dev would be stupid enough to try it, but it does highlight that at least (some) Steam hosted MMOs might need a window slightly wider than two hours.
 
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CheesecakeRecipe said:
Peter Moorhead, maker of Stranded and the upcoming Murdered, has written a blog post detailing his worries on the refund system.

A few segments below. I thought it worth reading especially for the final quote.
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http://petermoorhead.tumblr.com/post/120969484727/steam-refunds-policy
Judging a game primarily on length is akin to judging a book based on the publisher’s choice of font. Length is simply not a primary factor in a game’s quality, and making this incorrect assumption puts deeply unfair demands on devs who choose not to pad out their story in order to try and compete on these grounds. Personally I value minimalism - I don’t want to take up any more time than I have to in order to tell a story, and I value the control granted to me over tone and pacing when I know my audience will play my game in one sitting - I shouldn’t be punished for what is a totally reasonable creative decision.
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When you go to see a film, you can’t expect a refund because you didn’t enjoy it, and the same goes for an album, a book, or a game. Not liking something on personal terms is not sufficient justification for a refund - by those terms the studio who made Transformers 3 should now be bankrupt, and everyone who worked there should now be unemployed and possibly homeless.
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There are people genuinely trying to petition to remove my last game “Stranded” from Steam for being less than an hour long, and for containing no puzzles, despite literally every published review of the game ever, and the game’s own goddam store description, duly noting both of these facts.
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Judging a game primarily on length is akin to judging a book based on the publisher’s choice of font. Length is simply not a primary factor in a game’s quality, and making this incorrect assumption puts deeply unfair demands on devs who choose not to pad out their story in order to try and compete on these grounds. Personally I value minimalism - I don’t want to take up any more time than I have to in order to tell a story, and I value the control granted to me over tone and pacing when I know my audience will play my game in one sitting - I shouldn’t be punished for what is a totally reasonable creative decision.
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No. Sorry. A book's font is close to (but not exactly the same as) a game's art direction. The game's length is exactly like the length of a book. If George RR Martin comes out with the sixth ASoIaF book and it can be read in an hour, people will be very upset. It might be a very good hour, but it's not the gripping fantasy epic they were hoping for.

And there is an audience for short stories, and there is an audience for short games. But expecting everyone to be okay with that is asinine.


When you go to see a film, you can’t expect a refund because you didn’t enjoy it, and the same goes for an album, a book, or a game. Not liking something on personal terms is not sufficient justification for a refund - by those terms the studio who made Transformers 3 should now be bankrupt, and everyone who worked there should now be unemployed and possibly homeless.
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The Transformers movies make money because most people like them. They might not be high art but they're fun and entertaining. If they were unliked by the masses, then nobody would have gone to see the sequels.


There are people genuinely trying to petition to remove my last game “Stranded” from Steam for being less than an hour long, and for containing no puzzles, despite literally every published review of the game ever, and the game’s own goddam store description, duly noting both of these facts.
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Yeah, that's poor form. If people don't want to play it, there's a very easy way to avoid it. It's not hurting anyone by being on the store. But, by the same token, Valve shouldn't have to keep the game on the store. It's their platform and they should get to decide what they think is best for their platform.
 
About to see if I can get a refund for Endless Legend. The game really wasn't clicking with me compared to Dungeon of the Endless and crazy enough...Endless Space :/.
 
My refund for Gurumin went through. The framerate on it was so jittery that it was making me nauseous, so I couldn't get more than half an hour into the game.
 
For the "Small games under 2h getting completed and refunded", couldn't they just make the timer 30min for sub-5$ purchases?

Also, if your game gets 13/17 refunds, i'm sorry, but it's not because people are functionally pirating it.

Abdul Hafeez said:
I have no idea how to appeal. Unless by appeal, you mean just e-mail regular Steam Support?
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Yes, or just submit again for the same refund.

There was a valve employee on reddit telling someone that had faced the same issue to re-apply for the refund, and apologizing for the mistake.
 
Really hoping other digital storefronts follow the lead here and soon. God knows I have a share of games I've regretted buying as soon as minutes after the download finished.
 
Aureon said:
For the "Small games under 2h getting completed and refunded", couldn't they just make the timer 30min for sub-5$ purchases?
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This. There should be some leeway in the 2-hour rule. Both ways, even. For really massive games, you can probably extend that out quite a bit and still be not nearly enough time to finish the game.
 
It can be over 2 hrs. Here's a repost of mine

QbE6FxD.png
 
More_Badass said:
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http://petermoorhead.tumblr.com/post/120969484727/steam-refunds-policy
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It takes some stones to get aggro on this when you're the creator of Stranded. I quote:

The most common response I’ve heard to my fears is that this policy better protects consumers who were being exploited by developers and publishers. This is patently false. What it actually does is erodes the rights of creators, and punishes all developers for the actions of a select few, whilst rewarding consumers for not making informed purchases. Reviews exist for a reason; read them. You already have significant measures and rights in place to protect you from truly faulty or incomplete games.
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This quote is from a guy who's selling an $8 game on Steam that, yes, would be significantly impacted by this policy. But it would be impacted because it's a game that can be thoroughly and entirely experienced in 30 minutes, with a significant portion of that being slowly, slowly walking between about ten screen locations which are not interactive, in which your character does not act expressively, in which there is no linguistic communication or much clarity about how to even move the location changes forward. (You can see half the locations in the entire game on the Steam store page.)

Meanwhile, this is the description on the store:

You wake from cryostasis to find your ship lying crippled on an uncharted planet; shards of platinum-iridium alloy puncture the shimmering alien sand, the wind passes quietly over dead hydrocolliders. It isn't known how long the ruined vessel has sat here, or even what caused the crash, but one thing is clear: Time is rapidly running out.

Stranded is a minimalist adventure game that foregoes dialogue and puzzles to focus on atmosphere, mystery, and exploration; it is both a love letter to classic point & click adventures, and an experiment with the fundamentals of the genre.

Assume the role of the astronaut, and explore the mysterious, sun-blasted wasteland to uncover something... anything, that might lead to your survival
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It does clearly identify that it's not a game with puzzles, but (especially combined with the store video) it suggests both a scope and level of narrative that aren't present. The end result is that his Steam reviews are incredibly negative (72% Do Not Recommend) because people don't feel like what they got lines up with what's suggested by the description. Lest you take this as anti-Walking Simulator backlash, check out other major low-interactivity art/story titles that are often tarred with this brush like Dear Esther, Proteus, and Gone Home, all of which have 75% positive reviews -- presumably because even at higher price points, people felt like what they got aligned with their expectations.

Now, I'm not saying he should be deluged with refunds. (I won't be requesting one.) If he wants to oppose the policy on the grounds that this level of uncertainty on sales is disruptive to indie devs or that it actively disfavors some reasonable types of games, I'm on board. But to suggest that this policy is the fault of consumers who are ignorant and greedy is something else again.
 
More_Badass said:
.
When you go to see a film, you can’t expect a refund because you didn’t enjoy it, and the same goes for an album, a book, or a game. Not liking something on personal terms is not sufficient justification for a refund - by those terms the studio who made Transformers 3 should now be bankrupt, and everyone who worked there should now be unemployed and possibly homeless.
http://petermoorhead.tumblr.com/post/120969484727/steam-refunds-policy
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Maybe things have changed, but I have had no issues in the past getting refunds for movies I didn't like. Sure if you walk out after the credits you might have an issue, but walking out in the middle they always gave me a refund or a pass to see another movie for free. Books are much the same way. Most book stores have very lenient return policies so I regularly would buy two books with both being the first in the series and exchange the one I didn't like for the second book in the series I did like.
 
Because this is a new feature, can I request a refund on a game I bought a year ago, but haven't played more than 20 minutes of?
 
Minishdriveby said:
Because this is a new feature, can I request a refund on a game I bought a year ago, but haven't played more than 20 minutes of?
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Sadly no. I tried to get a refund on a game I bought a year ago and it wouldn't let me submit the request form. I did get a refund on a game I bought 6 months ago during the holiday sale.

Seems 6 months is the cutoff.
 
Archie said:
Sadly no. I tried to get a refund on a game I bought a year ago and it wouldn't let me submit the request form. I did get a refund on a game I bought 6 months ago during the holiday sale.

Seems 6 months is the cutoff.
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Aureon said:
6 months top.
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Damn. Thanks anyways. I just installed Cloudbuilt which I bought during last Summer's Steam sale. I guess I should cut my losses at it only being $2.99 at the time.
 
Nice, got my refund approved within an hour.

Shame I can't do it for FFXIII since it's past 6 months by now.
I'll be sure to get a refund next time SE decides to do a bad port though.
 
My first encounter with Steam support continues. Spoiler: I may lose the fight. See my original post for context.

I submitted a second refund request for the Scholar of the First Sin DX11 upgrade for vanilla DSII. I purchased it over 14 days ago, but only played it for 35 minutes. Valve denied the request and gave the following reason: "Your playtime of an included product exceeds 2 hours." The words included product suggested that they were counting my playtime for the original Dark Souls II (they failed to mention this, however). I'm not entirely sure why my playtime of a product on the Steam store would be relevant in my refund request for an entirely different product on the Steam store. I mean, these are completely separate downloads. The DX11 Scholar of the First Sin edition of Dark Souls II isn't just a patch.

This was their response for my second refund request. They responded 62 minutes after I filed the request (a little too fast considering the situation here).

Untitled.png
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And here's my Steam library page for Dark Souls II. Notice the playtime and the highlighted DLC.

Untitled2.png
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I refunded fallout 3 a couple hours ago. It's pending. But it won't let me refund new vegas. There is no refund button for it. Lame.
 
Abdul Hafeez said:
My first encounter with Steam support continues. Spoiler: I may lose the fight. See my original post for context.

This was their response for my second refund request. They responded 62 minutes after I filed the request (a little too fast considering the situation here).
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Upgrade edition contains DLC for Dark Souls, to ensure it can't be bought without base game. It's not typical situation. I guess, you could try to mention this?
 
I looked at our refund figures for the past few days. After the first day when refunds started to go out, our refund figure dropped significantly with each following day. So what it looks is a lot of people heard about the refund feature news, wanted to try it out with older games they couldn't get to work or hated, and as time goes on, refunds will stabilize at a fairly low number.

For full disclosure, our games are RPGs (not super long, but all longer than 2 hours) and rather cheap so I wouldn't expect our games to have a lot of refund requests.
 
Isn't playing a game in offline a way of exploiting this? You see, I played and finished Child of Light in the week I couldn't access the internet and it only shows that I played less than an hour of the game, when in truth, I played over ten hours. Surely there's a way of knowing if someone played and finished the game in offline mode?
 
Reila said:
Isn't playing a game in offline a way of exploiting this? You see, I played and finished Child of Light in the week I couldn't access the internet and it only shows that I played less than an hour of the game, when in truth, I played over ten hours. Surely there's a way of knowing if someone played and finished the game in offline mode?
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Valve has recently started to test offline time keeping. It'll probably get pushed out once they beta test it a bit.
 
Nabs said:
Valve has recently started to test offline time keeping. It'll probably get pushed out once they beta test it a bit.
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I don't see how they can possibly test time played for games which can be played entirely outside of the Steam client (a list of such games can be found here). I mean, you don't even need Steam installed to play these games once you've downloaded them.
 
rjc571 said:
I don't see how they can possibly test time played for games which can be played entirely outside of the Steam client (a list of such games can be found here). I mean, you don't even need Steam installed to play these games once you've downloaded them.
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If someone is intent on "buying" a game, playing it through entirely without Steam and then refunding, why not just take the next logical step and pirate from the get-go.
Less steps in the process and it won't lock your money away in the buy/refund process. I mean what is the point of doing that?
 
Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
I looked at our refund figures for the past few days. After the first day when refunds started to go out, our refund figure dropped significantly with each following day. So what it looks is a lot of people heard about the refund feature news, wanted to try it out with older games they couldn't get to work or hated, and as time goes on, refunds will stabilize at a fairly low number.

For full disclosure, our games are RPGs (not super long, but all longer than 2 hours) and rather cheap so I wouldn't expect our games to have a lot of refund requests.
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Thanks for the data! That's good to hear.
 
Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
I looked at our refund figures for the past few days. After the first day when refunds started to go out, our refund figure dropped significantly with each following day. So what it looks is a lot of people heard about the refund feature news, wanted to try it out with older games they couldn't get to work or hated, and as time goes on, refunds will stabilize at a fairly low number.

For full disclosure, our games are RPGs (not super long, but all longer than 2 hours) and rather cheap so I wouldn't expect our games to have a lot of refund requests.
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For the record, the Qwiboo's game is ~two bucks at regular price - cheaper than any of your games. And keep in mind that they're the ones panicking about refunds.
 
Yeah fallout new Vegas is impossible to get a refund for. I sent a refund ticket to steam. They'll probably reply to it after two weeks and see it's been longer then two weeks lol.
 
So I just requested a refund. I got a notice back saying that the refund has registered, but if I go to the Steam page it shows that my wallet has zero dollars and the refund is pending, Does anyone know how long it usually takes to get the pending balance to become available. Also why?
 
Alphahawk said:
So I just requested a refund. I got a notice back saying that the refund has registered, but if I go to the Steam page it shows that my wallet has zero dollars and the refund is pending, Does anyone know how long it usually takes to get the pending balance to become available. Also why?
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Supposed to be about a week. Probably for security and abuse protection.
 
Asked for a refund and instead of giving me back my money, they put it in my steam wallet instead.
That is not what I asked for. :/
 
Just refunded my pre-order of Arkham Knight since it's cheaper everywhere else. Worked instantly. Guess because it's a refund and steam wallet, they know they still have your money anyway, just for different games.

Rizzi said:
Asked for a refund and instead of giving me back my money, they put it in my steam wallet instead.
That is not what I asked for. :/
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I think they give it back to what you paid with.
 
JustinBB7 said:
Just refunded my pre-order of Arkham Knight since it's cheaper everywhere else. Worked instantly. Guess because it's a refund and steam wallet, they know they still have your money anyway, just for different games.



I think they give it back to what you paid with.
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That's not how I paid for it though.
 
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