top 100 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 315 points 4 months ago* (51 children)

If you refund an indy game that you completed, you're a sociopath and there's no helping you. There isn't a structural system that's going to prevent that, some people are complete human garbage

  • source
  • hideshow 51 child comments
  • [–] 128 points 4 months ago* (9 children)

    It's not just the playing it, enjoying it, and then refunding it. It's the bragging about it on the fucking platform. Kind of asshole who does that. Well, that's gaming culture these days.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [+] 22 points 4 months ago* (8 children)
  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

    I understand your desire to not use youtube, but you are missing out on The Spiffing Brit and Let’s Game it Out

    If you aren't familiar, they are game breakers. Spiffing brit tends toward grand strategy games, and finds balance issues in them for a living best I can tell, and lets game it out griefs NPCs and systems to see how much abuse a game can take and what sort of tomfoolery he can manage. He tends toward very complex base building and mining type games.

    Even if neither of those genres are your thing to play (they aren’t really mine), the channels are funny as hell and totally enjoyable.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    I'll add that noclip (and their second channel noclip_2 are excellent for games journalism /documentaries.

    And CallMeKevin has been doing wholesome video game content (and other things) for about 10 years.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [+] 9 points 4 months ago* (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Thats a super fair stance.

    Consider looking into something like freetube (pc, there might also be apps for android that do the same, I don't know) Its logged in as an anonymous account so you can subscribe to stuff, but you can go into the settings and disable all the distractions, which is what they call everything thats not videos :) All I ever see is stuff from my subscribed channels, and if I go into the individual channels, the only thing that remains is the main videos feed, everything else (about, shorts, community, etc.) is disabled. I also have sponsor block enabled to auto-skip all promotional content including self-promo.

    The algorithm is basically non-existent on freetube, in that your recommendations feed on the side of the video player is going to be mostly the same channel you are watching now, not just random shit. Maybe a few things thrown in that are closely related -like if they work with another channel a lot that other channel might come up- maybe some weird bug videos that aren't related at all, but those are all semi-sciency so that could be from my own watching, idk, I think the dev included some basic channels for the main feed so it wasn't empty, they don't really change and I’ve had other people mention seeing the exact same videos in their feed, years apart. I haven't seen much, if any, questionable or undesirable content without explicitly searching for it, though.

    I find the distraction-free mode of using it to be very much like back in the day when you had to know what you wanted because there was no algorithm. Its not addictive or changing my opinions, imo, because I genuinely struggle to find new channels, what with no algorithm shoving shit down my throat, so I get what I’m looking for and nothing else. I check it a couple times a month, quickly run out of new content, get bored, and go do something else. Perhaps thats a workable option for you, as well :)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [+] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    It does! Both linux and windows versions work very well, though I discovered on ubuntu that you can install both an app store and a .deb version and they will be entirely separate instances. Wild! And confusing for noobs when updating!

    Fly safe friend! That sounds miserable! Hopefully it is travel for a fun reason, at least.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    There seems to be an entire genre on YouTube of absolutely godawful human beings just being fucking horrible in the guise of “game reviews”. I mean, just really unpleasant people who within about 30 seconds you know would be domestic abusers if they ever met a girl. Is this the edge of the manosphere? It’s absolutely revolting, whatever it is.

    This has always been a problem in the gaming community, but it's been especially rampant for the last decade or so since Steve Bannon identified gamers as a demographic (largely comprised of insecure teenage boys) that is particularly susceptible to fascist messaging and threw money into signal-boosting the worst of it, and a bunch of impressionable dumbfucks went along with it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Personally I think the whole concept of gamers is stupid. You cannot have a demographic comprise predominantly of multiple different sections of a population, that's two broader of net to be casting. It's like saying that everyone who drives a car is a car enthusiast.

    Anyone who plays games is a gamer but there's a huge range of ages, ethnicities, and nationalities. Besides someone who plays a lot of FPS is not the same as someone who predominantly plays grand strategy games or the Sims.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    It should be easy enough to implement a refundability window based on either time-in-game or percentage completion (based on main story line, not side quests and diversions).

    I mean if the game says 20 hours of gameplay but you complete it in an hour, that's false advertising and there should be an exception. But if a game says it takes an hour to complete and you complete it in an hour, there's no reason why you should be able to get that refunded.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Ok, sure. I think we're missing the forest for the trees here though

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    What's the forest in this case, and what are the trees?

    Are the trees the individual cases of refund abuse, and the forest is the culture of unmitigated refund abuse?

    Cause if so, I don't see how my comment was missing the forest for the trees...

    In fact, yours was the one focused on individual cases and claiming there's no larger unifying structure that can be addressed...

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    What if I private the game? Am I also a sociopath for doing that?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Whether or not you want to make the moral distinction is a personal choice, but there is an economic distinction to be made as well.

    Pirating a AAA game is fine because the studio is gonna make more games regardless.

    Pirating an indie game is stupid though, if too many people do that then the developer won't be able to make enough money and won't make more games.

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -62 points 4 months ago (26 children)

    But what if it sucked? You can easily rage-complete a bad game within the refund window.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 26 child comments
  • [–] 72 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    If the meal is bad, don’t finish it and then ask for a refund.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 24 points 4 months ago

    There's nuance here. If it's 'bad' as in like the meat is still raw, or there's a lump of the chef's hair wadded up in it, then yeah it's refund time.

    If it's 'bad' as in they made it properly but you didn't like it, just suck it up and don't order it next time. It's good to try new things, but you can't expect all of them to be a banger. The number of people I've seen punish the restaurant for giving them exactly what they asked for is kinda bonkers.

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] 21 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    I rarely do that, but when I do, it's not a case of too boring (those I just forget about entirely). It's the kind of game that feels so wrong I just have to see how bad it gets.

    Okamiden on the DS is my go-to example. Absolute fan of the original, but I finished that pseudosequel in one long, angry session.

    Another would be Pokémon Pearl. Terribly balanced with the most tedious world to traverse I've experienced in a Pokémon game. It was part of a gen 4 to gen 7 playthrough with dex transfer so I committed to it. Black, Z, Alpha Sapphire, Moon? Yeah, had fun with all of them. Pearl was complete ass.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 48 points 4 months ago* (13 children)

    If you try a new flavor of chips and hate them do you take them back to the store for a refund? If they were stale, sure. If the game was buggy as hell and didn't run right I'd say submit for a refund.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    A lot of products used to say "satisfaction guaranteed". So you could literally return products you had consumed. I don't know how many people did that though.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Most of those guarantees involve mailing your receipt and the proof of purchase to the company along with a letter explaining how you were not satisfied before they will get around to mailing you a check for the $4.73 in 8-12 weeks.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Some of them went over the top the try to 'make it right'. Dude I went to highschool with did this shit almost like it was a hobby. He'd call the customer support line and complain about whatever bullshit he could come up with - gummy lump in his drink, hard flake in his bag of chips that 'might have been a fingernail!... they'd take his number and address, and that was usually the end of it.

    Then occasionally a box would randomly show up at his front door with like 50 bottles of soda or candy bars or w/e, and a letter apologizing for the trouble lol.

    Manipulative little shit. And that was when we were like 14 years old... dude's probably running his own organized crime ring nowadays. xD

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I swear to Glob, another one that compares this situation to eating food. We've had that in another thread already. You could compare it to watching a movie maybe, but how are you people always going for the food comparison?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    It's more active than just watching something, like you've constantly got to drive the experience forward and so decide whether to continue.

    But yeah I've also walked out of movies and got a refund. I wouldn't do it after the movie though

    Lol "you people." This whole comment section needs a cold shower.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Most stores around here don't accept food refunds unless they're unopened or completely covered in mold.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    One time I returned a single coconut because the inside was completely moldy and the lady behind me accused me of drinking the water and returning the flesh... I was like lady I have a job i don't even care about the 2 bucks. I just figured how else are they going to know that they got a bunch of bad coconuts if I don't come leave a record. Im not trying to run a scam for moldy fruit water.

    She actually said that makes sense and dropped it but I was shocked... like you really think someone laundering coconut water one fuzzy nut at a time?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    That sounds like something for people who like being angry, in which case I'd argue the sense of defeating the game is the enjoyment you got out of it.

    But Jesus, just pirate. Get off steam

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    I'll confess I did this once -- with Duke Nukem Forever. My old best bud and I played the fuck out of Duke3D back in the day (including building our own levels) and 3DRealms cockteased everyone for well over a decade with their supposed 'ultimate' title. So when it finally released I HAD to play it. And of course there was no way it could live up to the hype. It was an inconsistent mess and I powered through it in under 2 hours. I guess I'm glad I played it but it wasn't even remotely revolutionary... At beast or was like a collection of fan mods bundled into an 'official' title. Not at all worth the asking price. I have no desire to revisit any of it so overall I don't feel like I ripped them off; if anything I feel like they disappointed me majorly as a fan.

    I played it so others don't have to. Yeah, that's how I'll spin it 😂

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It's only a 2 hour window. I think very reasonable that you might play a game for 90 minutes and then at the end say "wait, that's it‽ That's not worth $x!"

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Imagine eating a meal for two hours and then when the bill comes say "that's it?"

    I get that you might expect more. I felt that way about Cyberpunk. I'd barely got going, and I wouldn't recommend it, but I still liked it.

    And I dunno the fact that it's indies doesn't count for nothing in my books. I'd say go case by case, but generally I agree with the indie dev that it's scummy and I don't support it.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    If it aucked and you experienced that whole piece of art you don't get your money back. You don't get your money back for a bad movie my guy.

    Art gallery's don't give refunds and they ALL suck.

    OPERA IS A REAL THING

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Y’all standards are in the gutter. Completing a game does not mean you’re obligated to keep it.

    If you did not have fun, or if the game does not meet your expectations for replayability, the responsible financial decision is to refund it.

    Whether it’s indie or not is irrelevant. The world economy is shit, and, consumers or indie developers, everyone is struggling alike.

    I understand you’re going after people with money to spare who maliciously do this, but that sentence is not it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [+] -9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    To whoever replied to my original comment (I don't understand how OC can call me a sociopath, block me, and make my comment disappear, but whatever) and likened playing a game and refunding it to refunding a meal you ate: you can't re-eat a meal but you can replay a game.

    Most shmups you can beat in less than 30 minutes with continues, but the fun is replayability. If it's not replayable, it's not worth the money, unless it's appropriately priced.

    I'm honestly tired of people who inhale 1-hour walking simulators on daily basis or have hundreds of games sitting in their library unplayed talking about game prices or value per dollar. Y'all suck at this. You better leave this discussion alone.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I think you somehow accidentally sent the same comment twice. The link to the comment where all the replies are is https://piefed.social/comment/12075820

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    I can't see that comment. I can see it on my profile, but when I click on it, I can't see anything, and I don't see the comments people left on it/can't reply to them.

    Really odd design from Lemmy/Piefed, or maybe a bug, not sure.

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] -32 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    If you refund an indy game that you completed, you’re a sociopath and there’s no helping you.

    Y'all standards are in the gutter. Completing a game does not mean you're obligated to keep it.

    If you did not have fun, or if the game does not meet your expectations for replayability, the responsible financial decision is to refund it.

    Whether it's indie or not is irrelevant. The world economy is shit, and, consumers or indie developers, everyone is struggling alike.

    I understand you're going after people with money to spare who maliciously do this, but that sentence is not it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 57 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    If you're planning to refund a game. Just pirate it

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    You have to trust the source where you download to pirate it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Just gotta find a decent private tracker and keep your ratio good.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I mean I have a hard time trusting hacked and pirated games, that they do not contain anything harmful. It's been a long time since I pirated a PC game. We talk about Windows XP from my experience here. xD

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    You can trust cracked games if you do your research on release groups etc. As I Arch user, I'm more afraid of AUR than most cracked games tbh. Not at all worried if the game is from a trusted release with a good track record. Some of these groups as been at it for decades now.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know how you can compare the AUR to this situation. With the AUR, if you know what you are doing, then you can check the script yourself. You don't have to trust in good faith.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 88 points 4 months ago* (23 children)

    The people who legitimately do this are the ones who make the rest of the gamers look bad.

    If you bought a game, especially for $3, played it from start to finish over the course of an hour and a half, and then bragged about it when you refunded it. You fully deserve to have your refund capability disabled.

    The thing is, though, I don't really know a way that this can be implemented without allowing publishers to game the system. I do personally think that Two Hours is a little generous for the overall story because I will generally know whether or not I'm going to like a game within 35 minutes of playing.

    I think a good alternative to it is have your refund window be based off of the current sale price of the game.

    So for a game that's less than five bucks, you would only have somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour of a refund window.

    Then for your typical indie window, which would be like fifteen to thirty dollars, you have an hour to hour and a half then your AAA title pricing of ~60, you have two or three hours.

    I can understand refunding a game if it's broken on your system or just trash, but it feels real sleazy to me to spend money on a game, play it to completion, and then refund it anyway.

  • source
  • hideshow 23 child comments
  • [–] 41 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    It largely depends on the type of game. There's are plenty of games I've played where you're still in the tutorial after 2 hours. Hell, I don't think I knew if I liked EU4 until I was like 50+ hours in.

    You don't need 2 hours to figure out if you like Super Meat Boy though. You'll know in less than an hour. Probably less than that.

    For those who wonder how you could play a game for 50+ hours and not know if you like it; it's a grand strategy game with lots of functionally. A full game can easily be 50+ hours depending on how fast you let the game run, and your first game is definitely going to have a lot of pausing trying to figure out various functionality. First game is or two is just figuring out the basic gameplay.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [+] -7 points 4 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    You'd be wrong. Though you could say I didn't hate it at least. But I certainly hadn't made up my mind yet.

    I played the first game with a friend. Which is largely why I even finished it. It's pretty overwhelming because you're left to figure out a lot on your own. Second game I played on my own. After that is when I knew I liked it, or at least toward the end of that second game.

    I can't think of anything other than grand strategy games that I've been that indecisive over. Everything else has been within like 3 hours. Some barely even 20 minutes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [+] -5 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I agree. We're not discussing "liking a game" in the context of whether or not it deserves 5 stars; we're talking about whether or not you're going to demand a refund. There's clothing I regretted buying after 50 hours of wear, but by that point I've taken off the tag and it's gone through a laundry cycle. I'd be considered trashy to take that back to the store even if within the return window.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Maybe have a new rule for shorter games, like if its reasonable to complete the game normally in under 5 hours then the 2 hour window should be 1 hour or even 30 minutes. Idk how games are submitted but it should be an option at that time on how long the game is or a question about if its over or under x hours long so they know how to treat the game for this policy.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    That’s where the abuse comes in, because how can you be sure a developer won’t make a short game and list it as 20hrs to complete?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I mean databases like howlongtobeat.com do exist. Steam could also come up with their own numbers by looking at the average playtime when players get the achievement for winning the game.
    Issue with both is, the game needs to already have been released and beaten a few times.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    This would only work if the game participates in regional pricing, otherwise you're fucking over most people who don't deal in USD. $15 to you is not just $15 to everyone else.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (8 children)

    I don't see how this would be too much of an issue. If it's that way in one region, then it would be unilateral all across all regions. Price wouldn't really matter at that point as long as you're using the same guideline

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    I don’t see how this would be too much of an issue.

    So not only are people paying more than you're paying because the value of the dollar is higher in their country, the money they're paying is now at a higher risk because they have a smaller refund window.

    You would be essentially taking an existing issue and making it worse.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    you are forgetting though that a 5$ USD game isn't going to magically becomes < 5$ USD though. if its using the same framework even if the game is only worth 2$ native, its still 5$ USD and therefore would be the same. Regional pricing doesn't matter in the scenario.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    you are forgetting though that a 5$ USD game isn’t going to magically becomes < 5$ USD though.

    I am not, and that was not the point. The point is if you're paying $5, and someone in a non-USD region is paying $5, they're taking a bigger risk than you if the game ends up sucking because $5 is worth more in their region.

    Lowering the refund period for everyone without regional pricing means people in underprivileged regions are taking on more risk than you are; ergo, you're punishing them for being underprivileged, and making a bad situation worse.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

    you are misunderstanding. I'm saying pick a region for the guideline, if its $5 on that region the game has that refund period. Then apply regional pricing. There's zero reason to apply a framework for every region that's more work then needed. the lower regional price would have the same refund period as the standard pricing as its following the same framework. The fact its lower price does not matter, as regions do not matter.

    Then the only time it would need to be region based, is if they sold a region specific SKU such as some Japanese or Australian releases instead of having to go in and select refund periods for every period in every region. That's way more work than is needed.

    edit: i misread a core part of this chain, oops

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

    you are misunderstanding.

    I don't think I am. The issue is not that your system won't work with regional pricing, it's that it will not work without it.

    I’m saying pick a region for the guideline, if its $5 on that region the game has that refund period. Then apply regional pricing.

    Yeah, that's the issue. Some games do not opt into regional pricing, so the price never gets lowered, which means they will be paying $5 and have, for example, only 1 hour to refund the game, just like someone in the US. Their having to pay $5 is already an issue, and now they have even less time to refund it if it sucks.

    There’s zero reason to apply a framework for every region that’s more work then needed.

    I never adovacted for this. You can tie the refund period to money paid, no problem. You do not need a different refund period framework for every region, and I don't understand why you think I'm pushing for this to begin with. It's fine as long as you enforce regional pricing for everyone, which's not something Steam will do.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    At this point, I'm not sure where our disconnect is so I'm not really sure how else to clarify, im not sure how you read what I sent and somehow got that it has any attachment to regional pricing. The framework I'm talking about would not require regional pricing at all because the only price it cares about is what the price is in the chosen region.

    The system I'm advocating would work with or without regional pricing because the region's price doesn't matter.

    As an example, say their chosen region is the US and they decide that $5 means it's a 30 minute return.

    But then they have another region that is two dollars.

    It doesn't matter that it's $2 in that region because the region that is used for the metric is $5.

    So the $2 game that is regional pricing would have the return policy of the $5 game because the region that they use for the calculations has it at $5. As a further example, the inverse would be true as well. If it was $10 in the associated region, since the framework region is $5, the $10 game would have the $5 policy

    I'm not sure why it needs to be so complicated to have specific return policies for every single region. At the end of the day the value in the framework region is isolated from the framework and no changes to its price would change its return policy as it doesn't matter

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I’m not sure why it needs to be so complicated to have specific return policies for every single region.

    I am not advocating for this. I do not understand why you think I'm advocating for this when I never brought it up.

    Please re-read my last comment.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    ah sorry, yea I reread it when I got on my pc and I can see where I misunderstood your position,

    as for where I got the concept from:

    This would only work if the game participates in regional pricing, otherwise you’re fucking over most people who don’t deal in USD. $15 to you is not just $15 to everyone else.

    and then

    I don’t think I am. The issue is not that your system won’t work with regional pricing, it’s that it will not work without it.

    since my post was about having it be based off a policy on pricing based off the current price, I took that as a message stating that it requires regional pricing to work. So I jumped the gun a little and thought you meant that you were advocating that for it to work, they would need regional pricing on everything as such would require regional based refunds for those areas, but I can see where I got overzealous on that so I apologize.

    My opinion is still the same on it though, I think it would be better to implement that system than to not, even if the dev doesn't participate in regional pricing at all, worst case scenario is it's a static price with a static return based off the only price available and the buyer would know that going into it. I could see how it could negativly impact the buyer like you said but, if the seller is already not participating with regional pricing, there isn't much else that can be done to fix that. Maybe keep the current system if the game is is bought in a region and not with regional pricing? but I don't think that would really work either as it could just enable the abuse in those regions still. It can definitely work without regional pricing but, preferably if the dev wants to have sales, they really should enable it.

    Also as an addition because I didn't mention it, I used USD as an example because it's what is generally used for an example, obviously said framework could be any region as long as it's consistant across every game so it's not confusing. Honestly steam could likely even supply a exchange tool to auto do the exchange across all denominations. They do that already for payouts/purchases

  • source
  • parent
  • Oh I get you there.

    I played The Witcher 3 for over a hundred hours and didn’t realize I didn’t like it until I went to have a threesome with Triss and Yennefer and instead got left with blue balls.

    I would have returned that game right then and there if I could have.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 18 points 4 months ago

    Some gaming consumers are just easily directed cattle for rage stampedes about whatever. No time for comprehension, just get the pitch forks and go burn some shit down!

    Similar theme but different story was that guy who distributes a VR "mod" for various games, including Cyberpunk 2077. The nuanced part is a big chunk of it is in proprietary libraries that are independent of the games it provides VR support for. Just look at what PrayDog had to do to get VR support for just Unreal games https://github.com/praydog/UEVR/tree/master and that other guy has made a toolset that works with multiple engines. Charging at most a one time patreon fee for an unlocked copy doesn't sound that greedy.

    Another one was the more muted whining that Valheim's Iron Gate has cheated everyone by doing "the bare minimum" to be Early Access and are abandoning an unfinished game with Valheim's 1.0 release. Personally I think those people are fucking insane.

    Forty years ago I was at a cross roads that would have led to me being a programmer in the gaming industry. Really glad I didn't choose that as the game industry culture is absolutely exhausting.

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago

    Honestly that game looks pretty fun, especially as a two player game. Just keep it after you beat it and play it with someone else. Or play it again at varying levels of inebriation.

  • source
  • [–] 30 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Maybe not in this particular case: but what if you buy a game intending to get 10 hours out of it and after 1h you get greeted by the final credits. Shouldn't you not be able to refund then? (Depending on the price of course.)

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago

    That's the thing they always tell you. It isn't a mobile platform, people are prepared to pay higher prices but you need to set expectations with those prices.

    If you're charging $15 for a game people are going to expect at least 10ish hours of gameplay, if it's going to be under that you want to be sub $10.

    Although having said that I think I only paid £12 for Minecraft (about $15) and I'm probably thousands and thousands of hours into that.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I tried Buckshot Roulette on gamepass last night. That would 100% be getting refunded if it was anything more than 50p.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    id feel like i got fuckin ripped off if it was an hour long, this isn't a complicated game and even with the low price id refund it. then again id never buy this game in the first place cuz i already hold that view point.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    I have never refunded a game on Steam. But then, I usually wait to buy a game until it's been out for a while and usually on sale.

  • source
  • [–] 27 points 4 months ago* (7 children)

    keep in mind, its partially overblown because according to the acheivements, only 7% users have actually beat the game of the people who kept it. the people who refunded shouldnt be that different than the average.

    most of the people refunding are more likely people who rage quit more than people who beat the game in 2 hours

    not saying its not an. ass move to refund but the people who refunded arent statisically the people who beat it.

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [+] 16 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    hence exageration, as the majority probably never finished, and its more scrutinized on the people who did. When you bring up the refund rate, then a specific comment doing the refund, that's pushing a narrative to the passive reader that they are one in the same when only a fraction of said 55k actually have completed the game in under 2 hours.

    If valve for example stepped in and punished those few that actually beat the game and refunded, the dev would probably get a miniscule amount back. (and don't get me wrong, I think they shouldn't be refunded) Then you go towards the question that comes up in the debate that are you really going to deny people who didn't even finish the game, a refund? If you are, that would just be another checkbox in the steadily growing debate between consumer vs developer debate

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    only 7% users have actually beat the game of the people who kept it. the people who refunded shouldnt be that different than the average

    You would need data to show this hypothesis to be true, you can't assume it, the variables are not independent, that's the whole point being made.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    while i can't entirely assume it, you cannot assume that the people refunded are drastically better than the people who didn't, especially when the dev puts out the 55k refund numbers. if hes going to claim 55k refunds, he needs to show that 55k (or a majority of those) actually beat the game and refunded in under 2 hours, else hes bundling a bunch of people who simply ragequit and likely legitimately refunded the game. The debate ultimately comes up because he happen to tie the 55k number on the same post as showing the comment that someone beat the game and refunded. Thats the equivalent of going somewhere, finding one thing to support your cause, and saying everything there supported it without actually checking.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    But all games have a rate of refunds, including refunds due to rage quitting. Our null hypothesis should be that the refund rate should be the same as any other game (controlling for difficulty).

    I don't know what a normal rate of refunds is, that is probably data that is out there. But if the refund rate for this game is significantly higher than normal, then we can say that SOMETHING about this game is different.

    If we control for every factor besides hltb, and it's still higher, only then could we say with high confidence that the difference is due to people finishing and refunding. But we technically can't ever say that with 100% certainty unless we go to every person's house and watch them do it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    the game is intentionally designed around being frustrating, due to controls, and especially since it was designed to be done in coop, as it came from a period of time like carry the glass or chained together was. It's not like conventional hard game like thrown into elden ring with no souls experience hard, but intentionally difficult games like those in the Foddian category like baby steps, pogostuck and such. they're intentionally hard, and theyre intentionally designed to fuck with the player, far more than a typical game would.

    Its a very similar vein as modern hard vs "nintendo hard" in the past because games werent hard to be hard, they were hard because of intentional design decisions to prevent users from renting a game and beating it, and to prolong game value

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›