Steam. The home of PC gamers. Cheap games and enjoyment.
But not everything is bright blue at valve today. Recently a new refund policy came out.
And it is damaging indie developers...
Steams new refund policy allows gamers to play and test full games for free for a limited time.
If you do not like it you can get a refund.
Thanks to Steam’s new refund policy, players can test and see whether a game is worth their time.
Many gamers are taking advantage of this
And indie developers don't seem to be happy about it...
Recently a company called qwiboo released a game on steam called "Beyond Gravity"
You jump in-between planets and try to collect as many pickups as you can. The game is priced at $1.99 and has been on Steam for almost nine months. People could pay and have the full game for 2 hours if they did not like it they could refund; and a lot of people seemed to be doing that. During that time, the game has received a lot of positive reviews. And this is what happened when Valve announced Steam’s new refunds policy.
Qwiboo did not seem happy about it. Out of 18 sales 13 were refunded. Thats a huge amount.
Qwiboo showed their anger on twitter...
Qwiboo agreed that refunds should be available but just for a shorter time. The game can be completed in 10 hours. Gamers could play the game for free for 2 hours.
Qwiboo also provided another graph, proving that Steam’s upcoming Summer Sale is not to be blamed for these low sales.
But it is not only just 1 company suffering from this new policy.
Another company called PuppyGames has also shared a similar graph for its Steam sales. As we can clearly see, sales took a dive after the announcement of Steam’s new refunds policy.
It is unknown what action valve are going to take against this
I am sure many other indie developers are angry about it as well.
I believe that you should be able to still do this but for a shorter time.
So if a game takes 10 hours to complete you should be able to do this for 20 minutes
If a game takes 15 hours to complete you should have 1 hour game time etc....
But at the moment indie developers are losing a lot of money
And if steam do not change anything this will continue to happen...
Arrogant
But not everything is bright blue at valve today. Recently a new refund policy came out.
And it is damaging indie developers...
Steams new refund policy allows gamers to play and test full games for free for a limited time.
If you do not like it you can get a refund.
Thanks to Steam’s new refund policy, players can test and see whether a game is worth their time.
Many gamers are taking advantage of this
And indie developers don't seem to be happy about it...
Recently a company called qwiboo released a game on steam called "Beyond Gravity"
You jump in-between planets and try to collect as many pickups as you can. The game is priced at $1.99 and has been on Steam for almost nine months. People could pay and have the full game for 2 hours if they did not like it they could refund; and a lot of people seemed to be doing that. During that time, the game has received a lot of positive reviews. And this is what happened when Valve announced Steam’s new refunds policy.
Qwiboo did not seem happy about it. Out of 18 sales 13 were refunded. Thats a huge amount.
Qwiboo showed their anger on twitter...
Qwiboo agreed that refunds should be available but just for a shorter time. The game can be completed in 10 hours. Gamers could play the game for free for 2 hours.
Qwiboo also provided another graph, proving that Steam’s upcoming Summer Sale is not to be blamed for these low sales.
But it is not only just 1 company suffering from this new policy.
Another company called PuppyGames has also shared a similar graph for its Steam sales. As we can clearly see, sales took a dive after the announcement of Steam’s new refunds policy.
It is unknown what action valve are going to take against this
I am sure many other indie developers are angry about it as well.
I believe that you should be able to still do this but for a shorter time.
So if a game takes 10 hours to complete you should be able to do this for 20 minutes
If a game takes 15 hours to complete you should have 1 hour game time etc....
But at the moment indie developers are losing a lot of money
And if steam do not change anything this will continue to happen...
Arrogant
