Indie Dev Emika Games Quits Making Games After Steam's Refund Policy Gets Abused & Exploited

[killamch89]

This is the dark side of the gaming community that we don't speak about enough - the ones who use and abuse systems put in place to benefit us the users of the platform and we have a casualty from this kind of exercise. One-man Indie Dev studio Emika Games quits making games after players abuse the Steam Refund Policy to finish the game within two hours and refund it. Very often we call out greedy gaming studios but we also have to hold the scumbags among us who claim they're gamers accountable for their actions. I can't imagine put hours of effort into something for people to turn around and disregard it. What are your thoughts about this?

 

[skyfire]

I don't think we can help it. I think a lot of times it feels like digital games should be non refundable but we can see the other side of this issue too. 

[Empire]

The problem with your 'solution' is that there is nothing stopping a scummy developer from abusing that 'lower playtime' claim to drop a turd in paying customer's laps and then laugh their way to the bank. Realistically, I don't think your solution is ANY less abusable, it just swaps which side of the transaction the potential abuser is on.

I think a better solution, would be, in cases where there is mass-refunding going on, to assign manual reviewers to the refund process and add a line about valve reserving the right to 'suspend or reverse the 2-hour refund period if there is suspicion of ill-intentioned abuse'. Then do a quick forum, reviews, and social media check to see if there is credible evidence of an actual issue that would trigger that mass refunding.

They could even do something so simple as have developers making these short-form games stick in a 'game completion' achievement of some sort, and have Valve weigh it's status in the decision. Or simply bake a flag into the save file or an .ini about game completion status and have valve cross-check that. Of course, Steam Achievement Manager could be an issue there, but it would cut down on the refunds that aren't actively malicious but are just flippant people being ignorantly malicious.

[killamch89]

14 hours ago, Empire said:

The problem with your 'solution' is that there is nothing stopping a scummy developer from abusing that 'lower playtime' claim to drop a turd in paying customer's laps and then laugh their way to the bank. Realistically, I don't think your solution is ANY less abusable, it just swaps which side of the transaction the potential abuser is on.

I think a better solution, would be, in cases where there is mass-refunding going on, to assign manual reviewers to the refund process and add a line about valve reserving the right to 'suspend or reverse the 2-hour refund period if there is suspicion of ill-intentioned abuse'. Then do a quick forum, reviews, and social media check to see if there is credible evidence of an actual issue that would trigger that mass refunding.

They could even do something so simple as have developers making these short-form games stick in a 'game completion' achievement of some sort, and have Valve weigh it's status in the decision. Or simply bake a flag into the save file or an .ini about game completion status and have valve cross-check that. Of course, Steam Achievement Manager could be an issue there, but it would cut down on the refunds that aren't actively malicious but are just flippant people being ignorantly malicious.

I like your suggestions - it's a pity valve doesn't listen to the suggestions of their users because it could fix a lot of issues on their platform. 

[skyfire]

On 8/30/2021 at 4:37 PM, Empire said:

I think a better solution, would be, in cases where there is mass-refunding going on, to assign manual reviewers to the refund process

That does not happen. like you get into mass refunds, your payment processor would block your account. there is nothing manual on that side. what at the best you can do is allow refunds by talking to payment processor. 

[Heatman]

The truth of the matter is that there are weird human beings in the world today that animals are better than completely. I'm not surprised seeing this kind of thing happen in our gaming world today.