Last week Steam added a refund procedure that allows you to become a full refund on any Steam game yous've purchased in the last 14 days, for whatever reason, as long as y'all've played the game for less than 2 hours. On the surface this change brings Steam up to code in many European countries that require this by law. And it will certainly do right by players in every other country. But the sudden manner in which the refund program was announced and implemented has many developers asking: "Is this adept for me?"

Editor's Note:
Guest author Andrew Pellerano is an independent game designer and programmer who's washed work for Kongregate, Zynga and is currently working on Puzzle Fuzz. This article was originally published on Andrew's personal blog.

It would exist prudent to know exactly what Steam added. Permit'southward get through the new refund menstruation together. Last night I "accidentally" purchased Assassinator's Creed III. It was the first game I saw in the listing of best sellers that was inexpensive, old, and provided past a major publisher. I didn't want to cause grief for a smaller developer or new championship.

When I launched Steam there was a large banner explaining the refund plan. Every Steam user will see this.

Adjacent I purchased Assassin'due south Creed III. It cost me $four.99 USD and I paid entirely from my PayPal account. Once information technology was added to my Library, I clicked on the entry and followed the Support link to this page.

Steam makes an honest effort to do some basic troubleshooting. If you lot have a technical consequence for example, you can click that selection to get a listing of links where help is bachelor. The technical upshot page too has a cake at the pinnacle telling you lot that if zippo here volition solve your problem yous can request a refund. While a refund is not listed on Steam's peak level support page, subsequent pages are quick to advise refunds as a resolution.

Let's merely say we purchased this by accident.

I appreciate that 1 of the options wasn't "How on earth did yous accidentally brand 15 very precise storefront clicks followed by accidentally entering your PayPal credentials?" You can tell that Steam doesn't fully believe me though, because it asks over again if I'1000 sure this isn't an embarrassing technical issue. With my pride nonetheless intact, I clicked to request a refund.

Hither'southward the juicy shot y'all've been waiting for. First, I was surprised that this is only a request for a refund. The literature made it seem like refunds were now entirely automated but information technology appears that someone will have to approve my refund. This may calm some of the concerns virtually a small-scale corporeality of malicious users coming upwardly with all sorts of clever ways to corruption the refund plan. Theoretically Steam would see a wave of refunds for a single game and do some investigation. Theoretically. Information technology could merely be this guy on the other cease.

The next thing you might observe is the drib down list, which by default will place the refund in my Steam Wallet. Whoa, wait a infinitesimal. This is suspect. Here's a scenario:

  • Player buys a re-create of a game for $20.
  • Standard Steam split means Steam gets $6 and the developer gets $xiv.
  • Player decides to go a refund.
  • Steam defaults to placing the $20 dorsum into the player's Steam Wallet.
  • The programmer now gets $0.
  • Just Steam has $20 locked into your Wallet. Nearly whatever mode you spend that $xx, Steam is taking their 30% cut or more than. And so Steam has still made their $6, at least.

Steam and developers are not equal partners in offering refunds. Steam's actually got no pare in the game! They are getting their coin no matter what. Steam's own literature on the refund program states "we hope this will requite you more confidence in trying out titles that you're less certain about." Sure y'all exercise, Steam, because to you this refund program is a way to increase sales by lowering purchase barriers. To developers, it's the divergence between getting paid or not.

This raises an interesting question. What exactly is Steam? Is it a middleman that aims to connect developers to customers and charge a matchmaking fee? Is it a retailer where developers provide inventory that Steam tin so sell to its customers? Your opinion of a refund program is colored past where you run across Steam on this spectrum. There'southward obviously no correct answer; Steam is sometimes both, and sometimes it's neither. Is this nebulousness (information technology's a word, I checked) something Steam and developers demand to address?

For now, let's get back to the refund flow. Submitting your refund request reinforces that you must wait to be reviewed.

Oh, that's the end of the period. That was easy! Information technology would probably have y'all longer to detect the client support telephone number on your internet provider's website. I got an e-mail confirmation a few minutes later that my request is pending.

While we expect, let'due south go over some of Steam's messaging effectually refunds and the implications of that messaging. Steam claims that they reserve the right to restrict a user'southward refund privileges if they are abusing the system, but quickly follows up by saying that refunding a game just to re-buy it on auction is not an abuse. I'm sure they mention this considering they accept a non-end stream of support tickets complaining about buying something the 24-hour interval before a sale. This explicitly-stated-non-corruption is going to reduce Steam's client support brunt. That looks skilful from Steam's perspective. How does it expect for you, the developer? Your Steam sale now applies retroactively to the last 14 days of regular sales without any of the actual benefits of being on sale during those 14 days. Lower price at a lower volume from college quality users. Your merely protection from this is if yous tin can get the player to log 2 hours as soon as possible.

As well read: Developers report alarming refund rates, including for DRM-costless games that tin can hands be copied before 'returning' them.

It appears that the refund organization is going to impact the design of games on Steam. It suddenly makes sense to change your early game progression in order to incentivize a ii hr binge. Try to avoid clear stopping moments like letting the role player finish all the objectives on their docket, reaching a second rubber identify such as a town, or a expiry that forces them to replay sections of the game. Refunds are going to hit harder on genres that can't work these protections in, like intentionally difficult games, level-based puzzle games, or retro fashion arcade games. It may fifty-fifty be so bad that sure types of games endure "refund death" where they are simply unable to lock down players by motivating them past the 2 hr mark.

Too make note of how, to follow Steam's prescribed path, players will demand to request a refund for your game, await for the refund to exist approved, and and then re-buy it. They might put more money into their Steam Wallet to speed up the process. Steam sure likes if that happens. Or, the role player might request a refund, think well-nigh how they weren't that into your game anyway, then decide to not even re-buy information technology at the sale price. Developers lose. I'thou non sure why Steam is encouraging new users to re-evaluate whether they really wanted a game or not when it goes on sale. Only that's what they're saying.

Next is Steam'due south messaging on the launch dialog I showed earlier. "We promise this volition give you more than confidence in trying out titles that you lot're less certain near." I've already shown that this claim is gentler on Steam than information technology is on developers. Simply are there any long term impacts to fostering this sort of behavior in the Steam community?

The implication from Steam is that you should spend money without thinking too difficult because you tin always get information technology back and spend it somewhere else. Let's say I'yard a Steam power user and I've learned that I tin repeatedly enquire for refunds to put money back into my Steam Wallet. Steam doesn't heed. I now have the ability to endeavor a two hour demo of any game I desire, rate express past the turnaround time on a refund request.

The impact this could have on Steam as a platform is severe and profound. Previously if you sold a copy of your game on Steam you could say yous had a paying customer. Now, you no longer have a paying customer; you have an install. This reminds me of how F2P works. In F2P parlance installs do not get customers until they are converted.

The unabridged concern of F2P is structured around converting installs into customers. Installs catamenia similar h2o. You lot can buy them from advertizement-networks. You tin get Apple to feature yous and your pretty app icon on their front page. Yous tin can optimize search keywords. All these things generate impressions — as in, impressions of your game on humans' eyeballs — and a very small-scale per centum of impressions become installs. The reason why mobile games raced to the bottom and became $0 is considering it maximizes the chance of an impression becoming an install.

What I've merely described is the F2P funnel. Here'south a visualization with some example estimations of the number of players at each phase in the funnel.

When Steam users learn to behave similar installs, which they will because everyone wants costless stuff and no i likes buyer's remorse and Steam is telling them to, Steam developers will take to start thinking with funnels. They'll have to spend the first ii hours of their game convincing players to convert. That is, they'll have to convince them not to ask for a refund on the game.

If you lot haven't designed a F2P game yet, you will discover edifice this onboarding process challenging, rewarding, and creatively stifling. Information technology's a mixed handbag. Not having to worry about the funnel made it possible for games to succeed if they shined in one surface area but not in another. Maybe your UI is kind of clunky and the people who bought your game had to stick with it until they finally figured it out. It was hard, but they still played your game. Here's what happens if your UI isn't crystal clear ten seconds into your F2P game: your install quits your game and never comes back. Yous lost a sale. Refunds, weirdly, will heighten the bar on what it takes to exist a successful game. For every area you forgot to smooth in, yous give your install funnel a reason to leak potential customers.

If this is your Steam game'south UI, prepare for a bumpy 2 hour ride.

There'southward another F2P concept that starts to apply to Steam when users first acting similar installs. F2P games can talk about the quality of their installs. If you've got a game well-nigh guns and wizards, let'southward call it Gun Wizard, the installs yous get from the ads y'all bought in a Lord of the Rings game are going to be college quality than the installs you get from your ads in Candy Beat out Saga. That's because the LOTR demographic is more probable to exist interested in Gun Wizard than the coincidental and broad demographic of Processed Beat.

Cantankerous reference this with all the interesting facets of Steam purchasing we already know. 37% of steam games have never been played. Another 17% play for less than an hr. That means 54% of all Steam games ever sold would actually qualify for a refund if the program had been in place when those sales were made. Half of all PC gamers look for sales to purchase games. Both of these data points indicate that a large amount of PC game purchases are depression quality installs. Depression quality installs convert poorly. If yous sell copies of your game while it's discounted on Steam, I'll bet your refund rate (as a percentage of total sales so we business relationship for volume) is going to increase. I tin can feel it in my basic. There's already a stiff correlation on Steam between getting a bunch of low-paying customers and a spike in negative reviews. That's because they are low quality installs. Now their negative review can be accompanied past a refund request.

This nearly sounds nice. Steam refunds brand my simply paying customers be people who similar the game? What'due south wrong with that? Paid games have a pesky problem where they cap spend on happy customers. Then far this was masked because y'all can brand up for information technology on volume with neutral or disappointed customers. Only if all those users can get refunds, suddenly your highly downloaded game has only 10,000 happy customers at $5 a head, which after Steam's take is only $35k and doesn't support your development cycle. The Steam developer pool gets a lot more binary. The winners, the teams with actually great games that everyone loves, they win big. Anybody else, even the mild successes, become losers.

This leads to some weird developer incentives. Steam's refund policy on bundles states that y'all tin only refund a package if the combined play time of all games in the bundle is under two hours. And yous must return the entire parcel. Developers can circle their wagons and protect themselves by bundling up. If your game takes under ii hours to beat, effigy out how to package with an idle game. Effigy out how to bundle with a best seller that users can't bring themselves to render. Deviant developer incentives are a symptom of a larger problem. I would prefer if the programmer community's human relationship with Steam didn't go this antagonistic.

Some more weird side furnishings center around how F2P games are not really impacted by the refund process. You can't go a refund on an in-app purchase on Steam once it's been consumed. Basically everything in F2P that makes money is instantly consumed, and then there's really no mode to get refunds on F2P games.

The Starks of Steam will tell yous: F2P is coming. Take a look at the top 5 games played on Steam. (Three are F2P.) There'due south nothing necessarily wrong with other business concern models like F2P, but F2P has lots of platforms and storefronts it already happily dominates. Steam is somewhat unique in that paid games can yet thrive at that place. Any platform change that penalizes paid games should be considered more delicately and with more programmer input than what Steam developers were treated to with this refund program's surprise launch. That ways putting meliorate labels on what being a developer means to Steam's business.

What is the correct way to look at the 3-way relationship between Steam, developers, and players? The current ambiguity may no longer be acceptable. If we let Steam's actions speak on its behalf, the refund update is a spooky message. Steam is willing to implement platform changes that benefit Steam beginning and players second, at the expense of developers. They're willing to roll out these changes quickly and without requesting input from developers. If 1 case isn't enough for you to draw conclusions, recall that it was only a month agone that Steam tried to accuse players for mods — before the backlash caused them to reconsider.

The refund programme clearly should exist, which I feel like I demand to state in writing after existence so hard on it. But the specifics of its implementation should exist up for debate and developers should be given a phonation. Here are some suggestions on areas that demand piece of work:

  • Steam needs to be explicit virtually what constitutes corruption of the refund system. This is better for both developers and players. If Steam were to land that frequent refunds lower your chances of beingness approved, it could curb some of the shady effort-before-you-purchase behavior I talked well-nigh before. Of form, it would as well contradict their desire to have users "try titles they're less confident nearly." And information technology might cause users to get-go lying a lot more on their refund forms. This is why we demand a discussion; there is no obviously correct answer.
  • Steam needs to re-piece of work their feature rollout process. They've had ii missteps in as many months that could have been caught past talking to the people who utilise their platform, developers and players akin, earlier pressing the launch push button. We're on the internet for crying out loud! This is the place where one bad Digg release caused them to lose a 3rd of their users in a month and never recover. Gog.com, itch.io, Apprehensive Package, and more will be there to serve those lost users. Steam needs to be more careful.
  • Steam should consider compensating developers when a refund is issued to a Steam Wallet. This is a good-organized religion maneuver that will marshal Steam'due south interests with developers. If Steam lost a fleck of their 30% cutting every time money went back to the Wallet they would be encouraged to grow their platform in a manner that discourages users from treating Steam like a hire-to-own game store. Information technology too tells developers that the 2 hours of gameplay they provided was worth something, even if information technology'south a suitably small fraction of the game's price.

Steam is a walled garden and the contents within ultimately prosper or die based on Valve and Valve alone's curatorship. Each fourth dimension the garden'southward ecosystem grows in complexity it becomes more and more unrealistic that whatsoever one entity tin reasonably consider a change's impact from all the required perspectives. The refund arrangement is well-intentioned and its part in a grander narrative is admittedly small. Merely it is a symptom of something important and non-still-described that I and maybe others accept begun to feel. Walled gardens are really digital kingdoms and, simply like how real world monarchies abound into republics, so too must our digital queens and kings start asking – What can my people exercise for me?

Read next: Developers report alarming refund rates, including for DRM-free games that can easily be copied before 'returning' them.