thingsiplay comments on Indie Dev Says Game Refunded 55,000 Times Via Steam Loophole

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago (10 children)

Playtime can't be guaranteed, unless its a movie you have no control anyway. Its most likely just a suggestion. Did this game suggest a playtime that was vastly different to your experience?

Refunding a cheap (in price) indie game before the 2 hours play mark, AFTER finishing it is just a dick move. Also some games cannot be just measured by its playtime alone. Yes you can for yourself. But that would be like saying "oh I refund all 50 hours games, because I only consider a game to have a value over 60 hours playtime regardless its price".

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago (9 children)

Playtime can't be guaranteed

When a full third of your customers are refunding, that means half or more of them are finishing in below 2 hours. That means the devs estimate of 3-4 hours average playtime is bull, straight from their ass. That's not a mistake, that's false advertising.

Refunding a cheap (in price) indie game before the 2 hours play mark, AFTER finishing it is just a dick move.

Yeah? What if your reaction to reaching the ending in 90 minutes is 'That's it? What happened to the 4 hours I was promised'? Who's the dick in that case?

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 months ago (8 children)

Yeah? What if your reaction to reaching the ending in 90 minutes is ‘That’s it? What happened to the 4 hours I was promised’? Who’s the dick in that case?

I can't find where the developer "promised" 4 hours of playtime. Also don't make the mistake that playtime does not equal to finish the game once. I ask again: I want to see the part where it did false promise. Searching the Steam page for words like "playtime" or "hours" didn't bring anything up.

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago* (7 children)

Yeah mb, I got confused with the part the dev said he aimed for 3-4 hours playtime. And another commentor above said they advertised it as that.

Doesn't really change my point, what if you reach the end and your opinion is just 'that's it? I paid for that?'

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

Yes, that's it basically. If you think the game is too short, I think this does not give you right to refund. I'm not talking about the policy, but about what I think is right. As I said earlier, a value of a game shouldn't be judged by a single play through. It depends on the game off course, there might be cases when its appropriate, but I don't think there is a general rule we can dumb it down to certain amount of playtime. It depends on how fun it it was, what it provides other than playtime (like good story or weird game mechanics or whatever), game modes and challenges to replay in example. So playing the game once might give you 60 minutes and you see the ending scrolling, but that might not be the full picture. It might have wonderful graphics and a beautiful soundtrack that increases the value (for me). It depends on the price of the game too.

And no, I'm not a fan of this particular game here, never played it, and it does not look like for me. I'm not defending it because "being invested and take it personal" or something like that. Just clarifying my position here.

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago (5 children)

If you think the game is too short, I think this does not give you right to refund.

Seems like a basic difference of opinion then. I'm not paying that much for something that short. And it seems many players agree.

The game also seems like utter shlock, but that's another matter.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 months ago* (4 children)

Because there is nuance to it. In example The Stanley Parable has a playtime of 1.5 Hours listed for "Main Story" and with some more playtime people get 3 Hours or longer, information based on https://howlongtobeat.com/game/14083 . A single run can take from a few minutes to 15 minutes, depending on what happens. After the game is "finished" in the sense of the "story" and the "achievement", it would have a similar playtime as the game of this post with the refunds. I have a few hours on this game too. But this is a bit open ended and asks to replay multiple times, with many endings and weird choices and different experiences, without spoiling anything (very important in this game). And the game costs 14,79€. Now this game is very liked by most its players, including me.

On the face value by just looking at the playtime and price, you would have to refund it. Let's say you enjoyed the game (its not everyone's cup of tea). Would you still refund it, after the 1.5 hours?

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

You're comparing apples and oranges, that's obviously not the case here. Roguelikes as a genre would cease to exist if every run had to be over 2 hours, but nobody in their right mind would claim it was finished after a single run regardless of how they did.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

I don't. Stanley Parable isn't a roguelike, never stated it. This is not an apples vs oranges comparison. Its about their playtime for playing the main story. Games offer more than that. And I did not say a single run of the game is finished, but after multiple. Its a story based like game, kind of. The point is, after 1.5 hours one basically has finished the main story with an achievement. But the game offers more than that with achievements and other goals to try out. And that's my point. You can't just base the value of a game by finishing it, whatever that means for the game.

According HowLongToBeat both games, Stanley Parable and Paddle Paddle Paddle, have 1.5 hours for Main Story (that includes many playthroughs with varying paths and so on) and 3 hours or 2.5 respectively for Main + Extra. That is what most people would play these games for. Paddle even cost only third of the price of Stanley. My entire point is, one cannot judge a game just by its playtime or more specifically, time to finish it once. If the game is a scam, that is a different story. But its unfair to refund a game at this price after playing it.

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

I didn't say SP was a roguelike, I used it as an example of games that 'finish' in a short time but have tons of replayability.

We're getting nowhere with this, it's fairly clear what my argument is, and that we have very different opinions on this. I'm going to bow out here, good day.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 point 3 months ago*

But it doesn't matter if its a roguelike or not, because we were talking about games that have average of 1.5 hours playtime for its main story. Just like Stanley can be played again to get more out of the game, Paddle (or any other random game) can be played to do additional stuff. That is the argument being made here. You are the one doing apples vs oranges here, because you are introducing roguelikes. I'm talking about short single player campaign story games.

You say, if you played through the game Paddle, and got 1.5 hours, you would refund it. Ignoring all the other stuff that can be done in the game. And Stanley is in a similar situation here (besides it needs multiple playthroughs to get 1.5 hours). Off course we both didn't play Paddle if that is even true. But that does not matter, because we talk hypothetically.

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