

It's worth noting that Valve grants refunds in many other cases that fall beyond the two-hour playtime. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Bela | Before Your Eyes available now! April 13, 2021 Watch a timer count to 2 hours and quit within the last 5 seconds for an achievement. I just submitted "Refund This Game" to Steam. If they fail, it would put them past the two-hour playtime, thus making it harder for them to get an automatic refund. If the player manages to quit in the last five seconds, they'd earn an achievement. Refund This Game would simply show the player a timer counting up to two hours. The game is called Refund This Game, which he wants to sell for $100 on Steam. This experience inspired Messex to make light of the situation a bit by creating a game designed to be non-refundable. The Epic Games Store employs a similar policy, as does Microsoft on Xbox. Unfortunately, developers of short games and small experiences have been hurt the most by this flat two-hour stipulation, because many of their games could be finished under two hours, making their players eligible for refunds despite having actually finished and enjoyed their games. Often lauded as one of the best in digital markets, Steam's automatic refund policy allows players to refund any game within two weeks of purchase, so long as their playtime has not exceeded two hours. The system in question is, of course, Steam's refund policy. "I sincerely apologize for abusing what is clearly a broken system," they wrote in a follow-up Tweet. Travis has since updated their review, and promised to buy the game back. Travis, the player behind the review in question, felt bad after reading the Tweet and apologised to Messex. I think short games shouldn't get refunded for delivering an amazing experience." "I think there should be more short games. "Yep we made a short game," Messex wrote in a frustrated Tweet.

Unfortunately, because it's a short experience, it fell victim to Steam's refund policy.īela Messex, the game's lead designer, took to Twitter to highlight a particular Steam review where the player in question praised the game and rated it positively, only to reveal in the review text that they ended up refunding it because it took them one-and-a-half hours to see all the way through. The debut game from Goodbyeworld Games came out last week, and has been very well received by Steam players - currently boasting an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating based on over 500 reviews. The player controls what happens simply by blinking their eyes, which the game translates into input through a webcam.

A Before Your Eyes developer was done dirty by one of its players, and he feels there's a point to be made.īefore Your Eyes is an interesting narrative adventure game with a unique mechanic.
