Steam's 2hr Playtime and New Game Issues

TriedandTested

TriedandTested

TriedandTested

Soldato
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Not sure what other think, but this has crossed my mind recently.

With Steams 2hr game time policy (ie can get a refund if playtime is within 2 hours), are you starting to notice bigger games seem to have that initial amazing 2 hour intro and soon after kind fall apart in terms of storytelling, gameplay, longevity.

Examples being Mafia 3 (amazing first couple of hours) and No Man's Sky (initially very cool and appealing to me, but soon realised there was nothing more to it.

Any thoughts? Are developers making their opening hours far better than the bulk of the games they are selling us?
 
I doubt that they're doing that as Steam could adjust their refund policy without any hassle to deal with this. They actually did this with No Man's Sky. Plus you're talking about multi platform games. They aren't going to make their game "good" for first 2 hours just for the PC platform.

They're not really sensible examples as No Man's Sky is the result of broken promises more than anything else, and developers aren't going to develop games in this manner at all especially AAA games because they'd be out of money in no time.
 
You do know how long games take to make right? Games that are being released at the moment would have been in development long before the steam refund policy was introduced.
 
Games have always been like that imo due to how many review sites work. They look at the first few hours of content.

MMO's are a prime example of this failing. Look at how Age of Conan was. First 20 levels were all voiced and amazing if I recall. Rest was not.
 
Steam won't adjust their refund policy as they will lose out.

At the end of the day steam can do pretty much whatever the **** they want thanks to rubbish consumer rights laws. It's bad and I wish it got changed but unless people actually fight for it then they won't.
 
Boycey0211 said:
Steam won't adjust their refund policy as they will lose out.

At the end of the day steam can do pretty much whatever the **** they want thanks to rubbish consumer rights laws. It's bad and I wish it got changed but unless people actually fight for it then they won't.
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Steam's refund policy is fine as it is. What do you want, a chance to complete the game and then full refund? I can tell within 2 hours whether it will be my cup of tea or not.
 
You can judge a game's depth within 2 hours, so there is nothing wrong with their policy. If you can't then you have poor judgement so watch some reviews before hand.
 
I doubt Steam's refund policy is of any relevance at all the developers of big releases. If anything, it's probably more of a concern to smaller/indie developers whose games aren't going to sell huge numbers.
 
Boycey0211 said:
Steam won't adjust their refund policy as they will lose out.

At the end of the day steam can do pretty much whatever the **** they want thanks to rubbish consumer rights laws. It's bad and I wish it got changed but unless people actually fight for it then they won't.
Click to expand...

They did for No Man's Sky
 
String said:
Steam's refund policy is fine as it is. What do you want, a chance to complete the game and then full refund? I can tell within 2 hours whether it will be my cup of tea or not.
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+1

Two hours is enough. I'm not sure how it works with consoles, can you take them back even after you've removed packaging? Can anyone clarify without me Googling? I feel we get a better deal than them with basically a two hour demo to see whether we like the game, or not.
 
Origin has a better refund policy;-

You may return EA full game downloads (PC or Mac) and participating third party titles purchased on Origin for a full refund. Send us refund requests within the following timeframes: Within 24 hours after you first launch the game. Within 7 days from your date of purchase.
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they have to make the first couple of hours good to get you hooked, if you find it boring in the first hour you won't play much

same with films, the first 20 minutes makes the film

books too with first few chapters, not many people would read a 300 page book that starts off boring
 
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