Steam Closes Early Access Playtime Loophole (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0173628968
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/24/04/24/1817253/steam-closes-early-access-playtime-loophole
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/no-more-refunds-after-100-hours-steam-closes-early-access-playtime-loophole/
> "Early Access" was once a novel, quirky thing, giving a select set of Steam PC games a way to involve enthusiastic fans in pre-alpha-level play-testing and feedback. Now loads of games launch in various forms of Early Access, in a wide variety of readiness. It's been a boon for games like Baldur's Gate 3, which came a long way across years of Early Access. Early Access, and the "Advanced Access" provided for complete games by major publishers for "Deluxe Editions" and the like, has also been a boon to freeloaders.
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> Craven types could play a game for hours and hours, then demand a refund within the standard two hours of play, 14 days after the purchase window of the game's "official" release. Steam-maker Valve has noticed and, as of Tuesday night, updated its refund policy. "Playtime acquired during the Advanced Access period will now count towards the Steam refund period," reads the update. In other words: Playtime is playtime now, so if you've played more than two hours of a game in any state, [1]you don't get a refund . That closes at least one way that people could, with time-crunched effort, play and enjoy games for free in either Early or Advanced access.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/no-more-refunds-after-100-hours-steam-closes-early-access-playtime-loophole/
A lot of shit never makes it out of Early Access. (Score:3)
It's one of the reasons I generally do not buy those titles and just watchlist them.
Or games are marked 'early access' for too long? (Score:1)
Developers can arbitrarily mark a game as "done", and this mechanism allowed customers to retroactively get their money back for broken promises.
No, I've never done a refund on a Steam game. And yes, I assume people will abuse situations (like Costco's old return policy that allowed years old, used products to be returned for full refunds). But the current system turns customers into beta testers that pay (versus being paid for their efforts).
Re: (Score:2)
The refund change, i.e. having them at all, means their sales aren't as good but it more than makes up for it. Essentially I can demo the game for 2 hours or 2 weeks and get a full refund for ANY REASON in that window which has been amazing.
If I think the discount at some shady key site is worth not being able to refund I do that too. It gets flexibility which I love.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody is forcing people to buy early access, and they always come with a big fat textbox stating the differences to release. If there's a market for that, why not? Providing people the option to be beta testers for free, in exchange for early access and slightly lower price for product is fine, and apparently a lot of people think so. Certainly there are abusers, and Steam is trying to improve things.
Good (Score:2)
Refunding is really only for crappy games and ones you do not like from the start. Although, with a good reason you can ask for a refund later and I have done that successfully several times. Essentially what Valve does is pretty fair and pretty sane.
All modern software is beta (Score:1)
No sense in letting people test pre-alpha software for free, when others will just pay to do the testing in beta.
Some people are assholes (Score:2)
The assholes need to be plugged up too.
Re: (Score:3)
The assholes need to be plugged up too.
Some may enjoy it, even look forward to it.
That said, this is why we can't have nice things. A human always finds a way to screw things up for the rest of us.
Re: (Score:2)
tbh, they're in good company: 99,7% of devs/publishers/platforms are assholes too.
btw "early access" was intended to make the lifes of small devs easier, but it's been years already that it has been abused to oblivion.