- Joined
- Dec 11, 2019
Make it's price reflect it's length, no-one is going to return a $2-$5 game plus seeing one with overwhelmingly positive reviews would make people buy it.
Steam's two-hour refund policy leads to indie developer quitting game development - $8.99 for 90 minute games
- Thread starter DMX DA GOAT
- Start date
PaulBearer
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2021
Indie devs are the worst...try making a game that people feel like playing for more than two hours, if you can't do that then finding a different job would be a plan.
DumbDude42
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2019
2 hours isnt a lot, even literal one man project indie games can easily manage to go above that in playtime. see papers please for example. the only way your average player finishes your game faster than 2 hours is if you just shit out a walking simulator with no gameplay and very short story.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2019
He should have tried pricing his game appropriately if he can't even keep someone's attention for 2 hours. I bought games that I've blazed through in that amount of time but kept them because they were cheaper than this shit and had stuff to offer on the replay.
PaulBearer
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2021
Yeah me too, like Superhot, tiny game but you felt like you'd played something worthwhile so they get to keep the money.
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2019
- Joined
- May 25, 2013
These are the kind of people that are created when society entertains the idea that games can be high art.
WhatIsThePunchline
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2020
I know there was like a fifteen minute steam game with overwhelmingly positive reviews. But I think the cost was like 1 dollar.
Found it, Refunct. 3 dollars. Over seven thousand reviews. Even the negative reviews are somewhat positive.
Found it, Refunct. 3 dollars. Over seven thousand reviews. Even the negative reviews are somewhat positive.
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2019
I think it's totally okay for a developer to make a game that's short and charge even like $20 for it, that's how much Edith Finch costs and it's only like 2 hours.
The point is though that if a game is gonna be that short, it really has to be memorable and special. You have to provide a piece of art that is worth $20 of value. Big game studios provide value by making mediocre games that you can play for a really long time. Talented indie studios do this by making short to average legnthed games that are really special. Hollow Knight is fifteen dollars. If your 90 minute game isn't artistically offering half the value of Hollow Knight, yet you're charging half the price, you're charging too much.
Another example, Adios just came out a few weeks ago and is $18. It's a short walking simulator, but it's a really truly fucking masterfully written story with tension throughout that made it something I'll probably never forget, and have spent a few hours outside of the game just thinking of. It provided an experience to me that I considered to be worth the money I paid for it.
If you aren't into that thing, that's totally fine! Most people who aren't into walking simulator type games like Firewatch and whatnot don't go out and buy them. It's telling that a lot of the people who bought this game refunded it. It was a game that attracted the type of person who wants to play those walking simulator type games, and even they found it to be so dreadful and worthless that they refunded it. They paid for a product they thought would have value, and were given one that was worthless, and they appropriately asked for a refund in return.
The answer isn't to not make walking simulators. There's a crowd for that, even if it's not you who's reading this. The answer is to make better games, games that offer value. If you can't make a game that people feel like is valuable, then you should stop larping as a game developer and go back to working at McDonalds or some shit you moron.
The point is though that if a game is gonna be that short, it really has to be memorable and special. You have to provide a piece of art that is worth $20 of value. Big game studios provide value by making mediocre games that you can play for a really long time. Talented indie studios do this by making short to average legnthed games that are really special. Hollow Knight is fifteen dollars. If your 90 minute game isn't artistically offering half the value of Hollow Knight, yet you're charging half the price, you're charging too much.
Another example, Adios just came out a few weeks ago and is $18. It's a short walking simulator, but it's a really truly fucking masterfully written story with tension throughout that made it something I'll probably never forget, and have spent a few hours outside of the game just thinking of. It provided an experience to me that I considered to be worth the money I paid for it.
If you aren't into that thing, that's totally fine! Most people who aren't into walking simulator type games like Firewatch and whatnot don't go out and buy them. It's telling that a lot of the people who bought this game refunded it. It was a game that attracted the type of person who wants to play those walking simulator type games, and even they found it to be so dreadful and worthless that they refunded it. They paid for a product they thought would have value, and were given one that was worthless, and they appropriately asked for a refund in return.
The answer isn't to not make walking simulators. There's a crowd for that, even if it's not you who's reading this. The answer is to make better games, games that offer value. If you can't make a game that people feel like is valuable, then you should stop larping as a game developer and go back to working at McDonalds or some shit you moron.
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2018
1. It's a walking simulator and faggy "art experience".
2. You're game developers, but you don't know what padding is?
3. You released a 90 minute "experience" (again, faggy) on a platform that has a 120 minute refund policy. You are certifiably retarded.
4. $8.99 for this shit? I've bought more competent PSVR games that cost less, and those are actually, ya know, games?
5. Again, it's a walking simulator. That barely qualifies as a game, and I'm sick and tired of you faggots indie devs shitting up my hobby even more with this shit.
In conclusion, fuck this developer.
2. You're game developers, but you don't know what padding is?
3. You released a 90 minute "experience" (again, faggy) on a platform that has a 120 minute refund policy. You are certifiably retarded.
4. $8.99 for this shit? I've bought more competent PSVR games that cost less, and those are actually, ya know, games?
5. Again, it's a walking simulator. That barely qualifies as a game, and I'm sick and tired of you faggots indie devs shitting up my hobby even more with this shit.
In conclusion, fuck this developer.
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2019
Oh no people refunded a shitty walking sim. The humanity.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2021
Stanley Parable did pretty well for itself, and you can get prettymuch all of the endings except the one where you have to program a script to push buttons for 10 hours within that refund window.
There's also plenty of free games that offer little more than cheap scares which offer the ability to buy their soundtrack for a few bucks that manage to turn some profit, like that old flash in the pan DDLC.
Sounds like it's a slow news week.
There's also plenty of free games that offer little more than cheap scares which offer the ability to buy their soundtrack for a few bucks that manage to turn some profit, like that old flash in the pan DDLC.
Sounds like it's a slow news week.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2016
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2019
I think the best example of a "short game" could be Bad Mojo.
Almost every playthrough I have seen (besides Vinny's- I think) has been under 2 hours.
That game IS worth 20$ because of innovative it is.
Anyone post others?
That game IS worth 20$ because of innovative it is.
Anyone post others?
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2021
As a wise man, Sean Poole, once said:
"$1 = 1 Hour."
If I pay $8 for some game, but am able to complete it under the 2 hours with no replayability then damn right I'm refunding that shit.
"$1 = 1 Hour."
If I pay $8 for some game, but am able to complete it under the 2 hours with no replayability then damn right I'm refunding that shit.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2016
Alright, so I did a little digging....
OP is a fag who can't format worth a damn and left out the original developer's tweets. They are only leaving gaming "for an indefinite period of time to collect their thoughts". Apparently the dev shits out games like this on the regular (this game came out in June or July and their previous one was in late February,) and yet somehow people keep buying them. They totally can "make a living" off of this even with the refunds since they are a small dev based in Russia and people regularly pay 8 dollars for their Anubis-2-alikes.
I tried to check GAF to see if it was a member rallying his friends, or if there was a connection between him and the journos, but it doesn't look like there is one.
OP is a fag who can't format worth a damn and left out the original developer's tweets. They are only leaving gaming "for an indefinite period of time to collect their thoughts". Apparently the dev shits out games like this on the regular (this game came out in June or July and their previous one was in late February,) and yet somehow people keep buying them. They totally can "make a living" off of this even with the refunds since they are a small dev based in Russia and people regularly pay 8 dollars for their Anubis-2-alikes.
I tried to check GAF to see if it was a member rallying his friends, or if there was a connection between him and the journos, but it doesn't look like there is one.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
Honestly, I would have to consider any game more than 8 or 9 minutes long to be hopelessly bloated walking simulator timesink garbage.
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2021
Don't want people to refund your game? Make a better game. I have not heard of any good games having this issue because people actually want to keep good games.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2018
Not since Sunset got torpedoed and forced the devs out of video game creation have I read such satisfying news about video games.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2016
Steam's refund policy is a necessary evil (even if it killed good flash sales), because otherwise we would be stuck in a world where people gave Brianna Wu money for Rev60. Remember when people made top quality flash games for free?