Today a couple words about returns and refunds.
As you know, some time ago Steam has introduced refunds, which I think in general is a great idea. People are less afraid to try out new games and if something doesn’t go right, whether it is a hardware problem or the game just turns out to be something else they anticipated – they have no feeling of being cheated.
On the other hand…
Refunds can get bused in many ways. Some are obvious – when a cheap short game gets refunded even if the player enjoyed it. Others are more hidden. A fiend once told us he was inspecting a group of accounts that roughly at the same time bought a game, left negative feedback and refunded the game. While for games with already a lot of feedback these 10-12 negatives may not really affect, smaller and recently released games with only a handful of reviews may suffer a great deal. Their positive to negative ratio drops significantly, changing a Very Positive rating to Mixed (or worse) very quickly. What influence does it have on new sales? I don’t need to tell you.
Anyway, from time to time we browse refund reasons. These can really tell all sorts of problems the users encountered, that they in most cases didn’t want to bring up on the forums or didn’t bother to try and find a fix for. Such as mouse cursor being offset for non-native resolutions (thank you, Unity). And while some refunds could not have been avoided, from others we can draw conclusions as to what might have gone wrong and what can be improved. The percentage of returned purchases stays around a modest value of 4.3%, so it is a bit below average. Yet still, some are absolutely hilarious and I can’t help but to share with you the 5 best that I found (and I haven’t even browsed through all 2000 Steam lists). I truly hope their authors, even if not named, will not be upset 😉 Kept original spelling.
5. Accidental buy by my child, measures have been taken
//it’s so unfair to punish the poor kiddo for having a good taste… On the other hand PEGI rated Thea as “12” so it’s not appropriate for youngsters 😉
4. It’s cool but I really can’t afford this game now and need the money back thank you.
//behold the ancient Slavic Curse of Spending!
3. Purchased as gift- gift was declined.
//this almost broke my heart x]
2. Didnt know there was no multiplayer, bought the game twice to play with a friend. Angry
//I though this was funny but then Khash told me he’d like to try adding multiplayer. It was 1st of April so I’m still not sure if he really meant that
1. dont like the game. I thought it was a first person game.
//it also isn’t a space shooter, in case anyone asks
Till next time!