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Does the 2 hour refund limit on Steam affect game design?

I just picked up the highly hyped Blue Prince. On the other hand reviews have also called it a very niche game. I like puzzle games to a certain extent and roguelikes, but these are subjective experiences.

Anyways, I was hoping to get the gist of it and get into a groove and decide if I like it within the refund period.

The game mechanics are explained through notes in the game at it took me 80 minutes to reach a point where an important mechanic is explained.

This could have been done much earlier, I wonder why the developer delayed the explanation when it's just useful information

Other games also front load the prologue with long tutorials and cutscenes. So by the time you get into the meat of the game the refund window is out.

The other elephant in the room is if steam refunds are meant as a demo for everything or just to check technical issues like FPS and network connection issues

30 comments

  • Yes, the two hour limit affects game design. Based on what I've read about Blue Prince, it probably didn't affect that one much at all. The business model always affects the game design. When games were expecting to be rentals, the first few levels would be front loaded with the best that the game had to offer, and then later levels would be more phoned in. In the arcades, games would be louder to catch more attention, they'd be harder to make you put in another quarter, they'd reduce downtime to get the next person on the machine, etc.

    • When games were expecting to be rentals, the first few levels would be front loaded with the best that the game had to offer, and then later levels would be more phoned in

      Still happens today. First impressions matter, budgets are finite, and sometimes reviewers only play the first few parts.

      • Yeah, the theory if front-loaded design is just reality of game development reality. No, D2 Ac4 wasn't limited because of rentals - it was bad,because one year of crunch and still nit enough time does this to a product.

        Halo1 last third is bad, because they did not have enough time, nit because they cared about rentals.

        Game content dev generally starts at the beginning.

      • sometimes reviewers only play the first few parts.

        Not just the reviewers unfortunately, games shed players at every step, it's why most games are front-loaded and fall off the further you get into them.

30 comments