Developer ends games for abuse of Steam refunds -apkrig

The author, acting under the identity of Emika_Games, decided to deal with the development of games. You might think it’s not that unusual. Maybe he didn’t enjoy his work anymore, or people didn’t like his titles. But that is not the real reason, it is much more interesting. He has several games on his account that you can find on Steam. You may have never heard of titles like Locked Up or Find Yourself, but they have a very positive rating from players on Steam. They are smaller games for a few euros.

Summer of ’58 does not reach two hours of game time, so fans can return it after completing it and get the full amount back. According to the developer, they even leave a positive review, but he loses revenue.

The last title under the title Emika_Games was released about months ago. Summer of ’58 is again collecting very positive reviews and people obviously like it. So where is the problem? The author, who is actually called Alexander Reshetnikov, complained to Twitterthat the game does not bring him money. How is it possible? Summer of ’58 does not reach two hours of game time, so fans can return it after the game and get the full amount back. According to the developer, they even leave a positive review, but he loses revenue.

According to him, this is a huge number of people. He thanked him for his support, but said he didn’t earn enough to make another game because of it. He is very happy that people like his game, but if he can’t make a living from this, he has to do something else. And he announced that he was leaving the game development indefinitely. And because he still had the game From Day To Day under development, the demo of which was released last December, he announced that he would certainly not see the light of day in the near future.

According to him, if a person finishes the title and asks for a refund, it can be compared to a situation where he eats a whole pizza, but did not like it, and therefore wants to return the money.

Of course, his contribution aroused great interest and a number of players expressed his support. It wasn’t until the developer spoke again after a few hours. He wrote that he was genuinely surprised by the support he received. He didn’t expect so many people to stand up for him. According to him, he wants to create games without artificially extending the time, so that they do not get bored. That’s why his ends before two hours. “I think you’ve noticed that my titles look like short stories, much like you can watch a movie instead of a TV series,” he said.

He is not offended when someone returns his game because he does not like it or because of technical problems. But if, according to him, a person finishes the title and asks for a refund, it can be compared to a situation where he eats a whole pizza, but did not like it, and therefore wants to return the money. According to him, the developer just wanted to leave quietly and let him know what he intended. But seeing how many people expressed support gave him reason to think. And he thanked everyone for it.

For example, some players suggest that the achievements associated with completing the game could make it impossible for such projects to request a refund.

It is not clear at this time whether this means that he has changed his mind or whether he will change his mind. The fact is, however, that the rules set, however intended to protect consumers, clearly have certain loopholes and may be detrimental to the authors of shorter games. Because it is possible to return the title when you record for less than two hours. A Summer of ’58 can be completed in about 90 minutes. This is not the first similar case, and short games usually reflect this fact on the price tag, of course. Titles from Emika_Games, for example, cost 6 to 11 euros.

It is obvious that otherwise the right policy has a completely different impact on a title that has tens of hours and another on similar intentionally compact experiences. However, correcting such a situation and setting fair rules is not easy, as lowering the two-hour limit can harm players. Shorter games might have different rules, but then someone would have to sort and check such acts so that it would not be abused. For example, some players suggest that the achievements associated with completing the game could make it impossible for such projects to request a refund. And how would you solve this problem?