New refund policy from Steam.

[Kes]

The question that's been going round my mind ever since this topic surfaced is this:

Steam is being obliged by EU law to provide this refund facility.  Question - won't Degica also have to comply with this sort of requirement?  In which case, (subsidiary question) what about all those resource packs?  It won't just be Scythuz and Sharm who are at risk, but anyone who sells a pack on the store.

 

[bgillisp]

This would be a horrible method. For one, not all games have achievements. For two, the achievement system is easily manipulated.

I think you missed what I propose here. What I'm proposing is just a simple "If you have the achievement for winning the game, no refund allowed." If the achievement doesn't exist, then we use something else. It would give the company an easy way to check if you beat a short game quickly and are then trying to get a refund still.

This doesn't fix the problem with non-games (like the RPGMaker DLC packs and such), but it would be a start I'd think.

 

[Galenmereth]

@Sharm: From Steam's info page here: http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

DLC purchased from the Steam store is refundable within fourteen days of purchase, and if the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased, so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred.

By "consumed" one can only infer that the DLC has yet to be actually used, and additionally the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased. This doesn't seem to me anything but a good thing for people buying resources as DLC. After all, you don't get to preview all the content in the resource packs before buying them; 2 hours is enough time to verify it's what you paid for. For honest and quality DLC resource providers like yourselves, this shouldn't be any problem whatsoever. After all, it's not like you can download the DLC, claim a refund, and still use it in your games; you need to own the resources to use them. Steam's refund policy doesn't void or interfere with those terms at all

 

[Kes]

@Galenmereth

Download DLC, copy it by whatever means you prefer.  Takes 10 minutes.  Demand your refund (well under the 2 hour limit).  It is removed from your Steam account.  You carry on using the copy you made.

The fact that you can't use it legally will not, I think, make the tiniest scrap of difference to anyone who wants to do this.  And no one who plays the game will know if the cost of the resource pack had been refunded or not.

 

[Galenmereth]

@ksjp17: Right, but that's entirely no different from just copying it off some piracy site, or getting it given to you by a friend who bought it. The refund policy is a lot harder than any of these: First pay for it, then ask for a refund manually through a contact form and risk having it denied (if Steam finds you abusing it). Piracy will always be a concern; this won't make that worse at all, and it is far more likely to make it better, since the risk involved in paying for content you aren't sure is up to snuff is far less, thus people are more likely to be willing to spend money on it. Those who never intended to pay for it, well, this system is way harder than googling the resource and finding a free link.

 

[Sharm]

@Galenmereth: When do you get to preview the entire content of anything from Steam before you buy it? (Barring outside things like letsplays and such.) That seems a bit unreasonable to me.

 

[cabfe]

@Galenmereth

Download DLC, copy it by whatever means you prefer.  Takes 10 minutes.  Demand your refund (well under the 2 hour limit).  It is removed from your Steam account.  You carry on using the copy you made.

The fact that you can't use it legally will not, I think, make the tiniest scrap of difference to anyone who wants to do this.  And no one who plays the game will know if the cost of the resource pack had been refunded or not.

As I undestand it "so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred", my guess is that once it has been downloaded, no refund is possible.

The refund would be available is you buy it on Steam, realized you already bought it on the forum store and then ask for a refund on Steam. Like a "oops" purchase.

 

[Galenmereth]

@Sharm: You don't, but let's play's and formal game reviews, as well as things like metacritic, offer far more ways to validate the subjective quality of extra games content. But keep in mind this refund policy offers a similar, although more restricted, solution to this dilemma for games and extra content DLC; a chance to try before you make up your mind, but not before you buy.

I feel like people are underestimating the fact that you have to pay for the content before you get to download it, and that you then have to manually ask for a refund. The mindset of people who want stuff for free is that they want to remove the financial risk and cost with the product. The remaining percentage that is willing to give money upfront to scam this system are so few that they'll cause little problem, and Steam will obviously catch it. It's not in Steam's interest to make content creators see their platform as financially risky whatsoever. Steam will have a detailed history of refund claims for every user, it's going to be infinitely harder to play this system than any retail store out there.

 

As I undestand it "so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred", my guess is that once it has been downloaded, no refund is possible.

The refund would be available is you buy it on Steam, realized you already bought it on the forum store and then ask for a refund on Steam. Like a "oops" purchase.

That's how I see it too, but even if it weren't so, the risk involved for content creators is minimal. The fact that Steam can deny you a refund if they see you gaming the system is that safety. Personally I only see this as beneficial, as it gives some needed consumer protection where it was lacking before, which is far more likely to increase spending. As a tangential example, take Nintendo's eShop: your purchases are tied to your console, and if you lose it, it's up to Nintendo if you get your games back or not if you buy a new system. This stops me from buying expensive games on my 3DS on the eShop, because I've seen this happen to my ex firsthand; lost all her games, Nintendo just shrugged. That's an extreme instance where customer risk is so great, it decreases spending. She doesn't buy any games on the eShop anymore on her new 3DS, either. Fool me once and all that.

 

[Scythuz]

It's not the fact that's it's easier or not that is so much of an issue as the fact that it's another potential avenue for pirates to take.  An important question I feel I have to ask is:  Do we know whether this system will be manual or automated?  I will be surprised if it's not at least partially automated with how big the userbase is.

 

[Sharm]

I'm not against refunds, I just feel like this might be set up irresponsibly. Well, I hope you're right. Only time will tell.

 

[Geoff Moore]

Yeah, I was talking about games - for resource packs it's obviously more of an issue...

@Scythuz - there does seem to be some kind of manual process, you don't get the refund straight away. Can't find the page I was reading earlier but someone posted a video of the process and you have to wait for funds to be returned.

 

[Esrever]

The question that's been going round my mind ever since this topic surfaced is this:

Steam is being obliged by EU law to provide this refund facility.  Question - won't Degica also have to comply with this sort of requirement?  In which case, (subsidiary question) what about all those resource packs?  It won't just be Scythuz and Sharm who are at risk, but anyone who sells a pack on the store.

I could be incorrect here, but I believe that because RPGMakerWeb is run by Degica out of Japan, it is not subject to the same requirements that a company registered in an EU country would have. I do know that they have a UK office, but I don't believe it handles transactions for the RMW store.

I think you missed what I propose here. What I'm proposing is just a simple "If you have the achievement for winning the game, no refund allowed." If the achievement doesn't exist, then we use something else. It would give the company an easy way to check if you beat a short game quickly and are then trying to get a refund still.

This doesn't fix the problem with non-games (like the RPGMaker DLC packs and such), but it would be a start I'd think.

No, I understood what you meant. What you're saying now still makes zero sense. Please explain how you expect Steam to check for this. Do you realize the back catalog Steam currently has that would need to be modified for this? Do you realize the amount of hassle this would be by not using some uniform and accessible API? This is not a solution.

@Sharm: From Steam's info page here: http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/

By "consumed" one can only infer that the DLC has yet to be actually used, and additionally the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased. This doesn't seem to me anything but a good thing for people buying resources as DLC. After all, you don't get to preview all the content in the resource packs before buying them; 2 hours is enough time to verify it's what you paid for. For honest and quality DLC resource providers like yourselves, this shouldn't be any problem whatsoever. After all, it's not like you can download the DLC, claim a refund, and still use it in your games; you need to own the resources to use them. Steam's refund policy doesn't void or interfere with those terms at all

As ksjp17 had pointed out, there's no real way (as of this writing) of ensuring that RPG Maker DLC hasn't been used or won't be used prior to being found to be "consumed". Consumed according to Steam would be DLC which has limited use or DLC which is irrevertible. It could be argued that upon download the DLC is irrevertible since it becomes possible to make a permanent copy that may be used even post-refund, but this is not how it currently functions.

@Galenmereth: When do you get to preview the entire content of anything from Steam before you buy it? (Barring outside things like letsplays and such.) That seems a bit unreasonable to me.

As Sharm has said, there's no readily available way of testing things out hands-on in their entirety through Steam without it either being a free-play weekend or having made the purchase. Outside of Steam there may be limited time (but fully functional) demos of the same product, but that isn't applicable with RPG Maker DLC due to its nature. Personally, I think that screenshots of maps made with tilesets, battlers in combat, characters walking around, etc. is more than good enough for most people to get a feel for the content and quality of a DLC. You can also check out the reviews and/or these forums and ask around for opinions on a certain DLC or even get in touch with the DLC content owners themselves and have them potentially provide additional information or images to help convince you to purchase.

I feel like people are underestimating the fact that you have to pay for the content before you get to download it, and that you then have to manually ask for a refund. The mindset of people who want stuff for free is that they want to remove the financial risk and cost with the product. The remaining percentage that is willing to give money upfront to scam this system are so few that they'll cause little problem, and Steam will obviously catch it. It's not in Steam's interest to make content creators see their platform as financially risky whatsoever. Steam will have a detailed history of refund claims for every user, it's going to be infinitely harder to play this system than any retail store out there.

This is my gut feeling as well, but it is impossible to really tell so early right now. It would be foolish to say that this won't ever happen if it hasn't already, but I do think that for the most part things will remain about as affected as they were prior to these changes.

It's not the fact that's it's easier or not that is so much of an issue as the fact that it's another potential avenue for pirates to take.  An important question I feel I have to ask is:  Do we know whether this system will be manual or automated?  I will be surprised if it's not at least partially automated with how big the userbase is.

This is probably the most realistic worry (in my opinion) in this entire thread right now, but hopefully Steam is wise enough and punitive enough to have people led to believe that the risk outweighs the rewards. It isn't uncommon for stolen credit cards or phished paypal accounts to be used to purchase digital goods online. A new Steam account is made, items added to the cart, go to checkout, pay with the fraudulent details. However, this is mostly done on much more higher profile targets. RPG Maker products and RPG Maker DLC are fairly low risk in this regard. However, since this refund policy, it seems reasonable to imagine that an average consumer of a niche market like this might try to take advantage and then post their materials on an imageboard or torrent site which would be more detrimental.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Okay, if we're ralking about people who buy DLC, copy it and then refund it then we're no longer talking about people who just don't understand the concept of digital product as a product or people who abuse a system to play a game for free - that IS piracy at that point.

It'd be the same as renting a game, burning a copy, returning the rental. That classified as pirating games.

I agree with Galenmereth, they likely have something in place to track how many refunds a person makes and i bet they'll ask more qustions if they start seeing a trend. At least, they would be silly not to - we even do that at a retail level just from recognizing people's faces. They'd have an online database and have an even easier time to check someones history with returns.

Again, not saying it WON'T happen - it will - but I don't think it will be A wide sweeping problem. (Plus, those people who stole the resources would have big legal issues to answer for if what they did came to light and they used the resources in a commercial game)

 

[Esrever]

I agree with Galenmereth, they likely have something in place to track how many refunds a person makes and i bet they'll ask more qustions if they start seeing a trend. At least, they would be silly not to - we even do that at a retail level just from recognizing people's faces. They'd have an online database and have an even easier time to check someones history with returns.

Again, not saying it WON'T happen - it will - but I don't think it will be A wide sweeping problem. (Plus, those people who stole the resources would have big legal issues to answer for if what they did came to light and they used the resources in a commercial game)

They do have such things in place, but it does not take a whole lot of intelligence, time, or effort to set up a new Steam account under false credentials through a VPN and pay with a stolen PayPal account / credit card. This is where what Scythuz had brought up potentially becomes an issue.

The average user isn't going to get far exploiting this, I very much agree. It is seen by me as even less of an issue for the RPG Maker community, but that does not take away the fact that is still a potential problem nonetheless.

You have to also realize that some people who pirate software/content are not those who worry about legal issues down the road (these same people are also unlikely to release anything commercial). Even if the resources which were obtained without payment aren't used in a commercial project though, that is still lost revenue for the content creators for each individual using them.

 

[Galenmereth]

They do have such things in place, but it does not take a whole lot of intelligence, time, or effort to set up a new Steam account under false credentials through a VPN and pay with a stolen PayPal account / credit card. This is where what Scythuz had brought up potentially becomes an issue.

Stolen paypal / credit card? That's a far bigger issue than you make it sound. This is not the kind of "pirates" this refund policy will attract.

I'm sorry to say this, but there's easier way to pirate all this content right here today. Steam won't make pirates out of new people with this policy. That is absurd if you know how the pirate scene works.

 

[Esrever]

Stolen paypal / credit card? That's a far bigger issue than you make it sound. This is not the kind of "pirates" this refund policy will attract.

I'm sorry to say this, but there's easier way to pirate all this content right here today. Steam won't make pirates out of new people with this policy. That is absurd if you know how the pirate scene works.

I'm entirely certain that anyone currently using such tactics of using fraudulent financial information was already doing so well before these policy changes had occurred, but it still does not take away from the fact that it happens. I was more using this in response to Makio-Kuta's post to illustrate that just because Steam has policies in place to prevent users from continuously abusing the refund option doesn't mean it will be effective.

Still off topic, this is how a portion of piracy scene works if you look at Eastern Europe. It isn't absurd, and no, I don't believe this is how everything involving piracy works. I'm quite aware of what reverse engineering entails and how cracking groups operate. Yes, there are easier ways to pirate RPG Maker DLC content right now (no, not all of it it presently available), but we're talking about two groups of people here now because this thread has split into two very separate conversations.

This started off as being about Steam's new policy and potential problems it could cause if the typical Steam user would exploit this. This very much so has the potential to create new "pirates" from this policy. I'm not saying these people will be hugely successful or that these people will be numerous. This group also has a lot of naive people who are either unaware of the means required to pirate or are oblivious that you can pirate such things to begin with. They may potentially see an opening here and explore how far they can take it.

The second group of people who are already casual piracy users already have been aware of and have had access to the assets you've spoken about that are located on imageboards, torrent trackers, Russian RPG Maker related websites, and other areas. Indeed, these people aren't going to be newly made pirates.

 

[Galenmereth]

I'm sorry, but that's like saying refund policies in stores has the potential to create thieves. In my very personal opinion that is something I as a customer would find extremely offensive. To be very blunt here, and before I am keep in mind I myself am a digital content creator; my game might be in development still, but I run a one-man company on the side producing digital graphic design and systems development. My stuff has been stolen before. So I do not say the following lightly, but I think it needs to be said.

For the longest time people creating digital goods have wanted the same benefits of protection and prosecution of "thieves" as that of retailers of physical goods. That is to say, a copy of a digital product should be prosecutable just like theft of a physical product in a store where nobody gets physically hurt in the process, as that would obviously be another added crime. This is the reality that is also happening, slowly: downloading illegal software, music, videos and other goods is prosecutable and also prosecuted in more and more countries. Laws are getting in place for it. One of the drawbacks for retailers of physical products is the fact that refund policies are there to protect the consumer, and almost all physical retail stores must abide by this. Now this has come to the realm of digital goods. It's not there because of the ability to prosecute digital "theft", of course, but it is a result of an environment that is making it harder and harder for consumers to make informed decisions when purchasing digital content, and the drawback of buying digital is that you can't go back to a physical store and argue with the clerk: you have to rely on contact forms and help desks that might be unreachable for weeks, effectively locking your money off from you until they decide to answer your request.

There's risk involved in buying digital content, just as there's risk involved in selling it. It's exactly the same as physical retail in that regard. The benefit we as digital content providers have is that when someone steals one of our products, we don't lose the costs of the materials, packaging, transport and other involved costs in producing physical goods. However our goods can then be copied again and again, which is the drawback compared to physical.

There's risks for both customers and creators. Let's not treat our potential customers as thieves just because they could be. You cannot do any business transaction without a degree of trust and even without Steam's policy, what's stopping me from zipping all my DLC packs and sending them to a friend? Nothing except you trusting me not to, and me having the morals to not do it. And the fact that if found out, I might get in trouble. Steam's new policies won't change this one iota.

 

[Jomarcenter]

Mostly there is an anti-abuse system into it. Like if you request a refund multiple times with ridiculous reasons like you don't like a game. and Valve is aware is a short game they will think about it. And probably ban the user from getting another refund in the future. Is it still a honor system. If someone abuse the system, they can literately ban that user. And beside it's a manual system in steam, As in steam support or another team is checking the report to be reviewed before deciding to give the refund or not. And also For the problem related to games playing in offline mode you have to have the client running before you request the refund so they can determined if it played or not. and also steam still check how many hour you played even if you play it via it's exe file rather thru the client. As long as the client running, Unless if it illiterately DRM free. But steam required for all games to have steam  DRM system in place for protection purposes. So abuse is avoidable.

And also the problem with RPG maker DLC I think Valve is aware the nature of the DLC and won't going to give out refund due to the fact it's a additional content for commercially use. And even if it refunded the user will be face with degica for using the content illegally since it is consider as a removal of license and thus using it on RPG maker and Degica check if you own the license or not via checking your steam account public profile information, Your store account and/or your forums account.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

 

Stolen paypal / credit card? That's a far bigger issue than you make it sound. This is not the kind of "pirates" this refund policy will attract.

I'm sorry to say this, but there's easier way to pirate all this content right here today. Steam won't make pirates out of new people with this policy. That is absurd if you know how the pirate scene works.

Ahhh, maybe stolen paypals and credit cards aren't a common thing, but I can tell you that FAKE pre-paid credit cards are a HUGE problem that keeps getting worse and worse. I don't know if they work for online purchases, but people have totally been frauding stores with them for at least the last 5 years and it's becoming an increasingly bigger problem the last couple. (at least here in Canada)

 

I'm sorry, but that's like saying refund policies in stores has the potential to create thieves. In my very personal opinion that is something I as a customer would find extremely offensive. To be very blunt here, and before I am keep in mind I myself am a digital content creator; my game might be in development still, but I run a one-man company on the side producing digital graphic design and systems development. My stuff has been stolen before. So I do not say the following lightly, but I think it needs to be said.

[...]

There's risks for both customers and creators. Let's not treat our potential customers as thieves just because they could be. You cannot do any business transaction without a degree of trust and even without Steam's policy, what's stopping me from zipping all my DLC packs and sending them to a friend? Nothing except you trusting me not to, and me having the morals to not do it. And the fact that if found out, I might get in trouble. Steam's new policies won't change this one iota.

Refund policies in stores -DO- open the doors to thieves. (Stealing something from one store, returning it at another, getting a gift card is a super common trend.) But you're right, it doesn't CREATE thieves, just enables ones that would have already existed. At the end of the day, the refund policy was made to bring customer peace of mind. To make sure customers know that hey, if they buy this and it doesn't meet their expectations they don't have to worry about putting a 50$ item in their cupboard to never be touched again.

That aside, I agree, looking at every customer like they are a criminal BEFORE they do something is actually pretty rude to the customer. Sales is based on trust. Trust that you are selling what you say, and trust that the customer will respect whatever buyer policies are in place. Even if you want to (and trust me, I am someone who is hardwired to suspect people for fraud), you can't. It's not fair to the honest ones to label them criminals before they've even done something.

 

[Esrever]

I'm sorry, but that's like saying refund policies in stores has the potential to create thieves. In my very personal opinion that is something I as a customer would find extremely offensive.

1. Own or purchase a broken item.
2. Purchase this item new from a retail store.
3. Replace the new item with the broken one.
4. Bring the broken item back to the retail store in the new box.
5. Receive refund / store credit.