Indie dev reports feeling a negative impact from Steam refund policy

Dev reports 72% return rate

Qwiboo, developer of Beyond Gravity, is reporting a large negative impact on sales due to the recent changes to Steam’s refund policy. The main story in Beyond Gravity takes about an hour to finish and most players play the game for just under two hours. Theoretically you could complete the entire game and get a full refund no questions asked from Steam, and it appears players are doing just that.

It’s refunds. Out of 18 sales 13 refunded in just last 3 days. That’s 72% of purchases. Rate of refunds before was minimal. #SteamRefunds

— Qwiboo (@qwiboo) June 6, 2015

Steam’s new policy is a welcome change for consumers, but clearly has some kinks to work out for shorter games made by indie devs. Perhaps Valve could implement something that tracks achievement progress, otherwise devs are going to have to start artificially extending the playtime of their games to prevent hit it and quit it refunds.