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Comment by richforrester | Hacker News Reader

Refunds apply:

> if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours

Based on the premise that games are made for entertainment, 2 hours seems (to me) like a solid enough amount of time to figure out if something's worth it or not.

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What if the game has a showstopper bug in hour #3 of gameplay?

It’s not fit for purpose.

To add to your point, there are many types of games that dont even let you get to all the features until pretty far in. Brutal legend basically changed genres mid game, thats not a 2 hour find

This seems quite far removed from the issue being discussed. Having features late in the game that you don't enjoy hardly means the game isn't fit for purpose. That's like saying a novel isn't fit for purpose unless you enjoy the ending.

I think the point the above poster is making is that features may very well be broken deep in to a game and you just don't know until you get there.

One of the listed items under the ACCC's guide for "major" problems is: "it is significantly different from the sample or description".

So, it could be argued that such a sudden change, if not clearly advertised, could constitute an issue for the product under their guarantees.

I agree that it could be argued, but it seems like a pretty big stretch. I mean, if it's advertised as a multiplayer racing game and there's no multiplayer or racing that's one thing. But if it's advertised as a PC adventure game and it turns out to be a PC adventure game whose story goes differently than you hoped, it sounds very much like something the ACCC standards don't cover.

> But if it's advertised as a PC adventure game and it turns out to be a PC adventure game whose story goes differently than you hoped

That wouldn't fly. Significant difference, however, would.

For Brutal Legend, you'll notice almost all advertising lists both adventure and real time strategy, to avoid such a problem.

I meant more that you could be sold on a feature that is marketed but not available until sinking 10s of hours into a game. When you get to that point however, there is no guarantee that the marketed feature works as advertised, or even works at all

This is the limit for a no-questions-asked refund that is automatically available.

If you run into a bigger issue you can contact support.

There was once a case where a supposedly multi-level game contained only one unbeatable level that seemed like it was supposed to waste over 2 hours to lock you out of refund. Valve made that game refundable at any time and now it's off Steam (at least I can't find it, the developer said it was the wrong build but I'm quite skeptical at this point)[0].

Of course Steam support is total hit and miss, i.e. I once reported an error on their website (I got "An error occurred while processing your request." in the store + some long GUID so I reported it to them) and I got told to check if my internet connection is okay which is fucking ridiculous.

But if it blows up on social media and in news (like [0] did) or there is legal threat (like with this article linked here or soon with CS:GO gambling, maybe) then they take action.

[0] - https://www.vg247.com/2015/08/07/amazingly-broken-steam-game...

Yes but the Australian Consumer Law specifically has penalties for misleading consumers about their rights - which steam does.

ACL > Steam terms of service, full stop. Any barriers Steam put up to knowing about or exercising your ACL rights are illegal.

Depends on the type of 'game'.

For eg. a racing sim, it could take 90+ minutes just to set up controls satisfactorily (this has happened to me).

And for some titles, even getting them running is something that previously takes hours. Stream counts any time the game exe is running as play time, regardless of playability.

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