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Comment by x775 | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate that you have found enjoyment in some games despite categorising most of them as terrible. However, whilst the quality of any game is entirely subjective, I would very much argue that most people would not spend time playing a game they do not enjoy. I thus reckon a metric like average time played is a telling one in terms of whether people who purchased the game actually enjoy it. Mind you, most platforms offer refunds with no questions asked should a given game not meet your expectations.

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I never said the whole lot is garbage. But a huge portion of them are at best passable or forgettable.

Average time played is not a good metric because people on both extremes will skew it heavily, like any average - people who bought the game but never played it, or people who play it way too much. It also depends a lot on the game. On an okay-ish game that has a +/-20h campaign will be pretty easy to munch through just to check it off, but one can easily abandon an okay-ish game with 5-10 minute matches after a handful of hours.

I apologise, I misread your initial message. I have edited accordingly. Thanks for the heads-up! I understand that you consider a huge portion of games as being at best passable or forgettable; but that is your inherently subjective opinion. It is not one which you can assume everyone shares, nor one you can use to draw objective conclusions. Indeed, the same can be said about music and movies. I only distinctively remember a subset of the movies I have watched, for instance.

I understand the point you are making in regards to average time played, but surely the people who, quote-unquote, play the game way too much, enjoy that specific game very much? Please note that you can also see the median playtime on the abovementioned website.

most platforms offer refunds with no questions asked should a given game not meet your expectations

Is that a common practice? I once accidentally bought a "standard" version of a game instead of the "ultimate" on my Xbox One and had to deal with a couple of support people to refund my original purchase in order to get the other.

That is my impression, yes. If a platform operates within the EU, consumers have the right to withdraw from a purchase within 14 days. Platforms like Origin and Steam have gone above and beyond to simplify the process even further. As for Xbox / Microsoft Store specifically, I believe, today, you can simply click 'Request a return' on the item in your order history.

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