Play Before You Pay: Steam Allows 90-Minute Gameplay Before Purchasing a Game

[zlobby]

90 minutes is not good enough, 24 hours is all right.

Lol, most single-player campaigns end around that mark, but 90 minutes feels inadequate. 3 hours is fine by me.

 

[SkySong]

Well it was 2 hours and now its 90 minutes.

 

[windwhirl]

Well it was 2 hours and now its 90 minutes.

? Refund policy so far is a different thing not connected to this.

 

[Deleted member 230939]

? Refund policy so far is a different thing not connected to this.

Exactly.

90 mins without payment, when you buy you get 30 mins of play before your refund window closes.

 

[Solaris17]

Exactly.

90 mins without payment, when you buy you get 30 mins of play before your refund window closes.

Since when? I see zero proof.

As mentioned before its far more likely the 90min of free play time is just that, and when you own the game you will get the 120 for a refund.

Why? Because it would be PR suicide to do anything else.

That isnt to say they are being nice, I still think they are doing this because the transaction fees for refunding people is just a massive overhead. They did make it easy after all.

 

[Deleted member 230939]

Since when? I see zero proof.

As mentioned before its far more likely the 90min of free play time is just that, and when you own the game you will get the 120 for a refund.

Why? Because it would be PR suicide to do anything else.

That isnt to say they are being nice, I still think they are doing this because the transaction fees for refunding people is just a massive overhead. They did make it easy after all.

From what I know Steam refunds go off of time played and a 14 day window. Why that would change is beyond me.

 

[Solaris17]

From what I know Steam refunds go off of time played and a 14 day window.

Why that would change is beyond me.

Your right. Good thing it hasnt as of yet. It was tough at first, but I managed to read.

Steam Refunds

store.steampowered.com

The actual policy, and thus far it states purchased items. Which free trials are not.

 

[Deleted member 230939]

Your right. Good thing it hasnt as of yet. It was tough at first, but I managed to read.

Steam Refunds

store.steampowered.com

The actual policy, and thus far it states purchased items. Which free trials are not.

So then refunds will be ok at 3 hours 30 now for those select games?

 

[Solaris17]

So then refunds will be ok at 3 hours 30 now for those select games?

I dont know any more than you, but it seemed like you were trying to pass your word off as gospel so wanted to check.

Doesnt say it includes trials at all and specifies purchases. This actually works to users benefit because any modification they make to include a free trial would be received negatively, which increased the likelihood that they wont do it.

As mentioned, there are business reasons why this is a bad idea and the tech industry is under scrutiny right now, from pricing to practices and more specifically, in a case of legalities like this Asus.

It would be bad timing for valve who otherwise has imo done right by customers by not making too many waves over the years to shoot themselves in the foot over 30min.

So yes, I think the times will be separate, technologically there appears to be a difference (to the system and your account) between "owning" and "trying" games.

 

[Deleted member 230939]

I made the logical conclusion which may seem like me saying it is gospel, but there is no update to terms and conditions so that to me means 2 hours window regardless.

 

[silapakorn]

I only fear that this would cripple Steam's servers when extremely popular games are out, such as GTA 6. People would rush to download it to play their 1.5 hour free quota.

 

[wolf]

Great initiative, every AAA release should allow this, I'm genuinely blown away when companies offer playable demo's at all anymore, I used to live for demo CD's in PC/PS etc mags

 

[Dirt Chip]

How many games can you speed-run under 90 min?

 

[WatchThe80s]

After years, demo games came back. wow.

 

[Vayra86]

If the game is worth they will pay even if they already are done with it. Those 24 hours are worth just a day and if you want to play again, you will need to pay. Last 100 games That I played I dont remember one single game that I played and lasted less than 24 hours and I was done with it, those 24 hours would not be good for games that you can finish in 2 hours and offer nothing after that. You can check my steam library if you want, most games I bought lasted more than 100 hours at least, some are 1k hours or more. 24 hours free for AAA games is a must. 90 minutes is not good enough to see if a game is worth my money or not. My point is devs will focus on the 90 minutes and forget the rest of the game hehe because if they make a game good enough for 90 minutes they are sure you will pay for it ehhe, 24 hours is hard to cheat on. Actually in my opinion, all games should be free and if you like the work they did and want to support it, then you pay.

LMAO first post I thought you were joking but you're actually serious and explaining why.

I can't even.
Did you live already in the age of rental? 24 hours is a rental period for games, would cost you $5,- and was sufficient to binge that shit and return it. It was perfect for single player story based gaming. An 8 hour God of War story... you could even replay the thing the day you returned it

Steam is a monopoly! Why are they doing such monopolistic stuff?

On a more relaxed note, you'd be hard pressed to have the control of a playable character in The Last of Us: Part One.

Oh shit... the caveat is of course they start the 90 minute timer when you start compiling shaders...

I only fear that this would cripple Steam's servers when extremely popular games are out, such as GTA 6. People would rush to download it to play their 1.5 hour free quota.

Some form of pre-load thing is bound to happen, yeah

 

[swirl09]

2 hours and then refund is cut off.

*no longer automatic and must be fought for.

As mentioned before its far more likely the 90min of free play time is just that, and when you own the game you will get the 120 for a refund.

Why? Because it would be PR suicide to do anything else.

Its quite possible the 90mins will take from the 120min refund period. If you try a game on a free weekend, buy it, then try to refund it without even launching it again you will not get an automatic refund (provided your playtime exceeds 120min - or perhaps a little more). You will have to plead your case and since there is no guarantee a human will even look at it (due to your playtime) you might be SoL. Of course, they might change this now with this new feature.

*E: I should probably add this was my experience some years ago, at least several as it was pre covid. It seemed they didnt differentiate f2p time, if you were well beyond the 2hr playtime on your account - you were out of the auto refund period. I guess it is a pretty unique scenario. It was a coop game and it was the other person changing their mind, I wasnt interested in playing it myself so I went to refund and I had to resubmit the ticket twice to get it - first was rejected fairly quick. (FYI: not sure if it mattered, but I choose to refund to steam wallet on the 2nd try)

 

[progste]

Okay but realistically in what situation do you try a game for 90 minutes, decide you like it and it works on your system so you buy it, then turn around after 2 more hours of playing and decide you want your money back?
Do you also subscribe to netflix, binge-watch a series and then ask for a refund?

 

[64K]

I find the advocates of proposing that gamers would binge a game for 90 minutes and then never buy it to be missing the mark. I'm sure you could do that with quite a few games but with an AAA game that you are interested in that would be like wolfing down a steak and hardly tasting it and then pointing out that it's in your stomach now anyway so job done.

Besides that there is always the High Seas as an alternative but I never do that and don't recommend it. I haven't done anything like that since the mid 1980s and only then because we had little choice to be able to buy a lot of games.

I see the 90 minute demo as a good thing for PC gaming. Too many turds out there posing as AAA quality games.

 

[Space Lynx]

*no longer automatic and must be fought for.

its still automatic for me. its prob not automatic for you because you used it too much.

 

[dayne878]

I think this is a great feature that needs to be expanded to more new games (or required).

I tend to try games by purchasing, trying for up to 2 hours and refunding if I don't like it. However, recently, Valve has started being passive aggressive in their refund emails saying they've seen a "significant number of refund requests recently" from me or something like that. That has caused me to buy less and focus more on things like Gamepass or other subscriptions. I've become afraid of committing money to a game I might hate, essentially.

This 90 minute demo feature would be great because I usually determine within the first 15-45 minutes whether I actually like a game or not, so I'll be more willing to take risks and actually buy more games because I'll be confident that I won't have the possiblility of being denied refunds.

 

[THU31]

Imagine if The Last of Us had this at launch and you had to wait 2 hours for shaders to compile.

 

[windwhirl]

Imagine if The Last of Us had this at launch and you had to wait 2 hours for shaders to compile.

... thinking back to Detroit Become Human and its half hour of compiling shaders

 

[swirl09]

its still automatic for me. its prob not automatic for you because you used it too much.

You get auto refunds even if you go over the 2hr/2week limit? (X) Doubt

I have refunded maybe a half dozen games in however many years its been offered (so 1 per year or so?), I dont think im on any abuse list for doing that!

 

[Space Lynx]

You get auto refunds even if you go over the 2hr/2week limit? (X) Doubt

I have refunded maybe a half dozen games in however many years its been offered (so 1 per year or so?), I dont think im on any abuse list for doing that!

maybe they aren't auto then, I have no idea, I just know on the rare occassion when I do request it, it only takes them like 1 hour to show the "refund is incoming in paranthesis) meaning i have to wait 24 hrs but its been approved, I just assumed it was automatic cause 1 hour response time is freaking crazy fast

 

[chrcoluk]

Love it, Steam and Epic are polar opposites when it comes to consumers.