My friend is an indie game developer and he once told me the typical refund rate, which I think was only a little lower than this. I don't think the game length is playing that large a role here, rather people use that refund policy as a way to try out a game (like a demo). Probably most of the people who refunded wouldn't have bought it in the first place without that refund policy, so he shouldn't really view this as "because of this policy I lost 55K sales".
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one. The developer mentions the idea of having "expected time to complete" featured on the Steam Store page, and using that as an exception for 2 hour refund periods. But he also says he intended this Paddle game to be between 3-4 hours long. He was already aware of the problem of short games on Steam, made efforts to avoid it, and still missed the mark. By his own admission, his game would not meet his own recommended refund exception.
He also blames speed runners as a general player type that is causing this abuse, but the way he speaks of them sounds like he is implying that it is a concentrated community effort. Now, I haven't checked speed running community discussions or watched any YouTuber's talk about this game. I could imagine some not so well thought out "influencer" talking about this games short run time, and their audience turning it into a novel blind speed run challenge. That would hypothetically be some real shit head behavior, and the best course of action would be for speed running communities to take some moderation action against people who post their times but refund/remove the game from their libraries.
But I don't think Valve should change their refund policy over this. There are games with much shorter completion run times that don't get refunded. Including linear, narrative focused games comparable to Paddle Paddle Paddle. The developer even mentions that despite the large amount of refunds, this game got a much larger reception and net profit than other titles. Its an easy assumption to make that the social advertising of being a gimmicky speed run caused its financial success. 1/4th of the sales are refunded, but the total sales dwarf many of the countless indie titles that drown at launch.
Idk. I can think of 10 games in my library off the top of my head, that I completed in less than 2 hours but didn't feel like refunding. "They beat my game and still refunded it" isn't a valid problem to the no questions asked refund policy. People get refunds for things besides games for much less time and more money spent. Hell, it doesn't even seem like he has any negative consequences to these refunds! The game is at positive reviews, its not algorithmicly being suppressed over the refunds, he's making the same "ratio" of profit as he would without the refunds; what is the actual problem here???
Damn they all forgot the lesson to only fuck over the big corpos 😞
If a game I bought finished within 2 hours, I'd be the one feeling fucked over
It's $5 full price and advertised as typically 3-4 hours long. A big mac is over $6.
It's not like big macs are value for money either.
advertised as typically 3-4 hours
Yes, if a game advertised 20 hours of gameplay and finished in 10, wouldn't you feel they padded the estimate? That's the same percentage here.
Yeah, I'm using them as an example of an underwhelming product that nevertheless has a market at its price, which millions of people regularly purchase knowing how shit it is because the price is tolerable for a guilty pleasure.
Measuring the time in percentages here doesn't make sense. A 1 hour difference on a 3 hour game can easily be chalked up to variance (even the estimate of 3-4 hours has a 1 hour range) but 10 hours off a 30 hour game is enormous. If we also made it $50 instead of $5 and argued for time per dollar as a value metric, sure, those would be equally misleading, but time per dollar is less important as the total cost decreases. Nobody would say a 2 cent movie ticket is half as worthwhile as a 1 cent ticket. They're both approximately as valuable as the experience itself because the cost is negligible.
underwhelming product that nevertheless has a market at its price
So if we agree that this game is an underwhelming product, why are we surprised it's getting refunded? Unlike the big mac where you probably know what you're getting in advance, this one is being misleading with spuriously inflated play time. Very spurious, since it seems likely half or more of players are finishing in less than 2 hours.
idk guy, the 2 hours isn't that long. if your game is only a few hours im not sure what your buisness plan was here, sorry.
We seriously need more games that are "only a few hours".
I fail to see why it's such a travesty to make a game that's sub 2 hours of playtime (for some people that get easily bored), for 5 euro, now on sale for 3 euro.
That refund window should be tied to the price tag.
Can't wait for this legitimate gripe to be the thing Valve uses to axe this policy!
/s in case this was somehow confusing