Devs Upset At GOG's New Refund Policy

So I've a few points on this one, different so I'll split them up: First "No other industry would do this." I hate to tell you but every other industry that provides goods or services to consumers is required by law to do this if they trade in Europe (and many other parts of the world)... so actually ONLY the games industry does NOT do this, YES, just GAMES - even Microsoft will refund you for a copy of Microsoft Office within thirty days (and if they don't they are in breach of trading standards and will be taken to court by your local trading standards office if you live in Europe or else whichever government agency deals with these things in your country if you're one of the majority of developed or semi-developed countries inthe world.

Second: GOG was setup to allow the downloading of copies of games you already owned but had lost the media for and to give away for free or sell copies of games that were no longer available on the market or on media no longer accessible with modern machines. Trust is what the whole thing was created upon a foundation of... can't fault them for sticking to their roots or for believing in their user base; it is literally where they grew from.

If they were to make any change to this policy I think it should be not authorizing refunds for games you played at least 3/4 of. If you’ve played more than that much of the game, then your dissatisfaction with it becomes a review of the overall game. Before completing that much I would say falls under acceptable refund criteria

Third: tldr; GOG is getting ahead of the game. European consumer law (including the UK whose laws are actually even more strict on this front), REQUIRES that all goods and services are returnable for thrirty days after purchase - that GAMES (not software since most general software companies are already in compliance if they sell in Europe) do not abide by this is actually illegal; the EU is currently investigating various companies for this. The irony is that most of the history of games has had this be true since it was always possible to return games in the early days since it came on hard media and those were most certainly included in the law. The reason it changed was the shift in the industry towards second hand sales (they became a thing) and shrink wrap licenses... however those shrink wrap licenses have become essentially null and void in Europe and all of the software industry but for online game sales now abides by the thirty day return policy, be it in store or in the form of "distance selling" which originally meant by mail but was extended to include online sales as well due to the rise of Amazon.

Fourth: GOG is most certainly keeping metrics, which they admit to, as noted at the end of the story/video, and abusers of the system (just like with physical goods) will either be cut off or taken to court (I guess it'll depend on their and GOG's country of residence/(HQ) operations) but generally fining is commonplace and quickly dealt with with serial abusers of this consumer law and few if any people really do it and it tends to be one or two massively repeat individuals rather than lots of people a little - in the UK there have been cases where they have been sent to jail via a combination of theft and harassment charges as well as the individual fines for each case.

I feel like in a fair world you'd get 30 days but only if you played it for 1 hour or less, then after that it's 5$ less refunded for every hour played after the first. I don't think most people would really abuse it, but there will be the small minority that always abuse it. People will compare it to products, but in my eyes it's like trying to return a book 29 days later and the entire thing is obviously read and looks used.

Fifth: If developers want to be treated with respect and want to have the same rights as those of other industries (e.g. the right to strike or not do enforced overtime) then they have to take on the responsibilities as well, and that includes giving the buyer a chance to return goods; if those goods are returned because they are not fit for service then you can hardly blaim the buyer when one thing is promised but it is not delivered... it, in fact, means that devs have a better chance to make money because ti will thin the field of cr*ppy, unfinished games and low quality copies and ripoffs and will allow legitimately good games to have a better chance of being seen and bought by average consumers. And note that the thirty day thing is because many things are bought as gifts... two days is almost never going to be enough time to buy and give a gift, hence the thirty days (there are historical reasons too but a lot of those are now moot). Anyway; the devs that should be most worried are those who are not compotent enough to write decent games and who depend on writing a vaguely good first few hours of experience in a game and then can't be bothered finishing it off... I'd argue that they are less devs and more scam artists and the general public has always needed protect from that sort of person.

I'm not saying the story is bad or that complaints to what GOG did are bad, I'd argue that GOG should have warned devs beforehand, but overall this is a good move and one that is surely going to happen whether the games industry likes it or not. I should note that neither the film industry or music industry was ever ableto stop this from happening despite the ability to copy those or consume those arts within the thirty day window... in fact all the more an issue for them since a music single is minutes long and a film only a few hours - nothing like the anything up to thousands of hours that a game can be!

I feel the 2 hours isn't fair, by the time you watch cutscenes and get through the tutorial for most game you've maybe got 30 minutes to try a game out with no hand holding. 3 days i feel is sufficient for both game time and time to return