GOG extends its game refund window to 30 days

Meeho

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GOG confirms it is the best digital game store by far:

Everyone at GOG believes in a 'gamers-first’ approach. It means that every part of our store is designed with gamers in mind and your purchase safety and satisfaction come first for us. The latest update to our voluntary Refund Policy adds another piece to this customer-friendly experience. And it all sums up in one sentence: starting now, you can get a full refund up to 30 days after purchasing a product, even if you downloaded, launched, and played it. That's it.

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006129837?product=gog
 
I've been saying for a while that games need a 30 day return policy and finally someone did it. You don't need a demo when you can play the game however long you want and return it if you're unsatisfied. This gives a bigger incentive for creators to make a better game instead of tricking people into buying something they'll end up regretting.
 
I've been saying for a while that games need a 30 day return policy and finally someone did it. You don't need a demo when you can play the game however long you want and return it if you're unsatisfied. This gives a bigger incentive for creators to make a better game instead of tricking people into buying something they'll end up regretting.

I seriously doubt GOG is going to be able to keep this policy for long...you can't trust that people will be honest...they're going to finish the game and return it...GOG is a great platform but I think this is just a PR stunt to get them some press and more 'GOG is the greatest' threads on forums
 
I seriously doubt GOG is going to be able to keep this policy for long...you can't trust that people will be honest...they're going to finish the game and return it...GOG is a great platform but I think this is just a PR stunt to get them some press and more 'GOG is the greatest' threads on forums
Why would those people bother in the first place when they could just torrent any GOG game? Their policy has always been to trust the gamers to reward good service and so far it made them the second largest gaming company in Europe.
 
Why would those people bother in the first place when they could just torrent any GOG game? Their policy has always been to trust the gamers to reward good service and so far it made them the second largest gaming company in Europe.

Wasn't GOG loosing money recently? As for why not torrenting there are a few reasons. Slower download speed, ISP throttling, anti piracy notices and all that. Some people aren't going to bother with a VPN or paid proxy.

We'll see what happens. I have no firm guess either way, so will be interesting to see. If it works out great for them then good, longer return window is a win for us.
 
I seriously doubt GOG is going to be able to keep this policy for long...you can't trust that people will be honest...they're going to finish the game and return it...GOG is a great platform but I think this is just a PR stunt to get them some press and more 'GOG is the greatest' threads on forums
I don't understand this logic because like Meeho said there's piracy. You all like to pretend that piracy doesn't exist, but like Bernie Sanders it's real and it's happening whether you like it or not. Having a limited return window for games feels like you tricked someone out of their money, and didn't earn it. I personally try before I buy because I've been burned from wasting money on games I didn't like. When there's a game I truely like then I do buy it. Trust should go both ways and if a company really believes they made a great game and not something they farted out to capture money from what's hot like Battle Royal then they should have no problem with a 30 day return. Especially if you bought a game and found there's micro-transactions and DLC, then you have every right to ask for a refund. Personally I feel that 99% of games made are shit, and only a few games are worth my time. The best games of 2019 was Sekiro and Resident Evil 2 and that's it. Borderlands 3 was boring. Outer Worlds was boring and every woman looked like a lesbian. Control was just awful as the game just moved you from one kill box to another. If your game has no substance and can't deliver an entertaining experience then you don't deserve money. I don't care if I've played the game for 29 days, if you start introducing SJW crap mid way into the game then I want my money back.
 
I don't understand this logic because like Meeho said there's piracy. You all like to pretend that piracy doesn't exist, but like Bernie Sanders it's real and it's happening whether you like it or not. Having a limited return window for games feels like you tricked someone out of their money, and didn't earn it. I personally try before I buy because I've been burned from wasting money on games I didn't like. When there's a game I truely like then I do buy it. Trust should go both ways and if a company really believes they made a great game and not something they farted out to capture money from what's hot like Battle Royal then they should have no problem with a 30 day return. Especially if you bought a game and found there's micro-transactions and DLC, then you have every right to ask for a refund. Personally I feel that 99% of games made are shit, and only a few games are worth my time. The best games of 2019 was Sekiro and Resident Evil 2 and that's it. Borderlands 3 was boring. Outer Worlds was boring and every woman looked like a lesbian. Control was just awful as the game just moved you from one kill box to another. If your game has no substance and can't deliver an entertaining experience then you don't deserve money. I don't care if I've played the game for 29 days, if you start introducing SJW crap mid way into the game then I want my money back.

taking the games you mentioned- Sekiro, RE2, Control, Outer Worlds and Borderlands 3...how long did you need to make up your mind on those games?...it surely didn't take 29 days and getting 85%- 100% through the game...of course everyone is not going to abuse the policy but a good amount will and that's enough to get a company to change it...'try before you buy' doesn't mean finish the entire game and then decide...it's been proven that the vast majority of gamers don't even finish a game once much less multiple times...so why would anyone who paid nothing decide to buy that same game when they aren't going to play it again?

piracy can exist alongside this return policy...it doesn't have to be one or the other
 
Will there be scumbags and assholes who abuse this privelege. sure (Hell, i can't even avoid assholes and scumbags at my local coffee shop. They're a fact of life)
And GOG will do just what steam does.

Abuse
Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.

with steam going one further
If you have been banned by VAC (the Valve Anti-Cheat system) on a game, you lose the right to refund that game.
https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/
 
taking the games you mentioned- Sekiro, RE2, Control, Outer Worlds and Borderlands 3...how long did you need to make up your mind on those games?...it surely didn't take 29 days and getting 85%- 100% through the game...of course everyone is not going to abuse the policy but a good amount will and that's enough to get a company to change it...
Depends on some games. I thought Hollow Knight was an awful game for like a week until I got deeper into the game and realized it was amazing but had a slow start up. Sekiro was pretty good from the start and had little to complain about. RE2 though has some differences from the original PS1 game that made me doubt that it would be good until like midway through the game. Outer Worlds I was expecting things to get better, like better guns and better side quests but that never happened. Control was just, my god it was awful. There is no last boss in the game and there's no multiple endings, plus the game leaves you on a cliff hanger. It's not like Control doesn't have bosses in the game, but no big last boss. You literally have to play the entire game to get an idea of how shit the game is, because you're always expecting them to redeem themselves with something awesome. Borderlands 3 is just worse than Borderlands 2, and isn't worth anyones time. The Calypso Twins are nothing compared to Handsome Jack, and the game forces you to play on a easier mode with worse loot before you can play the game on harder mode with better loot. The Goliaths were the best enemies in Borderlands 2 and they did bring back the Goliaths but it was near mid way into the game, and they don't have the same comedic effect on enemies as Borderlands 2 did. Which basically makes Borderlands 3 gameplay worse where you move from one killbox to another killbox. Oh and DX12 was buggy for Borderlands 3 because it was in alpha or beta. Who releases a feature in a game that isn't finished?

For me most games needed a good week or two's worth of playing before I knew it was shit. Having a good 30 days would give me plenty of breathing room before deciding if I should return the game.
'try before you buy' doesn't mean finish the entire game and then decide...it's been proven that the vast majority of gamers don't even finish a game once much less multiple times...so why would anyone who paid nothing decide to buy that same game when they aren't going to play it again?
Remember when I said 99% of games are shit? That's why majority of gamers never finish their games because majority of games are crap. It's not like back in the day when SuperMan 64 was so bad that it was obvious, but nowadays games are mediocre and offer nothing but a boring repetitive experience. These people shouldn't be rewarded money.
 
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Yea I'll be checking GOG for any future game purchases. Not because I intend to return them. But because I want to support a company that supports the devs AND the customers!

And if someone is a sheel about this then GOG will deny them. It isn't an auto approve process.
 
Sad to say but I'm not a huge gamer anymore. It takes months or years for me to finish games, still playing Witcher 3 or KCD when I have the time. A 30 day window isn't enough for me on my schedule. I usually wait and see what rises to the top before getting interested and by then you can get the game and all the DLC on the cheap.
 
Sad to say but I'm not a huge gamer anymore. It takes months or years for me to finish games, still playing Witcher 3 or KCD when I have the time. A 30 day window isn't enough for me on my schedule. I usually wait and see what rises to the top before getting interested and by then you can get the game and all the DLC on the cheap.
This doesn't make sense.
 
This doesn't make sense.
It does to me. I'm in the same boat. I'm just getting through borderlands 2. Give an Idea of my backlog. The long grinding missions I just don't have the time too often to get through them. Really wishing they had more checkpoints or something.
 
same here, I take my damn time with games nowadays... 30 days is good to get a preview of things, play a few levels maybe, but not enough time to beat the game and then try and refund it. They'll probably be tracking progress online anyways (or play time) to weed out those trying to do this, as it would constitute abuse IMO. I dunno if just refunding after a quick peek would be okay though, like you just wanna demo it first? That's one reason why folks pirate games, they aren't sure they'll like it or it'll work on their system at all...
 
same here, I take my damn time with games nowadays... 30 days is good to get a preview of things, play a few levels maybe, but not enough time to beat the game and then try and refund it. They'll probably be tracking progress online anyways (or play time) to weed out those trying to do this, as it would constitute abuse IMO. I dunno if just refunding after a quick peek would be okay though, like you just wanna demo it first? That's one reason why folks pirate games, they aren't sure they'll like it or it'll work on their system at all...

How, exactly, do you expect them to track anything? The games are all DRM free and the only way time played is tracked is if you play the games using their launcher, which is 100% optional.
 
How, exactly, do you expect them to track anything? The games are all DRM free and the only way time played is tracked is if you play the games using their launcher, which is 100% optional.
I've played games offline with the launcher and it doesn't seem to track play time... so yea, not a great way to track things, no doubt, just saying it's possible they'll see folks trying to refund Witcher 3 and notice they put 120hrs into it
 
Seriously, if you can't figure out in 30days if you like a game or if it works properly maybe stop hoarding games? I bought Doom about a year ago, haven't played it, why would I expect anyone to give me a refund if I played now and decided I didn't like it? Buy games you want to play, not just because it was on sale. My grandma did that crap and that's why she would have 2-3 unopened blenders when she didnt even use one to begin with lol.
 
I only ever refunded one game on steam. And felt ashamed about that too. I mean if you made a daft decision it is kind of your fault.
 
This seems good and bad ofcourse some will try to abuse it but they will weed that group out by not allowing refunds anymore. Where i see it useful is for people work long hrs and dont have time to play a lot you buy a few games and takes forever to get around to a game you figure out you don't like.
 

like I said earlier in this thread, no way this policy lasts for long...imagine if Steam allowed 30 day refunds no questions asked...there's a reason they only give 2 weeks and less then 2 hours of play-time

"30 days is a lot more than I feel is necessary to evaluate a game, and a lot more than almost all games take to complete if you play them for an hour daily. Young me would definitely abuse the hell out of this"
 
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We're powerless. And that's super scary.
can't they just not sell it on GOG, I don't get the "sky is falling" response to this... obviously they can detect folks spamming the refund button after purchasing a game, and nothing's stopping those kinda folks from just torrenting...

some devs just don't want folks to play the game long enough to realize it's crap
 

As I said on another forum. Dev's that are worried about this shouldn't make shit games or count on a large percentage of customers buying games that just want to return them. If your game isn't fun for more than 30 days isn't that YOUR FAULT?!

Plus this isn't like Steam doing this and not making a mainstream game for a decade then offering refunds for 30 days.

This is GOG who is also the creator of one of the most anticipated games coming for some time that is going to have a huge release on their GOG platform where they make MORE money from the sales stepping up and doing this.

This tells me they have confidence in the quality of the product they are going to create and that other developers are going to be held to that same standard.

Crap man if you are dumping beta code and don't want people to be able to refund it by the time they figure that out... don't sell on GOG.

This just tells me to trust games that GOG sells to be better and more complete than others that DON'T have that policy.

It should be a badge of honor to launch or GOG. Shows you have confidence in your work and expect your customers to be able to enjoy it.

Don't like it.... don't publish on GOG. Easy peasy. Just don't expect me to want to buy it either.
 
like I said earlier in this thread, no way this policy lasts for long...imagine if Steam allowed 30 day refunds no questions asked...there's a reason they only give 2 weeks and less then 2 hours of play-time

Is there? Those numbers are like either pulled from someone´s behind or, in the case of the two weeks, correspond to EU consumer law for internet purchases (in which case, those numbers were likely pulled from some bureaucrat´s rear end.
 
The number of serial refunders, (people that buy, finish, refund), could easily be dealt with by GOG. All it would take is them limiting the number of refunds in a given time frame b4 a person looks at your account and decides if you are still worth having as a customer. If you are not, then they refuse to sell any more games to you. Games that you would just return anyway. You are no longer a customer at that point, so no loss really. Then of course the people looking to exploit would start a new account, and use a new payment method and email address to get around it short term. It's not perfect, but they could limit exploitation of it if they wanted. Plus, if someone wants to make 100 accounts to try to circumvent any safeguards. it would inflate GOGs user count. Which actually benefits GOG when it comes time to start talking about the number of customers they reach. If you are not willing/able to bribe devs/publishers, (not everyone has Fortnight money), how many customers you reach is going to decide where you sit at the table among the other digital distribution services.
 
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