Indie Game Dev Decides To Leave Industry Due To Steam Returns On Short Game

from the predictable dept

It has now been over six years since Valve finally put in a refund policy for video games purchased on its Steam platform. At the time of its announcement, I was very much in favor of this move by Valve, given how previously the prospect of buying games on the platform was laughably tilted in favor of publishers and developers. On top of that, a whole bunch of the outcry from publishers and developers over the policy seemed to mostly center around it existing at all, meaning such concerns were mostly just requests to go back to the one-sided policies that favored them. Some developers even saw large numbers of refunds as a good thing, arguing that those refunds were likely largely from people that never would have tried their games out if a potential refund weren't in place.

But going way back to that first post over its announcement, one concern brought up by developers seemed legit. Given that the refund policy required the buyer to have bought the game within the past two calendar weeks and to have not played more than two hours of it, well, what about very short games that can be completed well within that timeframe?

That exact scenario has now impacted one indie developer such that it is quitting the game development industry altogether.

Summer of ’58 is the latest first-person horror title from indie developer Emika Games, which was released in July and features a video blogger investigating an abandoned and supposedly haunted Russian children’s camp – which of course goes very badly indeed. At £6.19/$6.92 on Steam it’s a cheap purchase even full-price, and it’s currently 23% off.

The game’s Steam page makes it very clear that Summer of ’58 only has an average play-time of around 90 minutes. However, according to Emika Games, Summer of ’58 has received “a huge number of returns” – despite being rated ‘very positive’. The developer blames this on the fact that its game “does not reach two hours of playing time” – under Steam’s return policy, any game under two hours can be refunded.

As a result, Emika Games announced on Twitter that it is leaving the games industry entirely for an "indefinite time".

Now, we could have a discussion about whether this is an overreaction or not. We could talk about how Steam's refund policy is completely public, meaning that Emika Games knew what it was getting into when it put its 2 hour game on the platform. We could talk about business models and all the other ways the game could have been sold to the public other than via Steam, or other ways the developer could have made money from it.

But whatever side of those arguments you'd want to come down on, it wouldn't change the simple fact that this is an obvious flaw within Steam's refund policy. And, frankly, it's one that developers and industry commentators saw coming a mile away. Hell, in my first post on the announcement, I managed to come up with a simple solution to this myself.

It might be an even better solution to simply allow game-makers to have options on the game-time of their refund policy. Say, two hours, five hours, or thirty minutes. Then consumers could decide for themselves if less game-time was worth the risk of purchase. I imagine that would create more administrative work on Steam's end, but it ought to keep the indies happy.

It seems Steam decided not to keep the indies happy. And now one of them is leaving not just Steam, but the entire industry. Why? Because Steam caters primarily to the AAA publishers? That's probably part of it. Because Steam didn't want to give up that kind of control over its policies and platform to developers? Probably another part of it. Because this would have created work for Steam that it didn't want to do? Likely yet another part of it.

But whether it is one of those explanations or the trifecta, a good indie gaming scene means this policy has to be altered to make it workable for those making shorter games.

Filed Under: return policy, returns, steam, video games
Companies: emika games, valve

How The GDPR Is Still Ruining Christmas

from the privacy-what? dept

Late last year, I wrote about how the GDPR almost ruined Christmas in one German town, where it was determined that the annual tradition of kids putting their wishes on a tree in the center of town (to be fulfilled by local town officials) would violate the GDPR. Some people did figure out a "workaround" involving some pointless bureaucracy in getting parents to first sign "consent" forms to allow the town to do the same thing they've always done for years without a problem.

However, now we have another story of the GDPR ruining another Christmas tradition in a different way. This tradition? Taking back the awful presents people give you that you don't actually want. At least some retailers are telling people that doing so under the GDPR requires them to inform the original purchaser that you really didn't like their gift:

While the pilgrimage to take back garish jumpers and superfluous socks is a new year's tradition as familiar as taking down the Christmas tree, data rules now oblige internet retailers to tell a buyer when an item they have bought is returned - regardless of whether it was a gift.

In some cases, companies are warning customers that they should inform the gift-giver themselves that they are making the return - before the company has to let them know.

In one instant, a father returning a child's coat to Boden was told that the original buyer would be informed 'due to data protection regulations'.

I'm sure some can try to spin this as a way of forcing people to be a bit more honest about not liking the awful sweater their dear old aunt bought them for the holidays, but, really... how exactly is this protecting anyone's "data"? If anything, it seems to be violating more people's privacy in revealing what they do with the crap presents they never wanted in the first place.

The article notes that not all retailers are doing this, but it does appear many believe it's necessary:

Eleven of the 30 retailers approached by The Mail on Sunday said they would have to inform buyers if gifts they had bought were returned.

The article does quote some "data protection" officials saying that retailers don't need to do this, but at the very least it highlights the same thing we keep pointing out about the GDPR and other attempts to regulate the internet. When these grand sweeping regulations are written in ways that are so vague and broad -- with such massive punishment for getting things wrong -- no one should be surprised when the end result is utterly ridiculous.

Filed Under: christmas, gdpr, gifts, privacy, returns

Sheriff's Office Raids Home, Seizes All The Furniture, Ultimately Returns Everything But The Couch

from the finder's-fee:-one-(1)-sofa dept

The joke about asset forfeiture is that it's actually not a joke. Advisors to law enforcement have actually said it's a great way for cops to go shopping for things they want. It's not just cash being taken, although it's primarily that. It's vehicles, too. And when that just doesn't seem to be enough, it's houses. And everything in them.

So, the "going shopping" joke is one very dark punchline. Here's another one: "take everything that isn't nailed down." Except that this actually happens. And it includes things that are nailed down. Reason's C.J. Ciaramella has more details.

In 2012, Rehfeldt says the Hind County Sheriff's Office raided his client's apartment on suspicion her boyfriend was a drug dealer. Anything purchased with drug proceeds is fair game to be seized by police under civil asset forfeiture laws, and they determined the boyfriend had furnished the apartment, so off went her TV, her table and chairs, her couch, her lamps, and even the pictures on the wall.

"Her case is the first in my 38 years of practicing law where they took the furniture," Rehfeldt says.

What's the proper response? Shock that this sort of thing actually happens? Or relief that law enforcement doesn't clean out a person's home every time they have a hunch something may have been purchased with the proceeds of criminal activity?

In this case, most of what was taken by the sheriff's office was eventually returned. Rehfeldt's clients is one of the lucky ones, able to navigate a legal pathway that's a greased downhill slope for law enforcement, but an expensive, uphill battle for those whose property has been seized.

His client got everything back. Well, not everything.

"It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that one Visio television, one dining room table and chairs, pictures and lamps are to be returned to the plaintiff upon execution of this Order by this Court," the Feb. 10, 2015 order in the Hinds County Court reads. "Additionally, one white couch is hereby forfeited to the Hinds County Sheriff's Office."

For reasons unexplained, the sheriff's office was allowed to keep the couch. Perhaps deputies had grown attached to it after it was placed in the breakroom. Or maybe it was "disposed" prior to the forfeiture being finalized and there was simply no way to retrieve it. Or maybe it was just the state's skim -- the percentage taken off the top of every forfeiture, whether or not the seizure was legally-justified.

The skim is part of the problem. Mississippi's legislature is looking at overhauling the state's forfeiture laws and a Senate committee letter obtained by Reason confirms that law enforcement's tendency to charge fees or withhold some percentage of the property seized gives the program the appearance of impropriety.

Upon a cursory analysis of these orders, PEER staff notes that Agreed Orders tend to have the most potential for indicating possible abuse. This is because most Agreed Orders are entered into upon a settlement agreement in which the arresting authority receives some or all of the forfeited property as a condition subsequent to some sort of agreement made between the arresting party and the defendant.

As the arresting party often seizes a large amount of property or cash and many of these Agreed Orders stipulate that some or most of the said property or cash will be returned while some will be forfeited, a reasonable person might assume that the arresting party is using its authority to gain assets from an arrest by settling with the defendant.

If this is how it's routinely handled, it encourages law enforcement to take everything it can get its hands on, if for no other reason than it increase its chances of being able to retain some of it if the forfeiture is challenged. This settlement system perverts incentives, changing it from serving the general public through the targeted crippling of criminal organizations (however loosely-defined) to serving law enforcement agencies by allowing them to directly profit from the taking of citizens' property.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, furniture, hinds county, hinds county sheriff's department, law enforcement, returns

Don't Read Too Much Into The Claims That Intellectual Ventures Returns Are Negative

from the too-early-to-tell dept

A bunch of folks have sent over the story from TechCrunch, based on a tweet from Chris Dixon that patent hoarding giant Intellectual Ventures isn't doing so hot for those who invested in it. Now, it's no secret that I'm no fan of Intellectual Ventures. I believe the company represents a huge tax on innovation and has a variety of very questionable business practices. I would be very happy to hear that it was doing poorly. But, unfortunately, the numbers being revealed are mostly meaningless. To understand why this information is even out there, you have to go back to 2002. Historically, the internal rate of return (IRR) for venture capital funds was kept secret from the outside world. However, many big public universities invest in such funds and get the usual reports about those funds' performance. Back in 2002 (I believe, due to a reporter's request), the University of Texas was the first of a few public institutions to realize that, being public, they probably should publish that information. Venture capitalists freaked out that people would misinterpret the results.

That's because the IRR for a venture fund, especially in the early years, is pretty meaningless. A typical venture fund lasts ten years, and the first few years is when all that money is being invested, and there's no real returns. On top of that (and, more importantly), the IRR is usually reported based on a totally made up number, which is what the VCs believe their portfolio is valued at, since it doesn't involve a liquid market. VCs were afraid that publishing such numbers would freak people out, and lead VCs to focus on more short-term investments. I don't think that's really happened, but it does appear that the Intellectual Ventures funds represented here (showing IRRs of -73% and -10%) might not really mean anything.

Without knowing the details of what those funds represent, or how long the timeframe is for those funds, it's difficult to assess what's really going on. It does look like IV isn't valuing its first fund very highly any more, and considering it's Intellectual Ventures I, perhaps you can assume it's further along in the process. But, in a game where a sudden "home run" can change things quickly (even if we're talking about patent infringement lawsuits or licensing demands, rather than true venture investments), it's difficult to make any serious call on the performance just yet.

Filed Under: irr, patents, returns
Companies: intellectual ventures, university of texas