Think twice about buying early access games

One of the benefits of Steam is its refund policy. It’s as it is: we might be interested in a game, we’ve watched countless reviews and videos, it suits us, we buy it and, in the end, it’s not for us. This is fine. There is a huge distance from gameplay to gaming experience and Steam has given us a very interesting refund policy which has now changed.

As it was before. Currently, if you buy a game on Steam and are not satisfied with it, you can return it within 14 days of purchase, provided you haven’t played for more than two hours. The thing is that this did not happen in Early Access games. An Early Access game, which may be unfinished, can be played indefinitely and returned to before release, regardless of time spent. Steam’s previous policy (can be viewed in the web archive) was as follows:

“When you pre-purchase a game on Steam (and pay for it in advance), you can request a refund at any time before its release. The standard return period of 14 days/two hours, starting from the game’s release date, also applies.”

How is it now. Different and somewhat more restrictive. Steam has changed its refund policy, removing the early access “privilege”. Whereas previously the hours invested in Early Access did not count towards the total two hours of refund, they are now taken into account. The new policy reflects this:

“Generally, if you purchase a game on Steam before the release date, a two-hour playtime limit for refunds will apply, but the 14-day refund window does not begin until the release date. For example, if you purchase a game in Early Access or Expanded Access, all usage time counts toward the two-hour limit.”

The positive part. This change has a positive aspect: it avoids, or at least reduces, abuse of the refund policy. So, players who bought the game in Early Access and played it before its release, spending six, ten or 20 hours (enough time to complete an average-length game), will not be able to take the step to return it early. Refund period. Either way, the player played the game, enjoyed it, and abused this policy without paying anything for it.

Negative part. On the other hand, in many cases, early access is nothing more than “beta” games. In many cases, early access is used as an advantage when purchasing premium versions of games and may not be the final version of the game, but rather a less polished version that will be fixed with a “day one patch” on release day. In more linear or simple games, we can get an idea of ​​what the game has to offer in less than two hours, but this is not always the case.

This may happen, or it may happen that for some reason the game servers go down during the first hours of Early Access, and those hours in the game’s virtual queue are counted (although Steam usually behaves well in such cases). Or that the servers weren’t fully polished during Early Access. It could also be that we encounter the game as a service that takes more than two hours to explore, or that it is a huge open-world game in which in two hours we will barely leave the first area. .

Access without guarantees. Yes, the player knows or should know what he is exposing himself to by paying for early access (and even more so now that playing for two hours is the same as not being able to get it back), but the truth is that early access became a sales drawing, although, in essence, it is a fundraising system without guarantees. Here’s what Steam warns you when you enter a game file in this format:

“This Early Access game is not finished yet and may or may not change later. If you’re not excited about the game in its current state, then you should wait and see if the game moves forward in development.”

Image | Unsplash edited by Xataka