According to many testimonials, Before Your Eyes is a smart and influential game, and the control system seems cool: use your webcam to determine when to blink. It is also a short game, and at least one player took advantage of this fact to complete the game in less than two hours and refunded his money on Steam.

Steam's refund policy allows users to return a game for any reason as long as it was "within two weeks of purchase and played less than two hours." It doesn't matter whether you finished the game or not, whether you liked it or not, because Bela Messex, the lead designer and programmer of Before Your Eyes, wrote in a Steam user review that Before Your Eyes was "great," even though someone enjoyed the game. nonetheless refunded the money.

"Yes, we made a short game," Messex wrote, responding to the review in a widely shared tweet. 'I wouldn't mind having a shorter game. I don't think short games should be refunded for providing a great experience."

A day later, the reviewer, who identified himself as Travis, repurchased the game and added a new paragraph to his review.

"Yes, the game is short, but for a fundamental reason. Life itself is short and can be gone in the blink of an eye; it's worth $10, and even if you beat the game in enough time, you shouldn't abuse Steam's system to get a refund."

Separately, Travis apologized to Messex on Twitter, saying it was "scummy" to refund him after finishing and enjoying the game despite being "a little out of budget."

It was a nice ending (and one we should cherish when we see it), but the conflict between refund policies and short games continues; Valve does not publish detailed data on refunds, so the frequency with which short games are actually refunded over longer games is higher, but it has been a concern since Steam introduced its policy in 2015.

"What bothers me is that [it's] clearly a one-size-fits-all return policy designed for 'big' games, games that cost $60 on launch day," Megan Fox, founder of Glass Bottom Games, told PC Gamer at the time. 2 A week and two hours makes perfect sense when it comes to Far Cry 4, but look at games like The Stanley Parable, a game you can easily "beat" in under two hours and walk away feeling satisfied when you sit down for the first time. Or something like [PS3 exploration game] 'Journey,' where you literally have to beat it in one sitting because you can't save."

In part, Steam's refund policy exists to comply with regional regulations. In the EU, for example, consumers can return online orders within two weeks of purchase "for any reason and without justification." However, that EU "right of withdrawal" rule ends when the buyer uses the product. In the case of a shirt, that includes removing the tag or putting it in the washing machine. In the case of software purchased online, Valve's refund obligation ends simply by downloading the software.

In other words, Valve's refund policy is more permissive than EU law requires, and the two-hour rule is not even a strict rule: you can submit a refund request even if you have played a Steam game for more than two hours. It will not be automatically approved, but Valve will review and possibly approve it. [GOG's refund policy is more lenient than Steam's or Epic's, allowing players to request a refund within 30 days, there is no set limit to the amount of time played. However, GOG sells only DRM-free software, and as long as you keep a copy of the data, you own it, so you can't really "take back" the game anyway. Any stipulations regarding playtime are based on the honor system.

None of the stores mention how long games will be refunded, but there is a vague caveat in their policies; GOG states that it may deny refunds if it determines that a refund is being requested "to hurt developers who put their time and heart into making great games." Steam and Epic have stated that they may stop accepting refund requests if they are found to be "abusive." While individual players have been criticized before for giving refunds after they have finished playing a game, we have not heard much about large numbers of refunds being abused in the past six years.

According to Steam's support statistics page, Steam receives over 100,000 refund requests per day, and given that number, it is somewhat surprising that there is no controversy surrounding refunds. it may help that refunds are very popular among Steam users: especially when user-specific technical problems can make a $60 purchase worthless.

But for creators of short games, this system could be read as suggesting that their work is worth nothing: "2 hours or less" it is a free game, and a free game for those who try to make it; "2 hours or less" it is a free game, and a free game for those who try to make it.

When he tweeted about the Before Your Eyes review, Messex wanted to defend short games, not to collectively rebuke Steam or Travis. In several other lighthearted tweets, he also suggested an idea for a new Steam game. [The game is called "Refund This Game" and will show a timer counting two hours in real time. If you press a button within five seconds of the timer reaching two hours, the game will end and you will receive a Steam achievement. If the timer is allowed to run for more than two hours, nothing happens except that refunds become more difficult; Messex's proposed price for "Refund This Game" is $99.99.

Messex could really make a "Refund This Game," but it is doubtful that Steam would allow its release; when Valve opened Steam to all game submissions in 2018, it set two rules: Valve would not allow "Refund This Game" could be classified as vandalism, or they could create a new rule that meta-games involving Steam's policies or customer service system would not be allowed (it would be a bit hard to blame them).

It's an interesting idea, though, and I'd like to see Messex actually release it to see Valve's reaction. At the moment he is not very serious about it. He spent years building "Before Your Eyes" into the emotional journey that people finally got to experience last week.

By the way, "Before Your Eyes" is $10 on Steam. Or, $10, $0 if you refund it, and $10 again if you feel guilty about refunding it and repurchase it. As of this writing, "Before Your Eyes" has 537 reviews with "overwhelmingly positive" ratings.