One reminder when you release your game to Steam

You know Steam's refund system has been changed. And I presume our games will be shorter than 2 hours unless it's made in bigger team.

And I brought some articles (Reddit one shouldn't be the article but whatever). From now surviving and engaging business at Steam is pretty difficult. Making really decent as f-word game should be an answer before got refunded. But even decent game is shorter than 2 hours then people always can refund it as well.

What do you think about this Steam's policy. It's related to our (indie game's) income, so unless you're making non-commercial project then we should consider it.

Adventure games which are shorter than 2 hours are too short adventure games

Nevertheless you have to make the first 2 hours super exciting to prevent a refund wave of people who can't handle or get excited by your game.
Also I think this steam refund system will affect casual games more than (good) point & click adventures.

bleh! The only viable solution to the 2 hour thing I can think of is that the devs should provide an estimated playtime value into the game details database (something like that) which can then have a percentage calculation applied to it to figure out the maximum playtime allowed before the game can be refunded. Also a limit should be set to the amount of times the game can be launched before voiding the refund policy - just think of those seals you sometimes find on products that say: "warranty voided if seal broken".

In the long run, it's irrelevant as there's probably nothing much that, you or I or anyone else can do about it. Besides, there's plenty of other digital stores for you to try peddling your games on, such as: desura, gog, humble & itch.io, etc. etc.

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Adventure games which are shorter than 2 hours are too short adventure games

Nevertheless you have to make the first 2 hours super exciting to prevent a refund wave of people who can't handle or get excited by your game.
Also I think this steam refund system will affect casual games more than (good) point & click adventures.

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It seems so. This policy is much likely disadvantageous for casual games rather than adventure games. But I've been watching some adventure games are pretty short within 2 hours (I can call some horror adventures).

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bleh! The only viable solution to the 2 hour thing I can think of is that the devs should provide an estimated playtime value into the game details database (something like that) which can then have a percentage calculation applied to it to figure out the maximum playtime allowed before the game can be refunded. Also a limit should be set to the amount of times the game can be launched before voiding the refund policy - just think of those seals you sometimes find on products that say: "warranty voided if seal broken".

In the long run, it's irrelevant as there's probably nothing much that, you or I or anyone else can do about it. Besides, there's plenty of other digital stores for you to try peddling your games on, such as: desura, gog, humble & itch.io, etc. etc.

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It's true. But I still find the capability of Steam. I'll just wait until Steam's refund policy towards indie games has been changed.

Anyway, you forgot to mention OUYA and I didn't know about desura.

OUYA? I thought that was dead in the water?

@ Sebastian: I too think that it will affect casual games. I don't know what you mean by casual, but for me that means your typical indie arcade-like games, such as: side scrolling platformers, side-shooters, running games & so on. I also believe that episodic content based games could suffer too, as typical episode length based on TTG games & Dontnod Entertainment last between 1 & 2 hours per episode, depending on whether or not the player likes to examine everything & explore all available dialog branches & available locations.

I've just found a great point & click adventure game that looks like probably made by Visionaire Studio or Adventure Game Studio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01AHYg27DuQ

Now, this game is episodic and being episodic means one chapter should last 1 & 2 hours.

Although, the game itself is completely free of charge. But we can see making adventure games as episodic is one strategy for the developers. Because it's saving times and getting feedbacks easier and stuffs like that.

Now if the game is commercial, then suffering begins. Makers of episodic adventure games (someone call this game as casual) are now part of victims as well.

I've just researched to determine existence of short adventure games. That's all. Let's wait until Steam's policy's change.

By the way, the game looks pretty nice.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/378300/