Settling that "Can I return it?" argument: GoG's new refund policy.

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"What if it sucks?" "What if it's too buggy?" "What if..what if I just don't like it?"

Order on GoG and you can refund within 30 days. Yep, even if it works. New policy!

1. How does your updated voluntary Refund Policy work?
The updated policy lets you refund a product up to 30 days after purchase, even if it was downloaded, launched, and played. Yes, you read that correctly. :)



Let's not race out and abuse this, please. But it is very nice to see. And should remove another worry about buying or preordering 2077.
 
Incredibly generous. But I don't see how this won't be abused. Furthermore, it might not sit well with devs and publishers.
 
Incredibly generous. But I don't see how this won't be abused. Furthermore, it might not sit well with devs and publishers.

It will be abused. And as long as that's a minority of people, that's fine.

No reason for a few jerks to ruin a good thing. And those jerks would do that anyway from other methods. Maybe this will help reform them!
 
Well, that certainly puts Steam's policy to shame.

And I'm sure they've thought this out, thoroughly. Yeah, it will be abused, but being consumer-friendly is a very strong positive and this boosts that by a lot.
 
I thought they always had this policy, but they force you to work with support to try to fix your issue.

Now it's 30 days, no requirements at all? Seriously?

This is really great, though I am not going to say Steam's policy sucks by comparison. It's largely automated, and you can get away with a LOT of refunds before you start getting denied. I doubt that will be the case for GoG's.

Different approaches, that's all.
 
"This is why there are no limits but instead, we reserve the right to refuse refunds in individual cases."

#7, second sentence. I get the feeling if someone tries to gamepass trial them on a continuing basis the above provision would kick into effect. So if somebody tries to be clever because they can finish all their games in under a month it would probably be noticed and start getting denied.
 
I wonder how many "Abuses" it takes before you're booted, and I wonder if all cases are manually reviewed. I wonder how long it takes for the refund to process.

Still, I'm not going to bash them for what is clearly, at the very least, a significant step in the pro-consumer direction.
 
This policy sounds awesome, even if a bit long overdue. I haven’t needed to do a refund on GOG so far, though, but I’m glad things will be better in that front from now on :ok:

Regarding abuses, well, I think people who might exploit a policy like this one could probably have an easier time getting their DRM-free games the, ahem, shady way (which I don’t endorse, obviously), so I hope the amount of said abusers will be negligible.
 
Still, I'm not going to bash them for what is clearly, at the very least, a significant step in the pro-consumer direction.

Yep, it's definitely a consumer friendly policy. I just meant people seeing it as a way to pick up a game, play it for a month, return it and rinse/repeat are probably going to be in for a surprise. That section says as much.
 
It will be abused. And as long as that's a minority of people, that's fine.

No reason for a few jerks to ruin a good thing. And those jerks would do that anyway from other methods. Maybe this will help reform them!
I believe this is also CDPR view of game piracy.
It's going to happen, don't worry about it, and provide "extras" in a legitimate copy that make people want buy it.
 
I have few games on Steam which I've played longer that two hours but in the end decided that they are not worth it. This new GoG refund policy is really, really generous and would not make me suffer by staring at games which I don't like but I cannot give back.

This only enforces my decision to buy all the games on GoG, if possible. Big thumbs up!

(y)
 
I'm not sure what the new policy is supposed to do though, other than maybe alerting more people to the fact that GoG exists.

Everyone who prioritizes customer friendliness, is likely already aware of GoG. I myself, whenever I want to buy a game, always check availability on GoG first before considering the other digital distributors. It's not like I can get more loyal than that and GoG being even MORE customer friendly probably is just preaching to the choir. It won't necessarily win over more of these types of people.

I don't see how this is alluring to people who want to keep their collection on just one platform (steam). A game collection implies collecting and indeed KEEPING the game, instead of returning them.

The only other people that this might seduce, is those who want to play games for free and then returning them, but this is exactly the kind of abuse that this system is ripe for. Not only is this going to be labor intensive and potentially expensive for GoG, but this could turn into a PR disaster when the manchildren and literal children who attempt to abuse the system, throw a hissyfit all over the internet if GoG tamps down on their behavior. Again, this is going to be labor intensive for GoG. It's not like the slanderers are likely to be believed, but that's only because GoG has an existing, loyal fanbase and again - I'm not sure how this act will grow this fanbase.


Still, I've no doubt the people at GoG have thought this through and I really think that all of this is just advertisement for GoG. Its existence is all over gaming news now.
 
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Yeah, I have concerns about the system, but my concerns are for GoG and its workers, not myself. From my standpoint, great.

From their standpoint... Yikes. You can't automate this system like Steam does, so you'll have to manually review every single request, which is going to put a massive customer service burden on the team.
 
So I'm assuming that there's no time limit for how much you can play before you can't refund? Something like Steam, where you can't refund games that have more than 2 hours of playtime.

If there's no limit, then I can see a lot of people just speedrunning/completing games in 30 days and then refunding them. Of course, they probably do have a limit of how often and how many games you can refund, so you couldn't keep doing it forever...
 
Of course, they probably do have a limit of how often and how many games you can refund, so you couldn't keep doing it forever...

Still, the amount of financial damage could be substantial. In all likelihood, it's GoG that's backing the refunds and not the publishers. If someone buys 11 Bit Studio's Frostpunk for 30 euros, plays it for 3 weeks and then decides to return it and get their money back, then it's GoG that'll be 30 euros poorer and not 11 Bit. GoG in essence, has bought the game for their wayward customer.

Still, if GoG is clever, than refunds can only be made in GoG Wallet funds, and not real money. It'd be a way to keep the customer in the system.

Then again, if that same customer decides to refund yet another 30 euro game, that's another 30 euros that GoG will be eating.

For a platform that was reported to not be doing all that well financially just a few months ago, this is a pretty crazy strategy of GoG's. CDPR must be backing it heavily with all the value they've gained recently. And the above is the example of just a 30 dollar game. Imagine what could happen after Cyberpunk 2077 releases for 60.


Yeah, I have concerns about the system, but my concerns are for GoG and its workers, not myself. From my standpoint, great.

From their standpoint... Yikes. You can't automate this system like Steam does, so you'll have to manually review every single request, which is going to put a massive customer service burden on the team.

That's kinda the reason why I suspect it's advertisement.

Steam has an automatic system since its customer base is HUUUUUUGE! GoG might be able to get away with it since it doesn't have that many customers to deal with. I can imagine it having a less than 1% share in the market, if that.

Since Gaming News sites are more than happy to freely amplify this PR stunt, GoG is only paying for it in the amount of manpower/endurance/cost needed to fight the abuse.


If the campaign fails and not that many new people flock to GoG, than the amount of abuse remains manageable and this PR stunt isn't that expensive after all.

If the campaign is a success and many new people flock to GoG, than that's a success and it might still have been cheaper than a regular advertisement campaign.


All of this might still be a win/win situation for GoG. Together with CP77, I hope it'll help them grow marketshare. It's a gutsy play. I'll give them that.
 
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I've no doubt that GoG will be eating the cost.

It'll be insane if they don't. It's one thing to dole out your own milk of human kindness. It's another if you start handing out other's. That would be an incredibly dirt-bag move of GoG's if that's the case.

Weird though that GoG hasn't communicated better.


ADDENDUM: There's also a case to be made for the PERCEPTION of value. Epic store did something similar by handing out free games on their expense to lure in more customers. You wouldn't think the developers would mind, but they do! They like their games to be perceived as valuable, a price tag helps with that and they resented Epic for handing out their games for free with barely any notice.

Developers might not like their games being seen as 2nd hand rentals within GoG's platform...
 
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I've no doubt that GoG will be eating the cost.

It'll be insane if they don't. It's one thing to dole out your own milk of human kindness. It's another if you start handing out other's. That would be an incredibly dirt-bag move of GoG's if that's the case.

Weird though that GoG hasn't communicated better.
You're absolutely right, and I think that's something some people don't think about. But this may not be the reason devs get worried about this sort of thing.

When Epic started giving away massive discounts on brand-new games a while ago (Borderlands 3) and then the developers pulled out of the deal, it's because they didn't want to give players an unreasonable expectation for the game moving forward. I don't remember the exact reasoning, but it had to do with reputation and expectations.
 
I'm not sure what the new policy is supposed to do though, other than maybe alerting more people to the fact that GoG exists.

Pretty obviously tell people they can return a game they think sucks. Which has certainly happened to me, post buy.

It's about customer service. Lets you make riskier buys, too. In this age of no-demo and no-shareware, it's a very good thing.

Abuse will always happen - CDPR is well aware of this.

What a world - you do something nice for your customers and they argue against it. "No, you can't afford this!" Probably they have a good idea what they can and can't afford.
 
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