GOG didn't tell devs about its new refund policy – and many are worried it could be abused

A few days ago, GOG announced it was changing its refund policy as part of a “declaration of trust” to consumers. Previously, refunds were given only if the game hadn’t been downloaded and played, or if the game literally wouldn’t run on a player’s hardware: but now players will be able to request a refund at any point during a period of 30 days after purchase, no strings attached.

“Everyone at GOG believes in a ‘gamers-first’ approach,” the blog post said. “The latest update to our voluntary Refund Policy adds another piece to this customer-friendly experience. And it all sums up in one sentence: starting now, you can get a full refund up to 30 days after purchasing a product, even if you downloaded, launched, and played it. That’s it.”

On the surface, it seems like a big win for consumers: you can test-drive any game, and if you’re really not liking it for whatever reason, the refund process is painless and streamlined. The policy change also means GOG has effectively leapfrogged Steam’s already-flexible refund policy, which allows players 14 days to request their money back – so long as they’ve played less than two hours of the game.

But in making it so consumer-friendly, does GOG’s new refund policy risk hurting developers?

That’s what many have been discussing on Twitter over the last few days, with devs expressing concerns over the extreme flexibility of the refund system, and highlighting it could be easily abused. More than anything, it seems there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the new refund policy, and many are particularly annoyed that developers and publishers were unaware of the policy before it was publicly announced.

Developers (at least most of us) are never consulted when Steam or GOG make fundamental changes to their services. They sell OUR games. They make money from OUR games. Why do we not get a say in how OUR games are sold? https://t.co/wWF4OLEKEV

— Ragnar Tørnquist (@ragso) February 27, 2020

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To dig into this in further detail, I got in touch with the devs to ask them about their concerns, and spoke to GOG to find out how it hopes to prevent refund abuse.

At first glance, the policy already seems quite lenient: but there’s a further problem with the policy that stems from GOG’s DRM-free focus, a major selling point for the storefront which is proving to be something of a double-edged sword. For those who haven’t heard of it, DRM stands for digital rights management: a form of access control technology that prevents the sharing of copyrighted works, and video game piracy (although it often gets cracked rather quickly). Unfortunately, DRM systems have been known to hamper performance, or sometimes require players to connect to the internet even for single-player games – making it somewhat unpopular with consumers.