Prey developer claims that Steam’s 2-hour refund policy acts as a PC Demo for the game

 

It’s just a resource assignment thing. We couldn’t do a demo on both the console and on the PC, we had to choose. And besides, PC has Steam. Steam players can just return the game [prior to playing] 2 hours so it’s like a demo already.

 

I also want to clarify that there’s no PC port. I keep on hearing ‘oh they’re going to screw up the PC port’ there is no PC port. We do the game on PC. It’s a PC game.

 

It’s a different engine to Dishonored as well. So we might have our own sets of problems, but we are of course very careful because of what happened with Dishonored 2. So we wanted to make sure the PC version of Prey is good.

 

  

  

Steam’s 2-hour “no questions asked” refund policy is certainly usable as an alternative a free demo/trial period, though it must be remembered that Steam still hold the right to deny automatic refunds to those who abuse the system. This will not be a concern to most users, who will only utilise Steam’s refund policy occasionally, it could become an issue for those that make frequent use of Steam refunds. 

Steam’s refund policy is certainly not a replacement for a free demo version, though it does provide users with a useful safety net if their games perform badly or are misrepresented in marketing materials. Let’s hope that Prey does not have any serious issues on PC at launch, as we certainly do not need another Dishonored 2. 

 

You can join the discussion on Steam’s Refund Policy on the OC3D Forums.