"Everyone at GOG believes in a 'gamers-first’ approach. It means that every part of our store is designed with gamers in mind and your purchase safety and satisfaction come first for us. 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.

It’s important for us to say that this update is possible thanks to your respect for all the time and hard work put into creating the games you buy on GOG.COM and playing by the rules. We're grateful for that and encourage you to continue to do so.

For more details on how the change works, please check this FAQ article."

4 years ago

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GOG is great, as usual.

4 years ago
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its my best store, sadly they dont have regional prices for my country and there is a huge price difference between steam.

4 years ago
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+1

4 years ago
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it wont last long

4 years ago
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While as it's a nice gesture, I have to wonder if it'll increase developer/publisher wariness when deciding whether to put games on the service or not. GOG already has it tough enough trying to convincing them to embrace the DRM-free aspect of the store.

4 years ago
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so they are offering free 30 day trial for any game?

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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30 days allows you to play even the longest game if you really wanted to...

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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Not always. Some people won't use this trick.

4 years ago
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If someone is abusing the system and keeps playing and refunding games, they will probably stop allowing refunds for that person or just lock their account so they can't purchase anything.

Technically, you can play through all the games on Steam for free if you want to because you can create an unlimited number of free accounts. Just play the game for less than 2 hours and make a local backup of your save file. Then refund the game, purchase it on another Steam account and start playing from the save you backed up locally on your computer. Then refund again and repeat. Create as many Steam accounts as you need to play through the game in 2 hour increments. I'm pretty sure Steam will eventually lock your accounts though, just like GOG will.

4 years ago
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''This is why there are no limits but instead, we reserve the right to refuse refunds in individual cases.''

meaning if they see you play a game for a long time and have no valid reason to refund, they will deny

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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You could just pirate the installer with less hassle if you want that.

4 years ago
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Yep you could be a pirate, but at least through GOG he won't be downloading a virus as well... shrugs

4 years ago
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GOG's installer files appear on torrent sites and vKontakte download lists minutes after the games are launched.

4 years ago
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And how are GOG still in business... hmm

4 years ago
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Simple. Not everyone is completely amoral and a lot of people, once they have a decent income, happily pay some money since they know that devs have to make a living as well. Ever since I have a stable job, I haven't play a pirated game, since there is no point doing so.

4 years ago
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It's a lot worse, I know of a private torrent site someone kept updating a set each week that grew to over 1.5tb, but the person stopped, when so many sites went down because of lawsuits.
I am sure it all went underground and someone probably still has a set of everything (which by now would be bigger then 5tb, i know someone made that calculation).

There is still another site somewhere that has a 500gb set and with a safeyear (<2004).
Gog has some games no longer for sale, so for achiving purposes it's atleast handy.
Overall i must say the amount of uploads compared to some years ago really diminished, and think people lost interest, especially because GOG used to have more exclusives on oldies, now it's games that are on steam also anyway.

Also there is just a plain open website with all if not most all of their games to just download.

There is also a project called exodos (and one called win3x0) which someone entirely made himself which contains every possible dos game ever, all tested with documentation and screenshots, running through launchbox, but that's the best real nostalgia collection out there for all those games gog will never rights too. Just as illegal (even though we talk about mostly abandonware) but still it's there.

4 years ago*
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Never understood myself why anyone would want to download a virus, but I guess that's one minus for GOG for those people.

4 years ago
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You know what I meant.

4 years ago
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there are alreaady torrent packs of all gog games, so I don't see how it can get worse. All this time they were making money on fair customers anyway.

4 years ago
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Isn't 30 days little too much? Not that I use the refund option, as I am responsible and know what I am buying. ;)

4 years ago
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I think, it's doesn't matter. If man want to use "buy-play-refund" trick, he can just use torrent. If man doesn't want use this trick - he won't use refund.

4 years ago
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Isn't the refund system meaningless then?
I am not sure if it helps at all.

4 years ago
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I think the main important change if we compare this to standard Steam 14-day-2hour refund
.
Let's face it. The 2 hour limit is absolutely ridiculous, and only useful if something doesn't run immediately and don't want to mess with it, or if you really dislike the game as first impression.
WIth many games there can be issues with drivers, hardware, colliding with anti-virus, and if someone wants to fix these, that often require multiple restarting of the game. Or just delving deep into ingame options. Or you have to edit .ini files. And-or the game starts with 10 minutes' worth of unskippable cutscene and it crashes afterwards.
2 hours can be not enough to troubleshoot a game properly, at least it's super easy to to spend half of it or even more just to try playing the game. And it offers no protection if the game inevitably bluescreens on the 4th hour of a 10 hour game.
It's a convenience-option for the gamers who just want to play and exchange the not working game, but far from the proper "we promise the game is working from start to finish). Abusable with the short-storygames sure, but doesn't cover the bases on any "proper" length game.

While the 14 day refund is quite arbitrary, it's likely set it in a way that it disturbs the periodic money transfer to the developers the least. ( They don't get money for sales at the moment of purchase) Which leads me to think that GOG's 30 days refund means they are more willing to act as a middle-man between the purchaser and the dev and do the business even 15-30 days after the purchase. But this is kind of the smaller, less important aspect IMO.

All things considered and the mentions of torrenting... is this really a risk for GOG? From the point of a single piece of game sold in the store, that game could be found on all torrent sites, because of the DRM-free version. Them offering a better-than-average customer support can't really open the floodgates more open for rulebreakers, while customers get a larger safety net.

4 years ago
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I am quite possessive so when I buy it I keep it even if it's not currently working. XD
I usually find some way to force the game into working and believe me that I have played games in really odd shapes. ;D

Okay, I see the problem with the 2 hours... but isn't there enough warnings in reviews, discussions and comments for you to value your risks in buying such game?
I have come across some of those and still decided to buy few. And if it wouldn't be working, I would take the shot as it was mine decision. ;) But I was lucky I think. :)

4 years ago
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PCs are a fickle thing. One thing may work today, and the next Windows or graphics driver update will break it. Also as PCs aren't each the same as consoles, you can expect a game may not run for you, but can't really be sure.
Point is, 2 hours rarely useful because if people warn you it doesn't run at all, you don't buy it, so the 2 hour refund is not used. (also still idk how Valve allows broken thing to stay in store). If it's troublesome at any point of the game (again, it may crash on hour 5 on your PC but not on mine) then the 2 hour refund is useless.
Basically it's just a minimum effort, minimum trouble thing that Valve had to do because of laws, but sold it as them being the nice guy, while the feature serves them in the first place (laws). GOG's 30 day refund is primary good for the customer :)

4 years ago
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I know, I know, you are right. ;)
I just don't use it so it's not that appealing for me. X)
I hope that costumers will be more responsible and respectful towards their purchases, because it seems to me that lately they are just discarding anything they don't like without any second thought - be it games or normal daily things.

4 years ago
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I don't really agree with that logic. It's true that it can take far more than 2 hours to fix a game, on the other hand I'd expect a customer, experiencing such severe problems, to request a refund before they keep wasting their refund window.
Of course if you are desperate enough, wanting to play a specific game by all means, you could take the risk. But I don't see why a store should necessarily cover a risk the customer is taking willingly.

Of course it's still great if GOG provides an even more forgiving service. I just wouldn't consider Steam's policy as insufficient, as it offers good enough conditions for almost any scenario.

4 years ago
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Agreed, I just wasn't as clear in text as I was in my own head

only useful if something doesn't run immediately and don't want to mess with it

Without anything negative linked to it, it is really useful for casual users who expect a plug and play experience.

But I don't see why a store should necessarily cover a risk the customer is taking willingly.

Frankly, because the EU's law is that even digitals good should be refundable within 14 days, for any reason and without a justification. because a store is responsible for what they sell, and the pretty-good refund system is still achieved by us giving up pretty huge part of our rights. ( 14 day + any reason one -> invalid if the game was running for 120 minutes)
Still better than it was before implementing any kind of refund system, but while Steam makes us sign that we give up rights if we want to use the service, GOG expands on it.

4 years ago
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Frankly, because the EU's law is that even digitals good should be refundable within 14 days, for any reason and without a justification

This is correct. But so is this here:

However, the 14-day cooling off period does not apply to all purchases. Some of the exemptions are:

  • online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance

So Steam (and any digital content provider) only has to offer refunds for 2 weeks if you don't use the purchased content. Steam is actually providing more than legally required, by granting us these 2 hours.

Source

4 years ago*
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I found the info on some similar site, but couldn't find those exceptions there, seems like your dad source beats mine :D thanks for it really though, I'm surprised the article involves the part about forfeiting the right of withdrawal. Either I was under-informed since a good while, or they even clarified it later.

4 years ago
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I think, that's not. For example you bought a game during sale. But you don't play it for a two week for some reason (you try to complete another game, you haven't enough time etc.) After 2 weeks you download game, run it and saw, that this game doesn't work on your machine. So... refund.

4 years ago
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The thing is, I no longer buy games to play them immediately, that needs to be something I really want, like Mass Effect, Witcher or so. And even if the game didn't worked currently, I wouldn't have refunded it, I can be patient and I never give up easily. XD
Seems like I am wrong target group. ;D

4 years ago*
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You will be shocked, but I bought Witcher 3 a couple of year ago and still didn't play it =)))))

4 years ago
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Haha, not really. ;)
I even bought some games I knew that I wouldn't be able to play them. Bioshock Infinite waited on the shelf for two years before I got new PC. :)

4 years ago
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They reserve the right to refuse requests on an individual basis, either by dubious reason for refund or by excessive refund requests. This mostly just allows them to give a reasonable period for protecting purchasers from "not everyone can get to playing a game they bought right away, and some games don't work properly on every setup".

The only real risks [for GOG] of this setup that I see at a glance are:

First, multi-accounting to bypass refund limits [With Steam account linking and discounted bundle purchases, that'd at least dissuade the users who have any interest in retaining games to begin with, meaning any sign of abuse is generally going to be from someone who wouldn't give GOG spit to begin with; As such, GOG may deal with suspected multi-accounting rather strictly].
If there are too many new accounts refunding games, I assume GOG'll limit the minimum library size for refunds [since there's no way for them to track playtime on drm-free content, which'd be the more ideal approach]. GOG may also limit new and AAA games eventually, as those'd be the most prone to being abused.

Second, complaints by exploitative, entitled users about being refused dubious refunds. But such toxic individuals will eventually be toxic regardless of context, so perhaps that isn't a real change in what GOG has to deal with.


Besides, since you can just download a drm-free game and immediately request a refund (while still retaining ownership of the game), it doesn't actually matter what GOG puts for the grace period. So they wouldn't ever really be factoring that in to their deliberations to begin with.

Honestly, the real issue is in having a refund policy related to non-reversible purchases in the first place. If they're going to allow for that, then there's not really much option but to be generous about it (and thereby develop goodwill and increased purchases among those who won't exploit to begin with). The only other real alternative is making it so that Galaxy downloads are no longer DRM-free and that refunds are only allowable for purchases that haven't been downloaded through drm-free. And that just doesn't seem like a direction GOG wants to head at the moment.

4 years ago*
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It all sounds reasonable, but seems like a big hassle to me...

thereby develop goodwill and increased purchases among those who won't exploit
This putted bug in my mind, you know, how will they motivate me to buy from them when this feature is useless for me and only leaves bitter taste?

4 years ago*
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how will they motivate me to buy from them when this feature is useless for me and only leaves bitter taste?

It's a "We offer cookies, and now they're decorated even more prettily!" affair. It doens't cost them anything (as the time limitation is, as I noted, fairly meaningless in relation to the mechanisms involved), but invokes goodwill among their cookie-loving customers. Those who ignore the cookies to go straight to the cakes [I feel you!], should mostly not be affected either way and, for the outlier responses, they can be assumed to balance out in their overall positive and negative balance.

4 years ago
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Haha, that's great comparison! Cookies. I like it, makes sense. :D

Yes, you are right, it's not affecting me in any bad way, so I am not really complaining just polemizing (is this a word?). :) I just feel like there is a lot of concessions towards wrong cast of costumers. Be it in the service or game development.
Isn't refund system bad for the small developers in the end? And now we don't talk about the straighforward bad developers.

4 years ago
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gog is a great company, hope this move do them well..

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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For myself that is great! Will very likely ever use it in case of a broken game.
For the general public: with free account registration and this, technically no limitation to someone buying-playing-refunding every single game within the 30 days. (They could torrent it as well, but GOG is surely virus-free)... so I kind of expect to have some kind of limitation to their good-willed offer.
But then, I really doubt that would affect proper users. Like if you own 80 games as an active GOG user and player, and then buy 2-3 not working ones in a row (Which should be possible but super rare) that generally looks okay. Someone having 0 paid wins and juggling the 3rd big game, with the previous 2 having playthrough-length gameplay time - that is quite fishy :D

I trust them to have this already figured out if they did chis change on their own accord.

4 years ago
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Still waiting for regional pricing... a nice change overall but ultimately won't really affect me and others in my region since we'd still be paying twice the price of the games than buying it straight on Steam.

4 years ago
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sneaky djinn hears you and quadruples Steam prices. Now you can enjoy GOG's changes fully!

4 years ago
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D:

4 years ago
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"How often can I refund my games? Is there some sort of limit?
We trust that you're making informed purchasing decisions and will use this updated voluntary Refund Policy only if something doesn't work as you expected.
This is why there are no limits but instead, we reserve the right to refuse refunds in individual cases.
Please respect all the time and hard work put into making the games you play and remember that refunds are not reviews. If you finished the game and didn't like it, please consider sharing your opinion instead. Also, please don't take advantage of our trust by asking for an unreasonable amount of games to be refunded. Don't be that person. No one likes that person."

Love this part though, essentially if you are one of those people to buy > play > refund and do it enough spite there being no limit, they can refuse your refund.

4 years ago
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I really hope this all will help them survive the Launcher war. GOG deserves it.

4 years ago
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And that's why aside of bundles, I always try to buy games on Gog (I have almost 100 games now there). This new policy is really awesome, but when they have offline installers, they can't really measure how much you play the game, so that's why the no limit of hours I think.

In steam the 2 hours refund policy is too little for big games like Assassins Creed and I think more than enough for short games. So why not make it proportional to the game duration? It could be assigne by the devs or with a tool like How long to beat. For example: if the game lasts 50 hours, 5 hours to try it; if it lasts 10 hours, something like 2. It could be tricky to implement, and maybe too random though xD

Definitely the best would be a demo of the game and that's it.

4 years ago
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Good!

4 years ago
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It doesn't make sense. Probably gog will lose money, I hope they don't go OOB. There were some layoffs last year and this surely won't help imo.

4 years ago
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GOG needs regional pricing if it wants to gain a fair share of gaming market. I have visited GOG several times and I wish to support the site but because of hassle of conversion fees and what not, I have never bought anything on it.

4 years ago
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That might well be true w/r/t regional pricing. But for me personally it doesn't matter, because I'm from a € country I have to pay very high prices on Steam. Some games are even cheaper on GOG straight away after release, so I buy a lot of games there.

4 years ago
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Indeed, GOG has a very large supporter base from € countries and unlike what some people may fear, I doubt it will go out of business anytime soon. But, it seems Steam intentionally makes games costly for € or £ countries --almost as if it wants GOG to survive the launcher wars.

4 years ago
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Now we need goggifts(dot)com :)

4 years ago
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gog is conscience :)

4 years ago
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this will change nothing. they will review every game refund and decide at their own discretion. this is just a marketing stunt.

4 years ago
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As with any refund policy, there are clauses (there have to be), but there's nothing negative about giving a larger refund window.

It's still better than Steam's 2 week refund policy, which to me feels a bit short considering their Summer sales; some of us buying lots only to get around to playing them many weeks (or months, for shame) later to find we dislike something, and having no way to get a refund.

4 years ago
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What an awful thing to do to developers!

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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A game is the developer's hard work, so it should be their choice if they want to extend such goodwill, not forced upon them. You are right about "scummy thieves" but GOG giving them the right to legally scum the developers is in very poor taste imho.

4 years ago
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but they are already doing it, with no DRM Policy

4 years ago
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No DRM policy is not the same as playing a game for a month and getting a full refund.

4 years ago
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having no DRM means, the game is easily pirateable, meaning everyone can play for free for as long as he wants

4 years ago
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Not legally though. In the case of a refund, the customers can act in bad faith within their rights.

4 years ago
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4 years ago
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FAQ #7:

Also, please don't take advantage of our trust by asking for an unreasonable amount of games to be refunded. Don't be that person. No one likes that person

Don't be that person. No one likes that person.

4 years ago*
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I am sure people would abuse this policy (especially for new releases).

But me personally, I am starting to warm up to GOG even more now....

4 years ago
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Indie devs did not like that.

4 years ago
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