Are achievements tracked for games which have been refunded?

I have no idea how are they stored when it comes to games which you have no longer in account. It doesn't really matter tho - the system is in place, if Valve wants to use it as some form of history and store it, they can.

The movies they pay for have a lot more effort put into it.

I would not mind paying $10 for movies like James Cameron's Avatar or Avengers. A lot of people have put a lot of hard work into it. And these movies are genuinely enjoyed by a lot of people.

Your game on the other hand is just a walking simulator. There are far better walking simulators for free on miniclip.com or paid games like dear esther or rapture.

I had to refund the game. It was boring.

Is every game that you walk in a "walking simulator?

According to Steam, they will absolutely be tracking how many refunds any particular person asks for. It's the only way to combat this sort of thing.

Overall, I'm very glad they allow refunds, although there are going to be people abusing it, no doubt.

But I do see how it could be a problem for games that are very quick to finish. In which case, I would hope Valve will continue to monitor and adjust this so developers aren't put in a tough situation where people basically beat their game without spending any money on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--LmQrsD6b0

If you want a more precise feedback on walking simulator, watch the link above.

A walking simulator is where you are just walking, there is no other gameplay, just pretty visuals and a soundtrack.

No way, anyone in their right mind, who lives on a budget would waste their money on this.

More data:

WinterWolves games refunds upped 14x than before but it's around 5-6% (anyway its fanbase buys direct from his personal website):
https://twitter.com/pcmacgames/status/607530594801721344
17% to 55% refunds for some other devs (don't know who they are, I don't have time to dig all Twitter)

For PositechGames (Democracy 3, Gratuitous Space Battles, etc.), the rate refunds went from less than 0,1% to 17%
https://twitter.com/cliffski/status/607490264475836416

There's an interesting argument as to whether the rush to play, finish and refund will take away the experience from the shorter games. Ofc they wouldn't need a refund policy if people just researched before buying games, but EU consumer protection is how it is. A proper classification system with shorter games classified into non-refundable would've been great, but Steam's aversion to finding out what's on their service is sad.

Jim Sterling makes some good points regarding the supposedly lost sales highlighted by Qwiboo with their statistics.

http://ask.fm/Jimquisition/answer/128177519586

I think he is right to compare it to the same hysteria big publishers drum up regarding piracy of a game equating to a lost sale. Ofcourse there is the potential for abuse with this refund policy but by and large increasing customer confidence will result in most people rewarding the trust similar to how they do with DRM Free games.

Altering the refund policy to circumvent the few cases of abuse while alienating the majority of the legitimate customers would not be a good idea. I have to agree with the suggestion of creating achievements for beating a game, which should then remove the option to refund as Totalbiscuit states.

"I'm still in favour of "if you get the completion achievement, you cant refund anymore", but otherwise, consumer rights are paramount."

Well, thanks for making my day just a little worse.

I don't think it's as easy as that. It's probably possible to disallow a refund for someone who got all achievements, but other than this I don't see a real option. I think that Valve will have to add a specific option which will developers will have to set, and that could then be abused by developers. (For example, if Valve let developers set the "finished game" achievement, and disallow refunds if a user got that, a dev could set the first achievement for entering the game to be that.)

Well... A percentage count of a finished game would have to be implemented using some sort of chokepoints by the developer as well, so that doesn't really change much. Not to mention the negative rep and amount of refunds they'd suddenly get if they started doing such a thing :-P

To be honest, I'm not sure. And actually, upon looking closer, there have actually been many less than I thought (0 today, 12 over the whole week) when I glanced over it this morning.

I don't think there will be any way for me to get good numbers for the next few months or so, due to sales and bundles. And to be honest, I'm not even sure what my average number of daily sales were previous to this.
Not upon looking closer, no. Naturally every refunded copy was an individual sale rather than a bundle, but it seems that there were plenty of non-refunded sales as well.
Except for, you know, all the people that love these sorts of games. But no, they must just be wrong, right? Their opinions don't count?

Sorry dude. The rights of the consumers must trump the rights of the developers. You shouldn't be in it for the money. If you really cared about making games, and making good ones, you wouldn't care about how much they are going for OR worried about refunds. This tells me you are a weak-willed individual, who can't stand behind his games.
Either they are good, and people will play and talk about them, or they are bad, and you don't deserve the money you already have.
This is NOT a popular opinion, nor should it be. There are people who should make money on games, but at the expense of the consumer and his/her time? No.

Absolutely.

*sigh* Yes, you should be in it for the money, of course you should be in it for the money if you want to. That's such a dumb argument, money is how good art is rewarded and money is how consumers show their appreciation, money = people like your art enough to spend cash on it.

Do you have anyone depend on your income? Family, wife, girlfriend?

Don't argue with him, not worth it.