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GOG's New Refund Policy Seems Too Good To Be True
Popular game distribution platform Good Old Games (commonly referred to as GOG and created by the same team behind Cyberpunk 2077) has announced a major update to its refund policy and philosophy: Now all players can refund a product up to 30 days after purchasing. Players will be able to automatically get a refund even if they have already installed and played the game. This is a significant change to the previous GOG rules, which prevented buyers from returning a game on the platform if they had downloaded it or launched it even once.
This new video game refund policy is significantly more generous than other platforms on the market. On Steam, for example, refunds are limited to 14 days, and gamers can’t return games if they’ve been played for more than a couple of hours. Epic Games has also implemented a 14 day limit on game refunds, and a game becomes ineligible if it's been played for two hours or more.
GOG recently announced their new change with a message saying, “Everyone at GOG believes in a ‘gamers-first’ approach… your purchase safety and satisfaction come first for us.” Refunds will be available in either GOG Wallet funds, or as a cash refund based on how players originally bought the product. If some used a gift to purchase a game, the giver who bought that particular gift must be the one to apply for a refund. All games at GOG remain DRM-free.
While the policy change has earned plenty of online praise (especially in the wake of fiascos like Warcraft 3: Reforged) it’s important to note that there are some limitations to the new rules. GOG still reserves the right to deny any refund for reasons tied to the individual situation, and makes it clear that if someone is obviously taking advantage of a refund to cheat the system, it’s not going to work out so well for them. The game service also added, “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.”
It’s undoubtedly a bit easier for GOG to implement this policy as the platform traditionally focuses on independent and older titles. However, GOG is still also affected by many modern-day game trends and does contain some AAA titles. When Telltale pulled its games from Steam, GOG also lost some older Telltale games it once had, diminishing the size of their storefront slightly. However, this latest move positions GOG as the competitive platform it deserves to be, and invites more comparisons to both Steam and the Epic Store. It will be interesting to see how they respond.
