Valve has shared some interesting stats, revealing that it receives over 50K refund requests per day. Moreover, the team unveiled its hardware and software survey for April 2017.
What’s really interesting here is that Valve out of these 50K (and in some cases 90K and even 100K) requests, only 1/5 of them are not being addressed (as they are awaiting for a response). In other words, Valve’s accepts the 80% of the submitted requests for refunds in the very same day.
In other news, it appears that NVIDIA is increasing its dominance over AMD. The last hardware & software survey we covered was for November 2016. Since then, NVIDIA saw an increase of 2.92%, whereas AMD saw a decrease of 1.54%. Intel also saw a decrease of 1.33%.
On the other hand, Intel saw a slight increase on the CPU side. 79.73% of the survey-takers prefer Intel’s CPUs, while 20.27% prefer AMD’s CPUs. Since November 2016, Intel saw an increase of 1.23% (and AMD saw a similar decrease).
But what about the number of CPU cores per computers? According to the survey, 50.11% of the survey-takers own a quad-core CPU, while 44% own a dual-core CPU. Only 4.26% has a CPU with more than four CPU cores, and 1.62% is still on a single-core CPU. To put things into perspective, quad-cores gained a 2.31% increase (compared to November 2016) whereas dual-cores saw a 1.9% decrease. Interestingly enough, the amount of owners of CPUs that feature more than four CPU cores has been decreased by 0.24%.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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It is my dream to become a game developer and I will create the best games that will be considered one of the medium’s greatest triumphs 🙂
Same here man 😛
that’s what we all dream, and that’s what all game developers wanted
but it’s an industry, money corrupts even the purest of heart
I would be interested to know how many employees Valve had to hire to process the 20% of refund requests that aren’t automatically processed and also how much it costs per transaction to credit a persons credit card for the return amount. Credit Card companies charge the seller a percentage of the sale on every charge that a customer makes. I think it’s between 3% and 5%. I wonder if Valve eats that cost or passes it on to the Publisher to pay the transaction fees both ways?
I’m guessing the publisher takes the brunt of any administrative costs in issuing refunds. For instance, the Batman Arkham Knight debacle whereby Warner Bros. temporarily pulled it from sale may well have been partly motivated by their desire to stem the tide of refunds and thus initiate damage control on the associated costs.
I know some folk may post snarky comments about Valve ducking their own supposed responsibilities but if there are financial penalties levied on publishers by way of the admin’ costs of issuing refunds then it might just incentivise those publishers to improve their quality assurance, i.e. release fewer ‘broken’ games.
Note how Warner Bros wilfully gave PC gamers the shaft with Batman Arkham Origins by having brazenly stated on their forum that they wouldn’t be fixing any more of that game’s bugs but were gladly going to continue producing paid DLC for it. That happened before Steam’s refunds policy existed. Skip forward to the aforementioned Batman Arkham Knight very soon after said refunds policy arrived and Warner Bros.’s attitude changed. Given their long track record for having treated PC gamers with contempt prior to Steam’s refunds policy then it’s no coincidence that they’ve since sought to improve.
But they still couldn’t give a ratsass about quality control. What a garbage steam has become. Before we could run across those gems of games. Now we have to drown in filth in the hopes of finding 1 decent game in 1000.
So, I am sure about 40k of those refunds are people trying to get a wet towel to wipe away the memories of those filth.
Valve has already stated that they’re working on a revision to ensure more quality games appear on their storefront and reduce the amount of crappy content that appear on a daily basis.
What amazes me is that no matter how much they try to improve people still find excuses to bash them. The same pretty much goes to those who endlessly bashed Nvidia and Intel for a while. It’s like as if adding refunds was a mistake from reading that.
Also, I’m not sure about you but I’ve been able to successfully find a lot of decent games and rarely ran across those really cheap ones which has money grab written all over ’em. Perhaps I’m just making good use of the filter system or I’m just lucky.
“What amazes me is that no matter how much they try to improve people still find excuses to bash them.”
Honestly, for me it’s more about how slowly they’re “improving.” It’s the same deal as with everything else they do these days, unfortunately; they’re just infernally slow. Now this works for a game that’s in development, sure, as it gives you all the time you need to make sure you’ve gotten it just perfect, but when we’re talking about the industry-leading digital store, that’s been online for more than a decade now, it’s just not the same thing.
Or acceptable, for that matter. The storefront has needed major-f*cking-revamps for how many years, now, but all we get is “we’re working on it.” Great, how about going a little faster, though? Maybe releasing a few concept pieces, so we can judge them for ourselves? Anything at all, really?
You’ve got a point there. Valve has been moving at a snail’s pace on almost all aspects with Steam. That being said I do still believe Steam is one of the better places to purchase games digitally. It really just depends what you’re after currently.
Although I don’t play it I’m certain Dota 2 gets updated very frequently due to the amount of revenue it brings in. I do wish they could use that profit for decent things like hiring actual talent that can accomplish tasks at a faster rate. Or maybe they do have those talents but they just aren’t putting them into good use.
I agree about wanting them to be more open with their development, besides the whole beta client updates we can choose to be part of. Allowing us to get a scope of things they wish to accomplish in the near or distant future could be beneficial for them and us, but I guess there’s a reason why most companies never wish to share that kind of info.
“That being said I do still believe Steam is one of the better places to purchase games digitally. It really just depends what you’re after currently.”
Oh, definitely. It’s not just that it’s better than its (limited) competition, but it’s also massive, which means aside from some trolling tags people put on games, you can really find a lot on it.
The main problem is really just the storefront itself, for me, rather than the search function, or the menu systems, or whatever, which more often than not, work just fine, really.
“Although I don’t play it I’m certain Dota 2 gets updated very frequently due to the amount of revenue it brings in.”
Not just that, but also; IceFrog, the bloke who was handling WC3 DOTA for years on end got hired by Valve to make DOTA 2, so I’m thinking a project lead like that is used to constantly improving his creation. Not to mention the undoubtedly major DOTA 2 Reborn project (shifting DOTA 2 onto the new Source 2 engine), yeah. There’s a constant flux of changes, updates, improvements, etc. going on with DOTA 2, fortunately.
Though there’s always the question of for how much longer that’ll continue to be the case, revenue or no revenue. Like, say IceFrog quits tomorrow, will work suddenly slow down considerably, or just partially?
After all, what with Valve being completely decentralised, I expect Gabe only gets involved with the most important &/or extreme situations, rather than every-single-little-minute-day-to-day detail, or some such.
“Or maybe they do have those talents but they just aren’t putting them into good use.”
So, yeah, probably. No doubt they’ve plenty of people, but they’re not being used to their “maximum efficiency,” so to speak.
I think the search system has vastly improved since the start of Steam but they did take away some options which I used often like filtering the list by developer and/or publisher. I can only do it by clicking on the company’s name within a product page. There can still be plenty more things to add to it I feel but it’s pretty extensive as it is.
The UI definitely needs a major overhaul to fit today’s standards. It needs to be a lot faster like the other clients and display a more visually appealing library section I guess. I do tend to use the Big Picture Mode quite often these days since I tend to play games in my living room space, so perhaps to see the standard menu get that similar looking treatment would be great. Making it fit for purpose for the traditional mouse and keyboard of course.
Yeah I’m not that knowledgable about the game’s background but I just looked up the guy. I do remember that the game originated as a Warcraft III mod and I get the feeling that the first game still has a significant userbase till now. At this point I don’t think having Dota 2 dying down would even put Valve at risk, with how much savings they probably have.
The only thing we can do is wait until this new update arrives within certain months from now and we’ll get the gist of how serious they are about tackling some of the key problems with the platform.
Yeah, DOTA 2 is basically a slightly modified remake of WC3 DOTA, but they’ve managed to co-exist quite well with each other, regardless. Of course, DOTA 2’s playerbase completely dwarfs WC3’s, but WC3 DOTA still lives on, IceFrog support & all.
“At this point I don’t think having Dota 2 dying down would even put Valve at risk, with how much savings they probably have.”
Agreed. Hell, honestly, they don’t even need anything but Steam to survive for the next half a century, I’d say, but much like those never-ending TF2 hats, they just [can’t/won’t] stop ^^
You may want to go to the OId days that steam bareIIy got any indie games, but i wouId rather having garbage games on the store and ignoring them, which is easy, rather than having Iess.
and please tell me, what magical method do you use to filter the “garbage”? because i need to spend like 5-10 minutes per day checking the all new releases tab because more often than not, a lot of good indie games just dont make it to the “popular new releases” tab. and since steam releases like 50 games a day well..
“because i need to spend like 5-10 minutes per day checking the all new releases tab”
I dont i simpIy Iook at the games that seII weII. But if you want a fiIter you can simpIy hover the mouse over one of hose “new reIeases” and check if the game has a good user rating.
exactly! you dont. many of us enjoy mostly indie titles and not just whats “popular” so filtering through the heaps of garbage ourselves aint fun
Nope, those 40k are tards that dont watch a gameplay before buying a game!
refund and piracy….lol pc Is at risk
idiocy and mentaI retaardaation…IoI no Iife at aII.
Oh and what about used saIes? You dont taIk about that consoIetard
lol is not a big problem look gta v:
on pc : 7 milion
ps4: 14 milion
goodbye is was a pleasure
You do realize that people have been claiming that PC gaming is dying for 2 decades now and the sales just keep going up. If GTA V had been released on the PC at the same time as it was released on the consoles then those numbers would be different. Gamers weren’t given that choice by Rockstar though. It was either buy it on the console or wait forever for a PC release. Rockstar wouldn’t even say if there was going to be a PC release for a long time making some people think that there wouldn’t be a PC release just like Red Dead Redemption.
More like, 7.1 million only on Steam, ergo excluding all Rockstar Sociopaths Club sales, & all physical sales, as well.
Try harder next time, b*tch. And while you’re at it, why don’t you link some proof of the 14 million on PlayStation 4? Oh, wait, you don’t have any, do you…….
Goodbye, it was a pleasure.
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/83196/grand-theft-auto-v/
enjoy…sorry…15 milion
LOL VGCHARTZ.
Cool story kiddo, now f*ck off already.
“on pc : 7 milion”
On steam, the retaiI version has no steam.
retail is dead on pc!
No it’s not
“And besides, PC has Steam. Steam players can just return the game [prior to playing] 2 hours so it’s like a demo already.” – Arkane’s president.
Valve’s accepts the 80% of the submitted requests for refunds in the very same day.
Fixed
kinda sad that this the reality of steam
zero quality control, tons of fake reviews by paid shills
games with bugs, issues, third party DRM (Ucrash comes to mind)
as for the 50K refunds requests per day, doesn’t it make valve wonder why steam is so full of $hit right now?
N.vidia
W.orld
O.rder