Arkane: Steam Refunds = PC Prey Demo

In an interview on AusGamers, Arkane's Raph Colantonio discusses the imminent release of Prey, the sci-fi shooter remake (thanks DSOGaming). One hot topic that comes up is how console owners have a demo of the game to sample, while PC gamers do not. Though this does not sound like Valve's take on the topic, he says they feel Steam's refund policy is the equivalent of a PC demo:
"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."
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e: Arkane: Steam Refunds = PC Prey Demo
May 3, 2017, 23:11
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e: Arkane: Steam Refunds = PC Prey Demo May 3, 2017, 23:11
May 3, 2017, 23:11
 
Squirmer wrote on May 3, 2017, 17:49:
Kxmode wrote on May 3, 2017, 16:41:
The refund policy is NOT the equivalent of a PC demo and should never be used by publishers as a justification for not releasing a demo when the console versions have them!

Frankly, a refund is the last action a gamer takes when the game doesn't work for them. Two hours is only enough time to tell if the game will even run. There are way too many games that require several hours to see if the game is worth keeping.
So 2 hours isn't enough...but you want the console demo which is only 1 hour?

You say that like those are the only two options. There's another. Steam is a digital distribution platform like Xbox Live and PSN. This gives publishers control over their products. Arkane could ask Steam to release the game 48 hours before the official launch with a 5-hour time limit. For one day (midnight to midnight), everyone can play through Steam for up to five hours. Afterward, the Play button is disabled until launch. Five hours is plenty of time to test on a machine and know if it is worth a purchase. It wouldn't be hard to do this for launch titles. Publishers do this all the time with their "free weekends."
"Listen, Peter... with great horsepower comes... the sickest drifts..." - source
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