I purchased Torment: Tides of Numenera since It was on sale.

I loved Planescape torment when i was a kid and was sure i would love it.

I checked the refund policy and found the following

What is the Voluntary Refund Policy of the new store inside GOG GALAXY?
The updated policy lets you refund a product up to 30 days after purchase, even if it was downloaded, launched, and played. Yes, you read that correctly. :) To apply for a refund, you should contact our Customer Support Team within 30 days of your purchase, and our team will sort it out as soon as possible.

I saw this and felt confident that it the purchase didnt work out ofr me i have to trouble getting a refund..

I purchased the game that night and installed it. I wanted to take a look at it so i started it up. It was very late around 2am so i decided to just turn off the screen and continue later that day.

After playing for about 15 or 20 mins i decied i didnt like it and considered asking for a refund, i then proceded to install planescape torment and still enjoyed playing the game the way i did when i was younger,.

At that time i was sure i would not be playing Numera again i requested a refund.

I was sure since i played less then an hour I would have to problem getting a refund.

I was wrong, I was told that since i had played more then 18 hours i could not recieve a refund but they would make an excepton and offer to put the funds back in my wallet to purchase another game.

At that point I felt upset. I looked at the policy again and saw nothing about a maxuimum amount of time that someone could play the game and if they went over that time they would not recieve a refund..

I also could not understaned how they could say that i played for over 18 hours when i played less then 1 hour

I think looked at gog galaxy and it did show that i had played for over 18 hours. It seems that once the game is started i clock in gog galaxy starts counting down and it doesnt stop unless you close the game and possibly gog galaxy.

It doesnt matter if you are actaually playing the game. Meaning sitting at the computer using the keyboard and mouse to play the game or if i forget to exit the game and just leave it on for a few hours both count as playing the game.

Alot of that 18 hours they show is me alseep in my bed. I would not call that playing the game.

To be honest if a game caught my interest that i would play for 18 hours i wouldnt be asking for my money back. I would be asking when the new game in the series will be out :)

I looked at my account and saw that i had been buying games from gog on and off since 2011 and had only requested refunds 3 times or so in all that time. i have over 100 games in my collecton but most of the recent ones were free giveaways

Ok the rant ends here. I can understand how they feel. they dont know me i have no way to prove what i say is true..

I hope they read this and update the refund policy info to explain abit more.

I have my money in my wallet now and have to decide if i should buy mech warrior 5 or wait untill the updated system shock is released. I have learned to close my games when im afk so i get a accurate time in gog galaxy

If anyone knows the unwritten time limit for the return policy let me know

I think steam has a 2 hour play limit it might the be the same for gog

Sorry for the rant have a nice day all

Everybody needs to vent sometimes, that's fine.

I'd imagine that's not a particularly nice position to be in for both of you, but GOG rep can only see what the timer says, they don't know how much of that was spent alt-tabbed.

There are some clarifications in point 7. of the refund policy, although it doesn't say much about play time. But we can reasonably expect that they can compare user's clocked play time with sites like howlongtobeat, and if somebody has a significant portion of a time required to complete a game, GOG may have some reservations.

At least there is a middle ground in form of wallet funds - you can spend your money on another game, but it will be on GOG. Hopefully you find a fun game to play soon. ;)

GOG introduced Voluntary Refunds because as usual some people from "elsewhere" were holding up the ability to refund DRM'd Steam games they simply didn't like as some 'positive' vs GOG's former "refunds only for faulty / non-downloaded games" for DRM-Free games. Problem for GOG is "Steam rules" obviously isn't going to work the same for DRM-Free games. Eg, those of us who don't use Galaxy have "0hrs played" on every game (or a completely disabled profile). So there obviously can't be some hard cut-off timer for everyone which is probably why GOG keeps things vague.

Overall it seems to be based on trust with the right to refuse being based mostly on detecting patterns of abuse, ie, if you bought 20 games, downloaded them then asked for refunds for 19 of them, I doubt even keeping gameplay time under a 2hr cutoff will be respected. On the other hand, if you hardly refund anything, then ask for a refund for one game, then they will probably be more likely to give a refund even if they can't track game-play time at all (no Galaxy).

1. You kept the game running overnight for no conceivable reason. It should go without saying that any time spent with the game running counts as time played. No one is going to implement complex checks to determine if you completely Alt+Tabbed out of the game or you're still interacting with it.
You can either disable time tracking in GOG Galaxy or avoid using it altogether.

2. You weren't denied a refund. You were granted a refund to GOG wallet, because your request looked extremely fishy but your refund history suggests you haven't habitually abused the system.

3. There's no set time limit. A game like 198X has an estimated play time of 2 hours. Giant sprawling games The Witcher 3 could take 50+ hours for the main quest alone.
If it looks like you played most or the entire game, then your refund request may be denied. HowLongToBeat estimates 26 hours for the main story of this particular game, so you requesting a refund after playing 70% of that isn't reasonable.

GOG leaves their refund policy deliberately ambiguous and unclear so that they have leeway to refuse refunds. If they had wanted to give it clarity, then they would have done so already, long ago. It has no clarity because they don't want it to have clarity.

Really, GOG should fully scrap their current refund policy, and then copy Steam's refund policy exactly.

As for the OP's specific issue: IMO you can't really blame GOG for assuming that you running a game for 18 hours means that you were playing the game for those 18 hours. That's a perfectly reasonable assumption on GOG's part, even if it isn't actually true.

They have no way to verify your claim that you were just letting the game idle for 18 hours and not actually playing it.

I realize that now and i will be much more careful in the future if i decide to request a refund. Ive been a customer since 2011 and as of now i have a total of 6 games funded most of them cost less then 2 dollars at the time of purchase :)

Im sorry i over reacted. I was so sure that a refund would be no problem so i was a little upset when it didnt go as i expected.

I have never heard of that website before. I used to play games like this for weeks but i used to be playing alot of different games a the same time ill have to check it for other games i have played inthe past and see how my times measure up

I know some people don't like the refund policy as they think it needs to be made clearer, but the risk of a super clear policy is that as soon as you know exactly where the lines are, people game the system. On balance, the policy seems to work while stopping clear abuse (e.g. the people who played 48 hours of Cyberpunk 2077 on release before demanding a refund, or the people who tried to refund Witcher 3 after the RTX patch was launched despite having completed the game five years earlier). I think the flexibility is a positive.

Anyway, think positive - you got store credit, they made an exception for you and it's not like there aren't other games on here you want to buy.

Good that you got your money back then

I agree about a more detailed refund policy
And this thread would be a good opportunity
to discuss about things like statutory rights
& when the vgames may not be as we expected them to be

Examples:
-Syberia. The sound files here
have lower quality than the Syn-Vapor version...

-Or what if the vgame doesnt have the manual?

-Or the version is older than other stores?

-Or any other "slight" discrepancy of the vgame page
versus what we got

Would proceed the refund of those purchases no matter the playtime?
(Ok, into the 30 day period... but I would even challenge that)
Consider the ramification:
This store would really need to push forward to improve those vgames
(add better quality sound files, include manuals,
keep versions on par, have totally accurate vgame pages...)
BUT with those terms & conditions overprotective to the seller
we can figure why:
-WE need to juggle files to improve things
-WE need to hunt manuals on the internet
-WE need to play the detective & researcher role before purchasing
-WE need to live the vgame pages innacuracies like if they werent important...

Unfortunately is suspicion who leads the discussion
among us when the topic is brought to the table...
And things do not improve!... WTF

This isn't legally a refund in most countries, including the US. Only refunds via original purchase method are legally viable. He did not get his money back, he got store credit.

Strictly speaking, yes, you are right

And by any chance do you also know the difference versus a withdraw?
I learned that term while composing that post noticing
the legend at the bottom of the checkout page, in my case, it says:
(quoted)

"...By placing your order, you agree to the GOG.com User Agreement and GOG Privacy Policy, and confirm that you are aged 13 years or older.

We give you the right to withdraw from a purchase of GOG content without charge and for any reason within 30 days after you bought that GOG content, IF it has not been downloaded, streamed, activated or used in any way before then."

A quick gugle gives me the idea of canceling a service,
Would that mean that asking for a withdraw extends the request not only
to the money of the transaction but also to close the user account?
Some first world knowledge would help me to understand that jargon :)

You mean a Google?

The right to withdraw from a purchase effectively means cancelling the purchase - you get your money back and GoG take the game away from you.

Note that they correctly say that this is only if you haven't downloaded the content. It's effectively a cooling-off period (these are generally 14 days by law in a lot of jurisdictions), but you waive any right to cooling off for digital products on download.

Generally, closing the account would be considered a separate agreement between you and the company; typically you would have more than one game, so this makes sense. Plus, your contract of sale is (which you would be withdrawing from) is a different (and legally binding contract) to the terms of service you agreed to when signing up to GoG.

Thank you pds41!

Yes, I meant the G (Gugle)

Then why the discrepancy of periods & conditions? (<> = different)

Withdraw <> refund <> Statutory refund rights

Links in case you like to confirm directly:
-The bottom of the checkout page
-support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011314978-How-do-I-refund-a-game-?product=gog
-support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-User-Agreement?product=gog

Do you find them logical without contradictions? Or just the Syn-PseudoDRMFree style as usual?

A withdraw is a full refund. You can only do it if you haven't accessed the data. Even through the website, without Galaxy, they can tell if you download the files. If you haven't, you can fully withdraw the purchase.

Yes, I find them logical and without contradictions.

According to your profile next to your post, you are in the EU (more specifically France). This means that:

Statutory Rights You have a statutory right to withdraw from a purchase of digital content for 14 days, which is granted by French Law (as required by the EU). GoG have to inform you about this, which is why it's in the User Agreement. If you exercise it, they give you your money back (using the same medium you made the purchase) and take the digital goods away. They don't have to do this if you waive your rights - which you expressly do when downloading the product as this is accepting delivery of the goods. (these are the Statutory Rights)

Voluntary Withdrawal Policy GoG voluntarily offer this for a further 16 days - so a 30 day right of withdrawal. Again, downloading the game means that you waive any rights to withdraw as you have accepted delivery of the goods.

Voluntary Refund Policy GoG further offer a voluntary refund policy, in which users have 30 days to request a refund from GoG. GoG will review any requests made under this policy and may or may not offer a refund depending on the determination they come to. Any refund under this policy is at the discretion of GoG and doesn't have to be to the medium that made the purchase (e.g. it can be in store credit).

Ultimately, unless you accidentally purchase a game, you're going to end up in the Voluntary Refund Policy by default as any downloading of a game waives your Statutory Rights (this is common for digital delivery) and also removes you from the Voluntary Withdrawal Policy. Pretty much everyone who wants a refund fits into the final bracket.