This week, a self-published game called The Hidden and Unknown was released on Steam with an absurd price tag of $1,999.90. The game was purposely designed to be shorter than two hours, allowing players to finish the game and receive a no-questions-asked refund from Steam. The game’s creator, ThePro, told TheGamer that the high price reflects the semi-autobiographical visual novel’s value to them. ThePro encouraged anyone who can’t afford the game to refund it or just refrain from buying it.
I’ve played The Hidden and Unknown, and it begins with an eight-minute-long Star Wars scroll that describes an imbalance between masculine and feminine energy, leading to the end of humanity. This $2,000 philosophy lesson is similar to the retrograde gibberish supplement-hawking YouTube masculinity gurus post every day for free.
The game follows a kid named Brian, whose story is a compilation of anecdotes from the creator’s tumultuous life experiences. The characters are not depicted visually, only the locations created with the help of an AI image generator. The story follows Brian’s transformation into a testosterone-rich übermensch whose ex-girlfriend can’t manipulate him anymore and whose depression is thwarted by masculine habits such as sleeping enough and getting regular exercise.
The Hidden and Unknown isn’t the first game to incorporate Steam’s refund policy into its design. Last year, a game called Refund Me If You Can challenge players to escape a maze in under two hours, just in time to get their money back. I find the playful, metacontextual design fun, but I prefer the maze example.
The Hidden and Unknown have three Steam reviews, one of which calls it the “worst game ever made” and “meaningless, misanthropic trash.” That reviewer does note that they received the game for free, so the axiom that you get what you pay for still holds in this case. Credit to ThePro for their creative pricing, but without it, The Hidden and Unknown may have been ignored entirely.
