You have to get the refund within 14 days of purchasing the game (or release in the case of pre-orders) and you have to have less than two hours of playtime on the game.
This is really great news.* Like other digital sellers that offer a refund system, they reserve the right to decide if you’re “abusing” the system and cut you off from refunds altogether, but they specifically say that it’s not abuse if a game you’ve purchased goes on sale and you get a refund so that you can re-purchase it at the lower price.
*probably really bad news for my wallet, since it means I’ll buy more games that I’m on the fence about.
Seriously, I dunno. I don’t think this is actually that big a deal. It’ll be nice to give people a chance to reject their crappy pre-ordered titles when they ship buggy as hell, but it’s not really going to affect ME at all.
Honestly, I think this is a great solution to the problem. Game developers are on notice that if their games are so shitty that nobody’s willing to play them for more than two hours, Steam isn’t going to work out for them. Why do we need a different solution to the problem?
You’re conflating “doesn’t affect ME at all” with “doesn’t affect the MARKET at all.”
You may have risen above the petty and base concerns of the plebeian masses, but putting more agency in the hands of the buyer creates a more robust marketplace, and that benefits ALL consumers.
It’s not just the customers that were effected. Lots of good games get buried under the mounds of bullshit that Steam spews out daily. With refunds those out to cheat people will go away giving developers that have confidence in their product a bigger chance to get noticed.
I don’t think they want millions of users purge their libraries of every copy of a game they didn’t like (or games that didn’t work) in one huge deluge of negative profit. I mean, I’d love it too as a consumer, I just don’t see it happening.
They are currently making exceptions to the stated limits.
If you really want something refunded, submit a request. It may be granted. I know a few peopel who got their money back om games as old as early 2014 (these are all games they never played or played under the 2 hour limit though).
