Steam Now Offering Refunds "For Any Reason"

[StewShearerOld]

Steam Now Offering Refunds "For Any Reason"

Valve has announced that Steam customers will now be able to request full refunds on games they've owned for less than two weeks and played for less than two hours.

There are a lot of games on Steam and not all of them are good. And since you can't trade in Steam games, it basically means that any time you take a chance on a new title you're stuck with it. This has long been something of a point of frustration for many of the service's customers. That being the case, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140608-Valve-Ends-Paid-Mod-Program-On-Steam-Workshop>Valve has announced today <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140959-Valve-Softwares-Steam-Summer-Sale-Begins-On-June-11>that Steam, henceforth, will be adding a bona fide refund process aimed at giving gamers the tools they need to get their cash back when a game fails to meet their expectations.

According to regulations described on Steam's official website, customers will be able to request a refund for any game in their library as long as they do it "within two weeks of purchase and with less than two hours of playtime" logged onto their account. Customers will be able to request refunds "for any reason," including everything from compatibility issues to simply not liking the game. Refunds will be request-able for games, in-game purchases, pre-orders, Steam wallet purchases and bundles. Refunds will not be offered for movies and gifts purchased for other gamers. Gamers who have violated the Valve Anti-Cheat System will also lose the right to request refunds for the games in which they cheated.

While many have been understandably happy about these new options, <a href=https://twitter.com/hentaiphd/status/605802927299493890>there are some who worry that the "two hour" policy could lead to problems for independent developers. Some indie titles, for instance, have run times that are less than two hours, making it potentially possible to finish them and then still request a refund. While Valve has explicitly stated that it will stop offering refunds to customers who "appear" to abuse them, it goes without saying that determining who's taking advantage of the system might be easier said than done.

What do you think of Steam's new refund policies? Do you like them? And how do you feel they compare to other refund mechanisms of other digital game retailers <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130338-GOG-Launches-New-Guaranteed-Refund-Policy>such as GOG?

Source: Steam


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[Veldel]

WELL ITS ABOUT DAMN FUCKING TIME


OT: Great to have this now

 

[Sight Unseen]

If your game is less than two hours long that this would be an issue, then honestly your game should probably be free or extremely cheap. If your game has no replay value or redeeming value beyond a slightly less than two hour experience then more often than not people probably deserve to get a refund if your game costs more than like $5 AT MOST.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

What a great excuse to get indie developers to put effort into selling bigger games. Should've done this before Ground Zeroes came out. Not that it makes a difference to me, therefor voiding this entire comment. Poofff! *disappears into the aether*

 

[rodneyy]

i love how at the end of the abuse bit they go chill guys chill if you find a game has gone on sale you can get a refund and buy it again and thats not abuse. they might mess up every now and then but sometimes they show they know what will get people bitching at them

 

[NickBrahz]

Two hours is not a lot of time, game breaking bugs can happen after a few hours into it, at least Origin you have it up to 24 hours after launching it to get a refund.

 

[Aeshi]

It's a step in the right direction. That said, I can already see at least one potential exploit in this: Games played in offline mode don't have their hours counted towards the total.

i.e. If you buy a new game, play it for an hour, go offline, play it for five hours and then go back online, it'll still only say you played for an hour.

 

[Barbas]

At last, Toilet Blu for Greenlight.

 

[Rattja]

I don't understand... how can people complain about something like this? What do they want? Don't they want people to be able to get refunded at all?

There has to be a limiting factor in there somewhere. Usually you have that 30 days thing, but that can be exploited even more.
If the people complaining expect someone to individually review every single refund request on a case to case basis they are downright insane, because that would just demand far too much.

So what exactly do they want them to do here? At least they are trying something, and to me it seems more than reasonable.
And think about it, even if a game has less than a 2 hour worth of gameplay, I doubt that people would mass exploit the system enough for it to make a huge difference. Those who would do that sort of thing would not even buy your game in the first place if they could not do that so you basically have not lost anything.
On the other hand, if a high % of people do request refunds after finishing your game... well.. it may be because they did not think your game was worth it, sorry.

 

[Lunar Templar]

>.<

Damn it ....


and here I was hoping I could flush the trash like Mass Effect, out of my library.

 

[Rednog]

I don't understand... how can people complain about something like this? What do they want? Don't they want people to be able to get refunded at all?

There has to be a limiting factor in there somewhere. Usually you have that 30 days thing, but that can be exploited even more.
If the people complaining expect someone to individually review every single refund request on a case to case basis they are downright insane, because that would just demand far too much.

So what exactly do they want them to do here? At least they are trying something, and to me it seems more than reasonable.
And think about it, even if a game has less than a 2 hour worth of gameplay, I doubt that people would mass exploit the system enough for it to make a huge difference. Those who would do that sort of thing would not even buy your game in the first place if they could not do that so you basically have not lost anything.
On the other hand, if a high % of people do request refunds after finishing your game... well.. it may be because they did not think your game was worth it, sorry.

Very simple.
1) It's just a request, meaning you'll most likely have to go through Steam's customer service, which is hilariously bad. Last I checked it can take up to 48 hours for a response. If for some reason it takes more than a single request/response that 14 day window could come closing very quickly.
2) 2 hours can be very narrow, if you're game doesn't work and you're trying to mess around with it, you'd be surprised how quickly that two hours can disappear.
3) It's a request, I don't know why they don't have an automated system in place.

It's definitely a step up from 1 refund ever and only if they choose to allow it, but it's still far from what should've been in place long ago.

Edit: I actually am not sure how exactly it works, I bought some random cheap game to test, and I see that there's some kind of flow path in terms of trying to get a refund. I had the game pulled from the library, don't know if it's pulled for review of a request or it's a finalized refund.

 

[shirkbot]

I don't understand... how can people complain about something like this? What do they want? Don't they want people to be able to get refunded at all?

This is clear progress on one of the largest complaints Steam has faced in recent years, and I don't think anyone is going to object to it on the base levels. Most criticism is probably going to come down to nitpicking the time frame and comparisons to GOG.

That said, I just want to know what finally motivated this. Was it GOG Galaxy? Was it the fact that they were feeling pressure from being the largest retailer but still had no refund policy? Was it because of their less-than-stellar relations with the EU court system? Or is Valve just finally starting to listen to its users? I'm super stoked to see them making this change, but what was the motivation?

 

[Doom972]

Sounds reasonable. 2 hours is more than enough time to know if you'll want to keep playing in most cases. If a game can be finished under 2 hours without the player attempting to speedrun (which is pointless to do on a first playthrough), the player deserves a refund, since that's a demo's length and demos should be free.

Valve sure took their time catching up with EA, but at least they finally did it. Now how about some games on the house?

 

[Ogami]

[
Very simple.
1) It's just a request, meaning you'll most likely have to go through Steam's customer service, which is hilariously bad. Last I checked it can take up to 48 hours for a response. If for some reason it takes more than a single request/response that 14 day window could come closing very quickly.

That seems not to be the case. On 4chan and other sites a few users have already tried the refund function.
Seems to be an automatic system. All the users got an replay with their granted refund in a few minutes.
Only thing, it seems you have to wait for up to 7 days till the money gets back to your steam wallet.

 

[Elfgore]

Two hours playtime seems a little short to me, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. It's about damn time though, took them forever to get the concept of a refund. I may also be looking over it due being tired, but I don't see a mention as to how we're being refunded. Is it going to Steam cash or am I actually getting my money back to spend how I please?

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Hey, what did that take? Over 10 years? Ah, well. It's a major forward leap for Steam customers. If EA didn't have such a bad rep, Origin would have put the pressure on Valve to do this ages ago. Even GOG has refunds, and they can't tell if you aren't just keeping the drm-free files anyway.(Though, they will spot abuse.)


Though, the two hour limit does worry me a tiny bit. How about one of those game breaking bugs that happen several hours into a game and the publisher/dev takes their sweet time addressing the problem? What about if you spend over two hours trying to get in to work and Steam considers the configuration wizard to be part of the game? I've left a few first time running (as in already downloaded, but first time clicking "play") installs running while I left to bio/grab some nachoes/untangle my cords, only to come back and find the configuration waiting for me and Steam to have 10-20 minutes of "game time" already clocked.

Also, can we get 1-3 grandfathered titles we'd like refunds on, but are well outside of the two week window? I'd like a refund on Far Cry: Blood Dragon just to spite Ubisoft for making me run their horrid client on top of Steam.

 

[Janaschi]

It's a step in the right direction. That said, I can already see at least one potential exploit in this: Games played in offline mode don't have their hours counted towards the total.

i.e. If you buy a new game, play it for an hour, go offline, play it for five hours and then go back online, it'll still only say you played for an hour.

You do not think that Steam registers offline play, too? That is possible, but I really doubt that they do not, at the same time.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

My feelings on this are mixed. Firstly, I'm not sure if this is big news, or just a clarification of their secret policy towards refunds (lots of people report that if you try to hand in a game with next to no hours they may humor you).

Secondly, as has been said two hours may not be much if you try to tinker with your games to get them to work, as many require. Though hopefully Support will be willing to listen if you explain what you spent your time doing on it.

 

[Aeshi]

You do not think that Steam registers offline play, too? That is possible, but I really doubt that they do not, at the same time.

I'm not saying they don't with 100% certainty, but if they are still registering gametime played offline then it seems like an odd decision to have said game time arbitrarily not count towards the "Hours Played" counter.