Steam won't leave Australia... they wouldn't be foolish enough to cut out an entire section of the market, especially when other digital distributors are there. The bad PR, and pressure from publishers will be enough to keep them there.
Do you think EA, Activision, Bethesda, etc would continue to opt for their games to distribute through steam if it meant they lost access to 22.7 million potential customers? This is 2013 data for steam sales revenue that I snagged from gamasutra... https://twitter.com/seanethompson/status/423552044696231936/photo/1 5% may be nothing in comparison to the 40% that comes out of NA and Western Europe, but there are what 75M+ users on steam now? For hypothetical numbers (since Valve doesn't release financial data) lets say every user buys on average $20 worth of games in a YEAR. which really isn't a big deal when you factor in sales and the like. Yes, some of those accounts are deactivated, but some people buy a lot more than $20 a year in games too... so it balances out, plus... examples!
So 75M users, at $20 a game is $1.5 Billion... at 30% revenue (that supposedly gog&steam take according to Phil Fish) That's $450M total revenue lets cut that in half to say pay for operational costs (which is probably way WAY WAY more than it would need). Now we're looking at a profit of $225M a year total global sales... 11 Million of that would have come from Australia...
Sure it isn't $90M from NA or WE, but 11 million is nothing to scoff at, and that's just a bunch of random guesses for numbers, and probably isn't even close to the true profit numbers. and for what, to not allow refunds? Give me a break... as many others have said Steam does allow refunds, they just make you have to work/fight for it... I could see them changing their policy to be something like this:
1) Early Access Games are not included... When you buy them there is a huge blue caption... "Note: This Early Access game may or may not change significantly over the course of development. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you may want to wait until the game progresses further in development."
AKA BUYERS BEWARE. If you aren't sure then you shouldn't be spending money on it. Value doesn't/shouldn't need to pay the bill for your impulse buying / poor decision making.
2) There will most likely be a very tight time frame (48 hours, 7 days, whatever) Something that makes it hard to 'completely' the game and then want a refund. This may also tie into time played of a game as well. (Eg, you can't log 60 hours into a game over 5 days, then want a refund on day 6)
3) There must be a defect or fault in the GAME that causes it to not function... If you bought Galactic Civilization 3 for your dual-core 10 year old computer and then complain when you can't run it... TOO BAD, There are system specs for the game, the game runs correctly (assuming you bought it after early access that is) the onus is on YOU to purchase games that you can play. I don't buy a motorcycle and then ***** at Yamaha for a refund because I can't drive it.
Either way the outcome Steam won't be losing out... as they will most likely refund the game, but then take the money back from the publisher. The publisher will get the hit most because that 30% distribution fee probably won't be factored in either. E.g. buy a game for $50, Valve takes 30% ($15 bucks). Consumer refunds it, Valve pays them back $50, and gets $50 back from the publisher. Even though the publisher only say $35 of that sale to start with.
