Steam Refunds

  • Thread starter Deleted member 83233
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 83233

Guest
Looks like Steam will be offering refunds for any game for up to 14 days after purchase as long as it was played for less than 2 hours. Interesting. I can see some potential for abuse there, but good new for people with legitimate issues with a given game.

http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds
 
Last edited by a moderator:
http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

For those at work.

Steam Refunds
You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it.

It doesn't matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours. There are more details below, but even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can ask for a refund anyway and we’ll take a look.

You will be issued a full refund of your purchase within a week of approval. You will receive the refund in Steam Wallet funds or through the same payment method you used to make the purchase. If, for any reason, Steam is unable to issue a refund via your initial payment method, your Steam Wallet will be credited the full amount. (Some payment methods available through Steam in your country may not support refunding a purchase back to the original payment method. Click here for a full list.)

Where Refunds Apply
The Steam refund offer, within two weeks of purchase and with less than two hours of playtime, applies to games and software applications on the Steam store. Here is an overview of how refunds work with other types of purchases.

Refunds on Downloadable Content
(Steam store content usable within another game or software application, "DLC")
DLC purchased from the Steam store is refundable within fourteen days of purchase, and if the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased, so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred. Please note that in some cases, Steam will be unable to give refunds for some third party DLC (for example, if the DLC irreversibly levels up a game character). These exceptions will be clearly marked as nonrefundable on the Store page prior to purchase.

Refunds on In-game Purchases
Steam will offer refund for in-game purchases within any Valve-developed games within forty-eight hours of purchase, so long as the in-game item has not been consumed, modified or transferred. Third-party developers will have the option to enable refunds for in-game items on these terms. Steam will tell you at the time of purchase if the game developer has opted to offer refunds on the in-game item you are buying. Otherwise, in-game purchases in non-Valve games are not refundable through Steam.

Refunds on Pre-Purchased Titles
When you pre-purchase a title on Steam (and have paid for the title in advance), you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title. The standard 14-day/two-hour refund period also applies, starting on the game’s release date.

Steam Wallet Refunds
You may request a refund for Steam Wallet funds within fourteen days of purchase if they were purchased on Steam and if you have not used any of those funds.

Refunds on Bundles
You can receive a full refund for any bundle purchased on the Steam Store, so long as none of the items in the bundle have been transferred, and if the combined usage time for all items in the bundle is less than two hours. If a bundle includes an in-game item or DLC that is not refundable, Steam will tell you if the whole bundle is refundable during check-out.

Purchases Made Outside of Steam
Valve cannot provide refunds for purchases made outside of Steam (for example, CD keys or Steam wallet cards purchased from third parties).

VAC Bans
If you have been banned by VAC (the Valve Anti-Cheat system) on a game, you lose the right to refund that game.

Movies
We are unable to offer refunds for movies on Steam.

Refunds on Gifts
We are unable to offer refunds for gifts after they have been redeemed by the recipient.

Abuse
Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.

How to Request a Refund
You can request a refund or get other assistance with your Steam purchases at help.steampowered.com.
 
Last edited:
Buy game.
Play 1 hour 59 minutes.
Refund.
Re-purchase game.
Play 1 hour 59 minutes.
Refund...

Repeat until finished with game.
 
We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.
Click to expand...

I find this bit interesting. Kinda nice that they don't have any qualms about that. I wonder if it would really be possible to use the system in this way though, if it takes a week to get a refund. Certainly isn't any good for daily deals. Possibly for weekend deals or midweek madness if they move quickly. Still neat.

I wonder how this applies to preorders. Does within 14 days of purchase translate to within 14 days of release for a game that's been preordered? If so, that would remove a whole lot of the risk out of preordering. Easy refund if the game releases and is shit.
 
Wish they had this when I bought Civilization Beyond Earth :/
 
The new refund system is automatic. It takes about 5 minutes according to people who have used it already.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Buy game.
Play 1 hour 59 minutes.
Refund.
Re-purchase game.
Play 1 hour 59 minutes.
Refund...

Repeat until finished with game.
Click to expand...

Yeah... probably not.

"Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. "
 
I have 230ish games in my Steam library, and really can't think of any that I'd want to return. However, that's mostly because a good portion were re-buys of games that I had on physical media as a means of consolidating digitally. (so they're something I enjoyed and would want to play again) I've been pretty careful with what I buy on there. I could definitely see it being handy though for something that gets released broken or turns out horrible. I bet it would have come in REALLY handy for anyone who bought Colonial Marines. :p
 
I can't imagine I would ever use this, I typically only buy games that I know for sure I want to play. I can however see people using this as sort of a demo system and then refunding after the 2 hrs.
 
so basically, its a way to demo games.....2 hours is too strict imho...4 hours would of been alot better imho but for those who have technical problems, this is fantastic

lets not forget they got a jump on their competition too..I don't believe anyone else gives refunds...correct me if I'm wrong please
 
Wish this had been around for FC2.

And for those of you who hate Origin, I'm willing to bet that this is coming about directly because of that competition and their pretty easy refund process.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Wish this had been around for FC2.

And for those of you who hate Origin, I'm willing to bet that this is coming about directly because of that competition and their pretty easy refund process.
Click to expand...

I think Origin only refunds EA games right? Or do they do refunds for others also?
 
Viper87227 said:
I wonder how this applies to preorders. Does within 14 days of purchase translate to within 14 days of release for a game that's been preordered? If so, that would remove a whole lot of the risk out of preordering. Easy refund if the game releases and is shit.
Click to expand...

Refunds on Pre-Purchased Titles
When you pre-purchase a title on Steam (and have paid for the title in advance), you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title. The standard 14-day/two-hour refund period also applies, starting on the game’s release date.
 
Bangorang said:
so basically, its a way to demo games.....2 hours is too strict imho...4 hours would of been alot better imho but for those who have technical problems, this is fantastic
Click to expand...

Well, that's 2 hours of actually playing the game. You have 14 days from the purchase. IMO 2 hours is enough contiguous gameplay to decide if it's broken, or just plain sucks out of the gate. If it doesn't fall into those two categories, returning it seems a little on the shady side to me. That's just me though. I typically research quite a bit before buying, and don't usually have much in the way of technical issues.
 
cageymaru said:
Refunds on Pre-Purchased Titles
When you pre-purchase a title on Steam (and have paid for the title in advance), you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title. The standard 14-day/two-hour refund period also applies, starting on the game’s release date.
Click to expand...

Son of a bitch I even read it TWICE before I asked :p
 
Bangorang said:
so basically, its a way to demo games.....2 hours is too strict imho...4 hours would of been alot better imho but for those who have technical problems, this is fantastic

lets not forget they got a jump on their competition too..I don't believe anyone else gives refunds...correct me if I'm wrong please
Click to expand...

I think 4 hours would be too long. It would be especially tough on many low cost indie games that could have a large portion completed in four hours.

Two hours should be enough time to figure out if your going to have any major technical issues. Beyond that, there's a fine line between giving enough time to decide if you like a game and allowing people to play a large majority of a game for free.
 
Steam finally got with the times in terms of refunds...or they copied Origin's policy...either way I'm glad they are now offering this
 
Wow, hell has frozen over. You guys know I always bashed Steam for their shitty customer service, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
 
Seems like people will begin using this as a way to demo games in the absence of game demos. Not a bad thing though, in fact could be a win-win for Valve since many people are likely to just keep a game after going through the trouble of downloading and then playing for 90 minutes.
 
the fact that this applies to DLC and in-game purchases is even more impressive...some DLC can be completed in 2 hours
 
if they just did demos, no reason to waste money into refunding....oh wait, games today are like demos.
 
DPI said:
Seems like people will begin using this as a way to demo games in the absence of game demos. Not a bad thing though, in fact could be a win-win for Valve since many people are likely to just keep a game after going through the trouble of downloading and then playing for 90 minutes.
Click to expand...

The trouble of downloading!? That may be true for those of us stuck on 4G LTE in rural areas, paying $10/gig... but if you're on a decent cable connection and download a 10GB game in 15-30mins (in the background while you play a round of CSGO...) then there is no trouble and no qualms about getting a quick refund.

I know I'll be refunding at least ~3-5 games per year, that seems to be the average that I get stuck with because I fall for the impulse day 1 purchase instead of waiting for reviews like I know I should. I can easily tell 1 hour in if the game isn't for me (doesn't let me remap the keys so I can't stand playing it is a good example).

Sometimes you get that feeling a game is going to be bad but so many people are posting on an internet forum saying how good it is (maybe they're masochists, maybe their delusional, maybe they work there, maybe they want to justify their purchase to themselves) so you buy it even though it's giving you a bad vibe. 10 minutes in you know you've made a huge mitsake- yep those are now getting refunded.

I wonder what companies are going to do now that we are allowed to demo their games for the first time since Jazz the Jackrabbit? Are they going to have to try harder to push out quality content or are they going to stop selling games on steam? Something has to give.
 
VulcaN said:
I wonder what companies are going to do now that we are allowed to demo their games for the first time since Jazz the Jackrabbit? Are they going to have to try harder to push out quality content or are they going to stop selling games on steam? Something has to give.
Click to expand...

developers will make the first 2 hours amazing from a graphics and performance standpoint...once the 3rd hour kicks in performance drops :D
 
polonyc2 said:
Steam finally got with the times in terms of refunds...or they copied Origin's policy...either way I'm glad they are now offering this
Click to expand...

Origins is a bit better in that you get up to 24 hours or so. But the window is longer on Steam (14 days VS 24 hours or so). So they are different, but Valve certainly did copy them. Kind of like installing to different drives without doing a manual work around.

This is why Origin & GoG are good. It gives Valve some incentive to improve the platform rather than just monetize/socialize the crap out of the platform.
 
Flogger23m said:
This is why Origin & GoG are good. It gives Valve some incentive to improve the platform rather than just monetize/socialize the crap out of the platform.
Click to expand...

yup...Origin, Galaxy, Uplay all helped push Valve away from being the Imperial Monopoly
 
polonyc2 said:
yup...Origin, Galaxy, Uplay all helped push Valve away from being the Imperial Monopoly
Click to expand...

Now if only the games that EA took away and ran home with would come to Steam. Jerks!

(I hardly think Mass Effect 1 & 2 constitute a "Mass Effect Collection". Also not looking forward to having Mirror's Edge 2 and the new Need for Speed game in Origin instead of Steam. (assuming they're good of course...))
 
WoW, WoW, WoW, I cannot believe this is true. I definitely like the part of being able to get a refund for a game that goes on sale withing the allotted refund time.

To bad I can't get a refund for DayZ. I was talked into buying it the week of its early access release at full price of $45ish. After that I decided never to buy an early access game again.
 
Parmenides said:
This could be abused with offline mode.
Click to expand...

I'm sure Valve has thought of that. Wouldn't surprise me if you could only initiate a refund request in online mode (thereby insuring your time played is current on the Steam servers), and likewise I'm sure for the refund to process you have to again ensure your online so that the games files can be deleted and access can be fully revoked from your account.

A better question is... there are games on Steam that once downloaded can be run completely free of Steam... Or at least there used to be, it's been a while since I've tried or looked into it, but I know at launch the abysmal Takedown could be launched independent of Steam. If games like this do in fact exist, how do you prevent people from downloading the game, copying everything to another location, and then getting a refund? Or similarly piracy happening by way of copying a games files, getting a refund, and then finding a cracked EXE. Same idea as torrents, sure, but it keeps you off P2P networks.

I'm sure Valve has thought of these things, but it still makes me wonder what the answers are.
 
Viper87227 said:
I'm sure Valve has thought of that. Wouldn't surprise me if you could only initiate a refund request in online mode (thereby insuring your time played is current on the Steam servers), and likewise I'm sure for the refund to process you have to again ensure your online so that the games files can be deleted and access can be fully revoked from your account.

A better question is... there are games on Steam that once downloaded can be run completely free of Steam... Or at least there used to be, it's been a while since I've tried or looked into it, but I know at launch the abysmal Takedown could be launched independent of Steam. If games like this do in fact exist, how do you prevent people from downloading the game, copying everything to another location, and then getting a refund? Or similarly piracy happening by way of copying a games files, getting a refund, and then finding a cracked EXE. Same idea as torrents, sure, but it keeps you off P2P networks.

I'm sure Valve has thought of these things, but it still makes me wonder what the answers are.
Click to expand...

Thieves are going to steal regardless. Only worry about making your paying customers happy and you'll prosper. Thieves notice how much time you take out for to assist and update the game to appease your paying customers, and they may become paying customers at a sale. Otherwise don't worry about what they do. They are not the demographic you're trying to appease and have as returning customers..
 
WTF.. Is this real life? Valve actually almost humanizing themselves?

The best part of this?

STEP UP DEVELOPERS.. No longer will your half baked games stand a chance.. If it's clickbait overhyped crap with flashy demo videos and it sucks a left one.. Yep.. You're not getting rich anymore... Time to be real developers or sink now.. This will have a huge affect on the bullshit thrown on early access.
 
Last edited:
polonyc2 said:
Steam finally got with the times in terms of refunds...or they copied Origin's policy...either way I'm glad they are now offering this
Click to expand...

This is something that Origin was for sure doing first and Steam was playing catch up.
 
theNoid said:
This is something that Origin was for sure doing first and Steam was playing catch up.
Click to expand...

Except that Origin's policy applies only to EA games and not DLC. Steam's refund policy is leagues better because it applies to everything.

I also prefer Steam's time limit which is based on actual accumulated game time, as opposed to Origin's approach of giving you 24 hours to request a refund from the point at which you launch the game. I seldom have huge tracts of time to spend playing a game and hate the idea of having to set aside a day to test one, although I can see the attraction for people who have massive amounts of free time.
 
I've purchased games from Steam only to find out after installing that they include 3rd party DRM (that wasn't listed in the game description). I got one refund for that, but they refused on other games. I like this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top