Gaming giant Valve has announced a new return policy, which enables users to receive refunds on downloaded Steam games for any reason.
Providing the return request comes within 14 days of purchase and with less than 2 hours of playtime on the clock, Valve will refund the money.
In a post on the Steam website, Valve announced: “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.”
The refund will be processed within a week to the payment method used to make the purchase. If that’s not available, gamers will see the cash appear in their Steam Wallet.
The refunds also apply to DLC providing it has not been “consumed, modified or transferred” or “irreversibly levels up a game character.” In-game purchases also fall under similar criteria, while pre-purchased titles and bundles also fall under the money back guarantee as long as they meet the 14 day/ 2 hour criteria.
Refunds won’t be processed for purchases made outside of Steam, on Steam Movies or on purchased made while redeeming gifts.
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The change in tact is quite a departure from the firm’s initial policy, which only allowed refunds in exceptional cases. Such as that time a couple of years back when a gamer claimed BioShock offended his religious sensitivities.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
