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Steam now offering refunds

For "any reason" if you play under two hours and apply within 14 days of purchase

Valve has made the major step of introducing refunds to its Steam retail platform, with fairly generous terms and conditions.

"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," Valve said.

"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."

The move has caused concern among some developers though.

Refunds can apply to DLC, in-game items, pre-purchased titles, bundles and the Steam Wallet. Players that have been banned by VAC (the Valve Anti-Cheat system) on a game lose the right to refund that game. A full list of conditions is available here.

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Rachel Weber avatar
Rachel Weber has been with GamesIndustry since 2011 and specialises in news-writing and investigative journalism. She has more than five years of consumer experience, having previously worked for Future Publishing in the UK.
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