Steam offers refunds for games played under two hours

Steam users can now apply for refunds within 14 days of purchase on games played for less than two hours.

Valve has said customers can request their money back for “any reason”. Examples offered include not meeting hardware requirements, purchasing a game by mistake or simply not liking it.

DLC purchases can also be refunded, as long as the game it is for has been played for less than two hours since the extra content was bought, and as long as it has not been used or transferred to another user. In-game purchases from Valve titles are also refundable provided they haven’t been consumed.

Any players banned by the Valve anti-cheat system will not be able to get their money back, regardless of time played.

Those who fall outside of these rules can still ask for a refund, at which point Valve will take a look at the request.

All refunds will be issued within a week of approval.

Valve has said it will monitor potential abuse of the system by users trying to obtain free games. It has also stated it does not consider applying for a refund for a game subsequently on sale an abuse of the system.

“Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam – not as a way to get free games,” read a statement. “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.”