Can You Buy a Game Again After Steam Refund
Everything you need to know about Steam refunds, explained
When Valve introduced the Steam refund organization back in 2015, it promised to make buying digital games as worry-free an experience equally purchasing any physical product. Steam refunds would let you buy with confidence: if a game didn't piece of work, wasn't as advertised, or was just plain bad, you lot could go your coin dorsum quickly and painlessly without having to trade a novel'due south worth of emails with customer support.
Fast forrard two years, and Steam refunds take struggled to deliver on that promise. Much of the refund process is poorly-explained or hidden from the boilerplate Steam user completely, making information technology tough to understand why the system works the way it does. Even Valve's own Steam refund FAQ offers only the most basic of explanations equally to what y'all can and can't refund, neglecting a number of important questions Steam users deserve the answers to.
That's why nosotros've put together this Steam refund primer: an Advanced FAQ, if you lot will. Information technology addresses the most confusing aspects of Steam'south refund system, demystifying them using information sourced from Valve'south fragmented FAQ, official Steam Back up forum responses, and discussions we've had with game developers. With this primer in mitt, your adjacent Steam refund should go a lot more smoothly.
How Steam refunds work, in short:
- Go to the Steam back up folio and click "Purchases," then click the game you'd like to refund.
- Select "I would like a refund," and then "I'd like to asking a refund." You tin can then choose your Steam Wallet or the payment method you'd like to receive your refund through.
- If it'due south within 14 days of purchase and you've played for less than two hours, the refund request is automatically canonical.
- Within a week, your purchase will be refunded.
Is it possible to asking for a game outside the 14-day/two-hour window?
Yes, and Valve will consider information technology on a case-past-case basis. If the refund is well outside the 14-day limit, however, it will exist rejected.
Is there a limit to how many games you can refund?
No. You can asking as many refunds as you desire through Steam, just if Valve believes you're abusing the organization, it can revoke your right to request future refunds.
If your refund is refused, can you claiming the decision?
Yes. If you experience your refund was unfairly refused, you tin consequence another request and it'll be reconsidered by a different Valve employee. A fresh set of optics may be enough to go it approved.
How long does information technology take for the coin to testify upwards afterward a refund has been canonical?
Most refunds are processed within seven days of approval, but refunds for purchases made using international payment methods can accept longer. Steam publishes some public statistics for refunds.
How much of the refund process is automated?
According to Valve, any refund made within 14 days of buy for a game with less than two hours of playtime will exist automatically canonical. If y'all've requested a number of refunds recently, or your refunds falls outside of the xiv-24-hour interval/ii-hour window, information technology won't be automatically canonical and will instead exist manually reviewed by a Valve employee.
How does the financial side of refunds work for Valve and the developer?
When you buy a game on Steam, the coin doesn't go directly to the developer. Valve doesn't distribute sales revenue to developers until the end of the calendar month after the sales have been made, significant devs don't run across money from January'due south sales until the stop of February. Because the Steam refund window is typically only 14 days, developers technically don't lose money from refunds—they just never see the sale in the first place.
Tin can you go a alarm for refunding too many games?
Yes. If you upshot multiple refund requests within a short flow of fourth dimension, Valve will send yous a warning along with your refund ticket stating that the refund system is not to exist used equally a way of demoing games. While there is no official number on how many games you can refund before receiving the warning, it seems to trigger afterward issuing around 5 refunds within six months. The standard warning message is equally follows:
"You've requested a agglomeration of refunds recently. Delight go along in mind that refunds are not a method for trying out games. If we call back the refund system is being misused nosotros'll reject to grant future refunds."
Can people farm games for achievements/cards and and then refund them?
This was a problem when Steam refunds were first rolled out, but Valve later on updated the Steam Trading Carte du jour organisation in ii key means to minimize abuse. The beginning modify prevents cards from dropping until later yous've put at least 2 hours into a game, by which time you're no longer eligible for an automatic refund. This restriction initially applied to all Steam users, merely Valve has since limited information technology to new accounts and accounts that have made a refund request within the last few months.
The 2nd modify Valve made to the trading bill of fare organisation stops games from dropping cards the moment they're released on Steam. Instead, a game must accrue a certain number of owners and players before its cards will start dropping. This threshold, what Valve calls its 'confidence metric', varies from game to game, and is intended to stem the tide of 'fake' games released purely to make money from farming trading cards. For less-popular games, this can mean cards won't first dropping until the xiv-day refund window has passed.
It's too worth noting that while you can claim a refund outside the 2-hour/fourteen-twenty-four hours refund window, Valve may discover if you lot abuse this to subcontract cards and forbid you from requesting refunds in the time to come.
Achievements, meanwhile, have no such farming restrictions, and tin can exist earned freely during the two-60 minutes refund window without issue.
How has Steam's new gifting organization changed the fashion refunds work?
Since the kickoff of May 2017, gifting games on Steam works a little differently. Where gifts used to exist as items in your inventory, they must now be sent or scheduled to one of your Steam friends at the time of buy. If a friend declines your gift, the purchase will exist refunded instead of the game appearing in your inventory. Other than that, refunding gifts works much the same as before.
Can you refund a souvenir you purchased for someone else?
Yes, provided the gift has not however been redeemed past the person you lot bought it for.
Can you refund a gift that'southward already been redeemed?
Aye, but the refund request will need to exist initiated by the souvenir recipient. The request will also demand to be made within fourteen days of you purchasing the gift, and the recipient can't have played the game for more than ii hours. Once the recipient has initiated the refund request on their end, you lot'll be able to submit your ain asking as normal.
If you lot buy multiple games in a single transaction, tin can yous refund simply ane of them?
Yep, simply it's a decidedly confusing process. Bear in mind this but applies when you purchase multiple individual games in a single transaction, non when you buy multiple games equally part of a bundle.
Get-go, you'll need to exist refunding the purchase to your Steam Wallet—if you desire to refund to your credit card or another external payment method, you'll need to refund the whole transaction or zilch at all. Then you'll need to ignore the fact that Steam will listing every game from the transaction in your refund request and instead just check the total value of the refund. This should be equal to the sum of only the games you lot selected to refund. Once canonical, but those games volition be removed from your library and your Steam wallet will be credited with their purchase toll. It'due south a disruptive procedure, but it does work.
Can you refund bundles?
Yeah, so long as the cumulative playtime on all games within the bundle is less than 2 hours. Certain bundles that include not-refundable DLC may not be eligible for a refund, and Steam will let you know this when yous first buy the parcel.
Tin can you refund a single game from a parcel?
No. Only complete bundles can be refunded.
If a game goes on sale afterward your purchased it, can y'all refund and rebuy it at the cheaper price?
Yep, although you may have to pay the cheaper price out-of-pocket since refunds tin can take upwardly to vii days to process.
Can I refund Dota 2 and go dorsum all the hours I spent farming creeps?
No. Every hour you lot've put into Dota 2 is legally the property of Valve and may or may not be used against y'all in the time to come for the purpose of selling hats.
Just kidding.
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Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-refunds/
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