How To Request A Game Refund On Steam

Spending money on a disappointing product is never a good thing. It’s easy to get lured into a regrettable purchase by a great trailer or marketing campaign.

Sometimes a poor release is unavoidable, and you might also want to support the developers as they try to fix the game. However, there are also instances where a game is knowingly released incomplete or promoted using false advertising.

This short guide explains how to request a refund for a game on Steam. If you have recently made a purchase and feel the quality of the product does not justify the price, you can take action. You can easily receive a refund.

Here’s how:

Rules For Requesting A Game Refund On Steam

Requesting a reimbursement on Steam is straightforward, but there are several things you should know before attempting to obtain your money back.

You can only get a refund if you:

• Are requesting a refund within two weeks of your purchase.
• You haven’t played the game on Steam for a total of more than two hours.

Rules for refunding a pre-purchased title:

• If you have pre-paid for a title that is due to release in the future, you can request a refund at any time before the game releases.
• If the pre-purchased game is released and you play it, the two-week and two-hour rules apply.

Refunding in-game purchases are possible if:

• You haven’t consumed or modified the purchased item.
• You haven’t traded or sold the purchased item to another account in-game.

Valve will refund any in-game items you purchase within 48 hours if they developed the game. However, if third-party developers made the game, that developer would have to manually enable refunds of in-game items. Keep this in mind when making purchases.

Valve isn’t responsible for any in-game refund requests in titles that aren’t developed by themselves.

Steam has often displayed an understanding of events and circumstances that are “outside” their official policy. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 had severe and well-documented technical issues upon its release. Many Steam users received refunds for the game, despite having played it for more than two hours, given the number of issues.

It’s reasonable to say that Steam’s policy is rather generous. If you believe you should receive a refund for a game you have purchased, here’s how to secure one on Steam.

How To Get A Refund On Steam

Now that you know about Steam’s refund policy, here’s a step-by-step guide on requesting a refund.

You can do this from either your browser or your Steam customer. Use whichever method is more convenient for you.

1. Open Steam on your PC and log into your account.
2. In the top left corner of the window, find and click the “Help” button. Click on “Steam Support”.
   
3. You should see a Steam Support section asking, “What do you need help with?”. Click on “A Purchase” or “Purchases” if you want to request a refund.
   
4. You will see a list of all the purchases you’ve made on Steam since opening your account. Select the product you wish to have refunded. As you can only refund recently purchased games, it should be among the first items on the list.
   
5. You will be asked to choose from a list of the more common problems users face with the specific game or similar products. If none of the given options are relevant, you can skip this step and move on to “I would like a refund.”
   
   
6. Complete the form and provide feedback to help Steam in the future (optional). Select where you want to receive your funds in the dropdown menu. If you intend to buy something else on Steam, it’s quicker for the funds to be refunded into your Steam Wallet. Otherwise, you can choose your credit card.
   
7. After submitting the request, you will receive a confirmation e-mail from Steam. Now you just need to wait for a response from Steam.
   

Conclusion

In this manual, we have described how to send back a game on Steam. Utilize this option if you are not happy with a purchase, but be cautious; Steam could label your account if you continuously request refunds! Certain users deliberately play a game for under two hours, then send it back to acquire a fresh one, which breaks Steam’s rules.

Steam flags these accounts for questionable behavior and may refuse to give them any further refunds.

Remember, the refund process is very similar on a web browser, but this guide describes the in-app method. Most people use the Steam client instead of accessing the platform through their browser.