Steam’s “no questions asked” refund policy makes it “super easy for players to abuse this rule”, says indie developer

An indie developer who says they have had to refund 55,000 sales allegedly due to Steam’s two-hour refund policy said it “should not be possible” for players to be refunded for games they leave positive reviews for.

After sharing their frustration on Twitter, solo developer Mateo Covic told GamesRadar+ that even though Paddle Paddle Paddle’s Steam reviews were “90 percent very positive”, Steam’s policy on providing no questions asked refunds within two weeks to players with less than two hours of playtime “just makes it super easy for players to abuse this rule”.

“I planned a medium playtime of 3.5 hours for the full level and the level from the free demo takes ~40 minutes to complete. So the game was planned to launch with ~4 hours of total gameplay,” Covic wrote on Twitter.

“There are tons of reviews with 5+ hours and even 20+ hours but the game was also played by a lot of speedrunners and just really good gamers who made it in 1-2 hours… Got many insulting comments with ‘Make a Game longer than 2 hours’.”

“I’m 100% pro refund but the current ‘no questions asked if you request a refund within two weeks and with less than two hours of playtime’ policy just makes it super easy for players to abuse this rule,” Covic said.

“Steam says that refunds are not for people to play games for free, and refunds in general should be requested (in my opinion) when the Steam page misled you with wrong information, the game had problems that prevent you [playing or enjoying] the game, and other similar reasons that can be found in the Steam policy,” he added.

“My tweet was targeted towards the people who enjoyed the game, wrote a positive review, and refunded the game just because they can. Many people think that I’m a complete asshole now and want to remove the refund policy in general but that was never my intention.”

As a result of his comments on Twitter, Covic says he is now getting more “hateful DMs and insulting comments” than he’d ever seen, with Paddle Paddle Paddle “review bombed already and went from very positive recent Steam Reviews to mixed ones.”

“I guess it’s a big learning opportunity and I will think twice before posting a statement / request like that in the future,” he added.

Covic seemed frustrated that he didn’t know “how many people really refunded my game with a true reason since you could just lie and choose one of the possible refund reasons”, adding that Steam’s policy makes it “super easy” to get a refund without leaving meaningful feedback.

“I can see how many players refunded the game because it was too difficult, for example,” he said, “but it would help if they left a helpful comment too since that would help me to work on that problem.”

Not all players who’ve requested a refund say it’s to do with its length, however.

“Obviously I will refund this game, but want to make it clear to the developers that it is not cause I completed it in under two hours and this game has no replay-ability, but because it is low effort ragebait streamer trash,” wrote one Steam reviewer. “It manages to stand out as especially bad in an already lazy genre given the movement is janky and the whole game would not look out of place for free on Newgrounds circa 2010.

“The developer seemingly read a couple of troll comments saying they would refund after completing and made the wild leap that all or most of the 55,000 refunds were due to this, and not cause this game is disappointing even for coop bull***. I have kept [less than] 2 hr games I would play again like Kabuto Park but this game might be the easiest refund of all time.”

Other commenters, including game marketing consultant Indie Game Joe, said that while he understood Covic’s frustration, “that [refund] policy is part of the reason [Paddle Paddle Paddle] got 270k sales” in the first place, as it gives players the opportunity to try a game knowing that if it doesn’t work or isn’t very good, they can request a refund.

“It’s not a flaw in the system, it’s a trade-off that comes with the territory, and Paddle Paddle Paddle got so much of the upside that it feels weird to frame the downside as Steam’s fault,” he added.

In the first half of 2026, Valve reportedly recorded its highest-ever results, generating an enormous $11.1bn in revenue, which is more than it made during the game-heavy end of last year, and considerably more than it made during the first half of 2025. The Chinese market, higher prices on new releases, and third-party publishers returning to the storefront after dropping their own game-launchers are all viable reasons for Valve’s continued growth.

That first part is especially notable; the Chinese market is massive, and as far back as February 2025, 50 percent of all Steam accounts belonged to Chinese-speaking users.