Complaint Review: Valve Corp - BELLEVUE Washington

We purchased a game before we went on Christmas vacation. We then played it after we got back and it was terrible.

We have kids and normally end up starting games and leaving them on the title screen before we actually start playing as we are getting the kids situated. Our games also spend a fair amount of time on the pause screen as we are attending to our obligations as parents.

After playing through the intro and starting the first level, it became clear that this was not the game it was advertised to be. So, we asked for a refund. The game was immediately taken from our inventory; but we were never contacted and no refund ever showed up. We reached back out after about a week or more and were told that our refund was rejected because the play time was 6 hours and 33 minutes.

We definitely didn't play anywhere near that amount of time and we asked steam to look at our game progression stats, achievements, etc. to prove we had not played the game much at all. All of our attempts to reason with the support staff were almost immediately responded to with a rejection due to the amount of time steam calculated. They never bothered to look at anything. In fact, it doesn't seem like they even bothered to read our support request messages.

We explained that steam counts even time on a title screen as "play time". I have a video to prove this and anyone can confirm this now by opening a game, then immediately closing it and you'll see your "play time" increase by 1 minute. Even if the game was only at the title screen for a couple seconds. So, the mechanism for judging how long a player has played is fundamentally flawed.

The amount for the game was not a high amount and we have purchased dozens of games from steam. Our issue is this, our only recourse is to file a dispute with the credit card company because we asked for a refund for a game that we literally played less than 2 hours and that steam took away from us when we asked for the refund. So, our property was literally taken away and steam is rejecting our request because of a metric that is demonstrably broken.

This was not an expensive game. I am seeing accounts online where steam bullies people by locking down their accounts and putting the rest of their purchased property at risk if they file credit card disputes. So, we are between a rock and a hard place. We either let them steal property from us and just "take it" or we file a dispute which will probably cause them to take yet more property from us by force as they lock down our account. How is this allowed to happen? How is the platform allowed to bully customers in this manner?

They can see all of your game progression. It should be possible for them to see how little of the game was actually played/experienced. Yet, their rejections to our numerous requests for a refund were in our inbox within minutes of sending each one. They claim refunds are done on a case by case basis; but this does not seem to be our experience. What can we do? I am no longer comfortable buying any games from steam unless I know for a fact that I want the game.

Even then, I am much more likely to try to get it from another outlet since they are not willing to stand behind their products nor take care of their customers. Again, we have a TON of games on steam and have never asked for a refund before. How are they able to take something away from me and then refuse to provide a refund? That is theft by any definition.