Valve Says ‘Steam’ Policy Still Applies To “No Man’s Sky” Refunds, No Exceptions

Disgruntled players were asking for refunds from “Steam” for “No Man’s Sky” and expecting that they would be able to do so even if they already played the game for over two hours. The trend started because of a Reddit post insinuating that the PC game shop would provide exceptions to the game. As it turns out, this is simply not the case.

Because of the post on the forum site, Valve was forced to issue a disclaimer that the rules for refunds apply to “No Man’s Sky” as it does to all other games on the platform. This means that customers can only receive refunds for games less than 14 days in their possession and which they only played for two hours.

As PC Gamer points out, much of the fervor directed at Steam’s refund policies was fueled by the post, the number of upvotes that it got, and even the testimony of certain YouTubers who claim that they did indeed get refunds for the game, despite playing it for more than two hours. However, the reasons for these results were due to direct pleas to customer service representatives as opposed to an automatic response to the outcry from a minority group among fans.

For the rest of the players who bought the game, it would seem that the reception has been relatively positive, Kotaku notes. It’s simply that the small percentage of rabid gamers clamoring for full refunds is quite vocal in their attempt to get attention. As a result, the vast majority of satisfied players are having their voices drowned out, many of whom are being bullied into silence.

On the matter of coming to the defense of the game, however, Polygon wrote a piece arguing that silence is the worst thing that Sony and Hello Games could do right now. Instead of clamming up about the issue, they could open a more productive discussion with players, explaining why some features had to be cut and why day-one patches are so important.