Indie developer asks Valve to change its 2-hour refund policy as 55,000 players refunded his game after finishing it

Indie developer Zoroarts, creator of the co-op paddling game Paddle Paddle Paddle, has publicly asked Valve to reconsider Steam's refund policy after claiming over 55,000 copies of his game have been refunded so far. He posted on X that the game has a 21 percent refund rate despite sitting at 90 percent positive reviews, calling the situation something that "should not be possible."

The issue seems to come down to how quickly the game can be finished. Steam's no-questions refund policy lets players get their money back if they've owned a game for less than 14 days and played it for under two hours, no matter how they feel about it. Zoroarts had originally designed Paddle Paddle Paddle to take closer to three and a half hours, but speedrunners and experienced players have been finishing it in one to two hours. This keeps them eligible for a refund even after seeing the credits roll.

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The developer Zoroarts, aka Mateo Covic, told Kotaku he's still in favor of Steam's refund policy as a rule, but flagged how odd it feels watching people enjoy the game and refund it anyway. He's suggested that Steam display the expected playtime next to the price on store pages, so shorter games are not automatically flagged as "too short" once played through.

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Fan reaction to this incident has been split. A chunk of the response online has apparently been some version of "don't make games under two hours then," treating the refunds as a design problem rather than a policy gap. It's a fair point in isolation, but it overlooks how much shorter games used to be, which was considered totally normal.

Classic titles like Contra could reportedly be cleared in around 30 minutes by a skilled player, and nobody expected a refund for that. Length alone was never really the measure of value.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Question #1

How would Steam displaying expected playtime on store pages affect refund eligibility for short games?

If Steam displayed expected playtime on store pages, Zoroarts suggests it would prevent shorter games from being automatically perceived as "too short" when players finish them quickly and then refund under the two-hour rule. This visibility could reduce refunds driven by players who finish a game within two hours but still consider the experience complete rather than faulty.

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For a policy built to protect players from buying broken or misleading games, this looks like an edge case Valve probably didn't plan for. Whether Valve makes any changes here remains to be seen, though the story highlights another way a genuinely consumer-friendly Steam policy can be exploited against small developers.