Valve has made some updates to the Refund policy on Steam. Let’s have look, shall we? Maybe we can finally get our money back for Spore.
Steam’s Refund Policy Expands
News & Rumors

Here’s a list of what can be refunded and how…
Games – Refundable within 14 Days of purchase. If the game has less than 2 hours on it.
DLC – Refundable within 14 Days of purchase if the underlying title was played for less than 2 hours.
In-Game Purchases – Refundable within 48 Hours as long as the item hasn’t been consumed, modified, or transferred. (Applies to all Valve games, 3rd Party Devs have option to enable Refunds)
Pre-Orders – Refundable anytime until the game launches, on release you can still get a refund within 14 days, as long as the title has less than 2 hours of playtime.
Wallet Funds – Refundable within 14 days as long as the funds haven’t been used.
Bundles – Refundable within 14 days as long as the playtime on all items in the bundle are less than 2 hours combined.
(It should be noted that all Refund options need to go through Steam Support.)
Now for the flip side, here is what can’t be refunded.
Purchases Made Outside of Steam – Obviously.
Games You Have Been VAC Banned From – Don’t turn on your wallhacks in Insurgency and expect to get your money back.
Movies – With films bought on Steam, there is no Theater for you to throw your popcorn and drinks around when you realize you can’t get a refund.
Gifts – It’s too late to give back Bad Rats.
If you want to look further into the Refund Policy on Steam, check out the Steam Store page.
As for Spore? It looks like I’ve owned it for too long and have played it too much to get a refund. Darn.
I have seen this new policy yesterday and also cross-read it. Steam knows that they have the worst customer service out there (see GOG f.e.) and this is a step towards improvements.
I personally think that those rules are okay. They filter nicely people trying to trick the system out and really keep those who are honest.
Reading the VAC ban condition made me smile. Definitely cheating is now breaking your warranty and I like this principle. Hang’em high!
Let’s see how this will get applied for the soon to happen summer sale 🙂
I agree, willing to see if they will go any further with it.
Also, pretty sure Summer Sale has to be like next week.
Soon, so soon.