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Comment by croak3r | Hacker News Reader

That's just not true, GoG offer a 30 day refund even if you played the game with no maximum time, Xbox say you get a refund if you haven't "accumulated a significant amount of play time", Epic offer a under 2 hour refund and Origin seem to have a similar stance. Looks to me like 2 hours play time is a industry standard and Steam aren't doing anything special.

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These windows appeared after Steam pioneered them and most of them require contacting support which can literally take hours if you're not from US (if you can even get it).

Haven't tried with GoG though, never needed it there.

Origin was doing 2 hour refunds around 2 years before Steam

The oldest articles I can find:

Origin [2013]: https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-origin-refunds/

Steam [2015]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/06/02/valve...

And as another person (and if my own memory serves) mentioned, Steam's move was nearly entirely driven by pending lawsuits.

Don't get me wrong, I primarily use Steam and support them because they're the only company really caring about Linux, but I don't think they can be given the credit for pioneering the current refund landscape.

The one time I requested an Xbox One game refund (downloaded, unplayed) it was a brief form to fill out online - quick and easy.

EA with Origin was doing refunds years before Steam was, so could you clarify how Steam "pioneered" them? Check your facts.

Steam was the first store implementing the 2 hour limit.

And for GOG not to have a limit on playtime makes sense, since (unless you use Galaxy), they have no way of knowing how much you've played a game.

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