STEAM starting to issue refunds for players over the 2h playtime limit due to PSN on Helldivers 2

It sucks that we can't just have nice things any more, there always has to be some executive somewhere that just totally ruins everything for everyone all the time.
- Not to mention the people that defend it as if it was a good thing. Good things don't send you from overwhelmingly positive to mixed over the weekend.
  
  Mixed so far. The one thing that arrowhead has taught this community is teamwork. We're on course for Mostly Negative in the next week or two.
  
  that defend it as if it was a good thing.
  I haven't really seen much of that. Just people pointing out that from the start the game has always said a PSN account was required to play online, but a bug meant that it wasn't enforced.
  Ultimately it's all shit Sony is pulling as the bastard publishers.
- Welcome to capitalism

I'm actually really surprised that Valve is loosening up on this one. They usually play hardball when it comes to refunding a game past the 2 hour mark.
Going by the price being listed in what appears to be USD, I'm going to assume this is a US player, but is there any confirmation on where this person is from? My theory was that Valve wouldn't issue refunds unless you were from a soon-to-be-unsupported region, so that could change my thoughts on things.
EDIT: Also just noticed this was a refund back to the Steam wallet, and not to the original payment method. I've not refunded a game on Steam in many years, but is this their standard practice these days?
- I'm actually really surprised that Valve is loosening up on this one. They usually play hardball when it comes to refunding a game past the 2 hour mark.
  They make exceptions when a game has major issues or implements some significant change that dramatically alters the availability of the product. No Man's Sky, Starfield, and Cyberpunk 2077 all could be refunded outside the 2 hour window - at least for some people. And of course everyone who bought The Day Before was refunded entirely.
  I expect they'll be allowing refunds for anyone in a country where PSN does not operate at a minimum. It's really hard to argue that the game is still playable when the required service is not available in your home country.
  
  Yeah like if you bought CP2077 or NMS now and played past the 2h mark now you're not getting that same refund.
  
  I'm left wondering one thing though, if the game was going to require PSN then it was arguably never supposed to be available in these countries in the first place? Seems like a pretty big fuckup that it was, then baiting a ton of people.
- Steam will do refunds to the payment method used if fewer than 30 days have passed, but after that point, they'll only refund to Steam Wallet. At least, that's how it worked last time I checked.
- You can choose where you want it (original payment method or Steam wallet) if I recall correctly.
- As for the wallet thing , it does depend on the payment method at least in my country

I got a refund four hours in when I explained that I had spent two of those in a queue waiting to play.
I know they've fixed that now, but the two hours arbitrary limit is a bit... Limiting.
- The two hour limit is for automated refunds. Under two hours, you'll get your money back with no questions asked. Above that, it's on a case-by-case basis.
- I have 3 hours of playtime on ARK, which was 3 hours of going through settings, loading screens and crashes, and they have refused a refund.
  
  Like the other comment says, the first refusal is automated, you need to resubmit to get it seen by a person

Erm... What am I missing about Helldivers 2? I don't own it so I'm not in the loop.
EDIT: nvm, found the answer in a different post. Probably should have looked before asking.
- The publisher, Sony is now requiring you link a psn account to play. Apparently there is no psn in quite a few countries, and because of Sony’s frequent data breaches people do not want a psn account.
- Nothing wrong with asking honest questions. The point of this place is to foster discussion and community and sometimes that involves helping someone get up to speed.
  
  Yeah that's something that always irritated the shit outta me at reddit when people would say take two seconds to Google. These places are social media the point is to interact to an extent. Don't worry about asking easy questions, Lemmy has been way more chill about it so far.
  
  There's so many people who dismiss honest questions because they've been asked/answered elsewhere. You're being disingenuous here by taking that stance.

Praise our Lord Gaben (Daniel) may valve forever more be a private corporation fuck the stock market fuck you Logan Rosson & your brothers (market) effectiveness. Fyi they both live in Utah so gettem
- The idea of Valve ever becoming a public corp ranks higher in my lists of fears than being eaten alive by zombies
- Or at least have it transition into a cooperative or employee owned in his will
  
  If the corporate cultures changes for the worse and they hire greedy people that could also shift into the negative.
- Um, who are those people? And what does any of this have to do with Utah? Arrowhead (the studio behind Helldivers) is based in Sweden, Valve is based in WA, and Sony's American division is in NY.
  I live in Utah, but I don't know who you're asking me to "get"...
- Who?

Joined the flow. Asked for a refund just now

I tried a 2nd time and just got the same automated message about the 2hr limit.
- Open a ticket with support where an actual human will read it. The automated refund tool will always deny it.

Rock And Stone!
- Yeah, I tried that. Unless you are playing with friends the community is really awful. They fell into the same min/max, “kick all new players” that other games fell into. It’s not worth buying.
  
  yo fuck that, personally I have always had wonderful experiences online to the point that I rarely if ever play singleplayer instead of jumping into a match with randos. Im sorry people werent more chill and willing to have fun playing with you, it definitely goes against the spirit of the game and those people should know better honestly.

Mine was a gifted copy so my buddy can't get their money back, damn.
- Wait. You sure? I could swear you can refund gifted copy.
  
  Definitely can. The friend has to claim it after you file for the refund.

I requested a refund a few days ago with 2.1 hours played. Still don’t have it, so hopefully they’ll get around to it
Edit - they denied me because I bought it over 2 weeks ago.
- I've heard you need to keep pestering them, you probably got automatically denied. Like escalate to a person and people have had to ask 5 times before they got it with over 200 hours played.
  
  At that point, it probably starts costing steam more money in support agents.

At this point it is cheaper for Steam to just grant refund automatically for everyone who asks for it.

Doesn't the GDPR include a 2 week period for digital products, regardless of the usage? I always refund crap without issues.
- In France we have that but they require you waive your right to this when you buy something
  
  Isn't that illegal? In the Netherlands it sure is.