Steam has a very generous refund system. Play a game for less than two hours and you can get your money back. Go beyond that point, and it’s up to Valve’s discretion. One player recently pushed the limit of that generosity by requesting a refund for Battlefield 6 after playing 470 hours, and claims to have received their money back anyway.
“I contacted Steam support and explained that multiple game modes were removed from the game without notice nearly a year after the game launched,” user ExplorEverythingOnce posted in a Reddit thread that went viral over the weekend (via Eurogamer). “I linked them to the Battlefield website which shows all the modes that are supposed to be available through matchmaking and then to the Community Broadcast from today. The support agent I spoke with agreed that wasn’t right so they gave me back the full amount I paid for the Phantom Edition on launch day.”
The refund came out to $109.24. The user even shared their Steam transaction history to prove it.
While Valve might have rejected a refund claim being made for just any old reason, in this case the Battlefield 6 fan made an argument that substantial changes had been made to the game, and indeed EA has been shifting modes around to try to optimize matchmaking. “I was upset when King of the Hill and Squad Deathmatch was removed,” wrote ExplorEverythingOnce. “But removing Rush is something I refuse to put up with. It’s the mode I have the most time in by far.”
Rush, a 12v12 attack-and-defend mode, was discovered missing from the game’s remaining maps after last week’s 1.4.1.5 update. “Where is my Rush Mode?” complained one fan on the subreddit at the time. “That was the only mode I had fun with. If they really keep it that way I call it quits, Conquest is just not fun in this BF except for 2-3 Maps.”
Someone on the official EA forums was more dramatic. “WHYRush game mode has been removed ??????????I BOUGHT THIS GAME ONLY FOR RUSH………………” they wrote. As others have pointed out, Rush remains listed as one of the modes in Battlefield 6 on the game’s website.
It’s become a staple of live-service games to evolve and change over time, but few players have ever tried to get refunds over those controversial decisions. I can only imagine how much money would have been at stake if Destiny 2 players had gotten it into their heads to request refunds after massive chunks of that game were vaulted. Companies protect against that liability by baking it into their terms-of-service agreements. I guess in this case, the customer support rep at Valve just wanted to be nice.