In the refund request, they pointed out that several modes shown as available on the Battlefield website were no longer listed on the Community Broadcast page and had been removed without notice. Despite having played Battlefield 6 for over 470 hours since launch day, the support agent agreed that it “wasn’t right” and refunded the game in its entirety, amounting to the $109.24 that they paid on launch day for Battlefield 6 Phantom Edition. ExplorEverythingOnce added a screenshot of their Steam purchase history as proof of the refund. “Battlefield Studios, you don’t get to remove the games I play and still keep my money,” the unhappy customer said triumphantly at the end of their post.
Because these claims rely on hearsay and a screenshot, there is no way to confirm how true they are. It is strange that Steam would grant this refund request, considering that Battlefield Studios made a statement about the recently vaulted game modes. Some game modes are more popular than others, which leads to inactive servers. To combat this, the devs temporarily removed game modes and put them on a weekly rotation. This decision was made to incentivize players to try different modes and increase active players to prevent dead servers.
The refund was a permanent solution to a temporary situation, and it might have just led to something much bigger. Considering that the post got a lot of impressions within a few days, other displeased players might just flood Steam support with similar refund requests — whether to return Battlefield 6 or any other game.
Steam's return policy says that players can refund games and software with no questions asked if they have less than two hours of playtime and have owned it for less than two weeks. However, gamers who fall outside of these limits can still request a refund and plead their case to a support agent. Steam then reviews the request and makes a decision.
The original poster believes the leniency shown on Steam’s part was due to the fact that they’ve been a customer for 22 years, have over 2500 games on their account, and this was their first refund request. Even so, it would be unfair for this player to receive a refund while others are stuck with an unwanted game in their library. If this refund can be applied to more players, it seems that Steam's policy is flexible enough to include refunds for games that no longer feature content that was promoted as available at launch.
Regardless of what led Steam to allegedly make this decision, many other players will feel that they are entitled to the same treatment, as they might be in a similar situation — especially considering that dozens of multiplayer games have featured modes that have been vaulted due to server inactivity. Steam might just have its hands full with refund requests from now on.
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Image: Battlefield Studios/EA
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