As early as 2015, Valve set the conditions for refunds for Steam's games, the two most important being "within 14 days from the purchase of the game, and the game must not be played for more than two hours". However, due to the "Early Access" and "Early Play" release mode of the advanced version of the game, there is a refund vulnerability on Steam, and since there is no official release, players can play many hours of "Early Access" and "Early Play" games, and then continue to refund them. Now that Valve has begun to plug the loopholes, early access and early access games will also be included in the refund conditions for the 2-hour play time.
Valve officially announced that under normal circumstances, if a player purchased a game on Steam before the game's release date, the two-hour playtime refund limit will apply, but the 14-day refund limit will not start until the release date. For example, if a player purchases a game that is in Early Access or Early Access, any playtime will count towards the two-hour refund limit. At the same time, if the player does not purchase the early access game, and can only play it after the official release, then the player can refund the game at any time before the release, and the refund conditions will apply within 14 days and 2 hours of play time after the game is released.
Valve's start to plug the loopholes is also due to the fact that many game manufacturers have now begun to provide "early play" features for the advanced versions of their published games, such as the release strategy of "Hogwarts Legacy" Deluxe Edition and "Call of Duty" series Premium Edition early play, which was originally to spend more money to play in advance, but because of Steam's refund policy bug, it became a "limited-time" full trial version. Neither Valve itself nor the publisher wants to see players "prostitute for nothing".