It’s not even remotely surprising to state that the Epic store is taking direct aim at Steam with its structure, and that aim is getting even sharper with the store’s new refund policy. A tweet straight from the Epic Games director of publishing strategy, Sergey Galyonkin (also known as the man who used to run SteamSpy), clarifies that players can ask for a refund on any title which was bought within the past two weeks and has less than two hours of played time on it.
The system is not automated at the moment and will require filing a ticket, but an automated system is on the way for deployment. Galyonkin also stated that reviews will be added to the games in the future, but with an eye toward avoiding review bombing, which seems like another jab aimed directly at Valve’s longstanding “moderation is too hard and we don’t want to” policy. So while it remains to be seen if Epic’s game store is going to get long-standing traction, it’s clearly trying to start off on the best foot with policies.
We also changed our refund policy. Unlimited refunds within 14 days of purchase and under 2 hours played. The team is working on the self-service solution, but for now, you'll have to go through player support.
— Sergiy Galyonkin (@galyonkin) January 11, 2019
