An indie developer claims over 55,000 players refunded their Steam game after beating it fast enough to qualify for Valve's refund policy
Steam's policy allows players to refund games if they have less than two hours of play time
be Mateo
- 23 years old
- solo game developer from Germany
- goes on vacation, tries paddle boating with his brother
- realizes how hard it actually is
- gets home, builds a physics-based coop paddle game around the idea
- ships the demo in 2 weeks
- releases the full game as "Paddle Paddle Paddle"
- game blows up
- sells over 150,000 units
- goes full-time as an indie dev
- named Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2026
should be a total win
- 90% positive reviews
- game clearly works, clearly isn't broken
but the game is short, tight, and easy to finish fast
- 55,000 refunds
- 21% refund rate
- $164,000 clawed back at $2.99 a copy
not because it's bad
because Steam's refund window has a blind spot
- less than 2 hours played, 14 days since purchase
- instant refund, no questions asked
- built to protect buyers from broken games
- can't tell "this didn't work" from "I beat this and want my money back"
this exact exploit already happened in 2021
- different indie dev, Emika Games, hit the same wall
- nearly quit the industry over it
Valve still hasn't fixed it
- posts about it publicly, gets support from the community
- keeps developing anyway
- already teasing his next game, a coop voice-controlled chaos game called CAAAHR
went from a shower thought on vacation to 150,000 units sold to a six-figure hole in his pocket, all from the same industry that put him on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list