Can I buy (and possibly) return a game I recently returned?

[Urban Shaman]

Long story short - I'd like to give a game I've recently purchased and returned one more try (I've only played it for ~30m thus far).

Can I do that without fear of getting my account flagged for trying to circumvent the return system or something?

[Cathulhu]

Yes, but keep in mind that all playtime, even that of your last purchase will count towards the two hours of runtime to be eligible for a refund.

And make up your mind.

[nullable]

The ability to buy games you've previously refunded isn't some kinda of trap. There's lots of reasons a game might be refunded, and repurchased later. It's not some kind of evidence of fraud or an issue Valve is concerned with.

Like you could have purchased a game game your system couldn't run and refunded it, later on you got a new system and can run the game easily now. Valve isn't going to interfere with that.

[Urban Shaman]

Originally posted by nullable:

Like you could have purchased a game game your system couldn't run and refunded it, later on you got a new system and can run the game easily now. Valve isn't going to interfere with that.

All of that makes senes, but in my case I've made the purchase, and subsequent refund, very recently. My primary concern is the time factor.

[「 Mate Amargo 」]

[HikariLight]

Researching BEFORE you buy the game can help avoid a lot of buyers remorse too.
That way you don't have to go through the whole buy/refund/buy again process.

[Tristin]

Do not make habit of doing it so often, as you'll get flagged.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Urban Shaman:

Originally posted by nullable:

Like you could have purchased a game game your system couldn't run and refunded it, later on you got a new system and can run the game easily now. Valve isn't going to interfere with that.

All of that makes senes, but in my case I've made the purchase, and subsequent refund, very recently. My primary concern is the time factor.

In this case there is no cooldown or time limits. So you bought a game and refunded it yesterday because your system couldn't run it. Today you bought a new system and can now run it, so you repurchase the game. Valve isn't going to interfere with that.

Also sometimes people buy the wrong version of the game, they refund it and buy the right version. Or they buy a game and then it goes on sale within the refund window. Both cases a person would want to refund the game and immediately repurchase it, both scenarios are valid and aren't limited by arbitrary windows of time.

The reason I didn't explicitly mention windows of time, is because it's non-issue.

[Kargor]

Originally posted by nullable:

In this case there is no cooldown or time limits. So you bought a game and refunded it yesterday because your system couldn't run it. Today you bought a new system and can now run it, so you repurchase the game. Valve isn't going to interfere with that.

People can make up whatever story they like -- Valve sees the cost associated with the refunds. If you're too expensive, they'll warn you. If you're still expensive, they'll block you from refunding.

[nullable]

Well I'm not talking about abuse. I'm talking about a single refund. No need to add narratives and FUD about how every refund is borderline abuse and get people all riled up about nothing. Nothing I side blesses abuse or negates Valve's abuse policies.

If OP is making up narratives or omitting details and the outcome is different, that's not really my concern or responsibility to suss out. Fact of the matter is you can refund and rebuy a game in a short period of time for a variety of reasons and there's not a particular issue with doing that in a single instance.

[Urban Shaman]

Originally posted by nullable:

Well I'm not talking about abuse. I'm talking about a single refund. No need to add narratives and FUD about how every refund is borderline abuse and get people all riled up about nothing. Nothing I side blesses abuse or negates Valve's abuse policies.

Minor correction: it would be a "double" refund, at worst. Not a single one. ;)

If OP is making up narratives or omitting details and the outcome is different, that's not really my concern or responsibility to suss out. Fact of the matter is you can refund and rebuy a game in a short period of time for a variety of reasons and there's not a particular issue with doing that in a single instance.

I'm not. But if I were, then it would be on me and any friction with Valve would be solely my fault.

But that's really not the case. If anyone wants the actual background - I decided to jump on the Helldivers 2 hype train and try that game out. My first dive? Abysmal experience. No one joined, I was alone, and it was boring and uninspiring. So I refunded, and Valve was very quick to grant that refund (usually it took like ~24h, this time it was a matter of 30m or so).

Some people said that this is an issue with the initial, lowest difficulty, and that the drop-in-and-out co-op component definitely works and I should give it one more go. Thus my post.

Long story short (and possibly a bit of a hottake?)... I still don't like it. The extra players don't really change the somewhat boring map and enemy design (IMO at least), nor the core shooting experience. But it did showcase the grind, so... yeah, I'm definitely out of it now.