Digital games store GOG has updated its refund policy to offer refunds within 30 days of purchasing a game, regardless of whether you’ve downloaded and played it within that timeframe. Previously, the store considered your purchase final once you downloaded your game, after which point, you could only get a refund if the game had technical issues.
A blanket 30-day limit is a little over double what both Valve and Epic Games offer for their respective stores. On both stores, you can get a refund within 14 days of purchasing a game, so long as you’ve played less than two hours of it. In contrast, GOG’s policy doesn’t mention any hard limits on the amount of time you can play a game before requesting a refund.
GOG says it reserves the right to refuse refunds in individual cases. “Please don’t take advantage of our trust by asking for an unreasonable amount of games to be refunded,” an FAQ on the new refund policy reads, “We’re monitoring the effects of the current update to make sure no one is using this policy to hurt the developers that put their time and heart into making great games.”
There are also some technical specifics about how the refund policy works that are worth highlighting. For early access games, the 30-day limit starts when you purchase the game, but for preorders, the timer starts ticking once the game is released. (You can refund your order at any time during the preorder period.) If you receive a game as a gift, then the person who originally purchased it will have to ask for a refund. Finally, refunds can be deposited immediately into your GOG Wallet, but GOG warns that they might take a couple of days if you want the cash deposited back into your bank account.
You can take advantage of the new refund policy starting today by contacting the service’s customer support team.