Speedruns See New Trend With ‘All Achievement Steam Refund %’

I think it would be fair to say that when compared to practically every other platform, Steam is pretty fair when it comes to refunding games. Although this can sometimes vary depending on specific circumstances and account activity, the bottom line is that if you apply within 2 weeks of the initial purchase, and have spent less than 2 hours playing the game, a refund will usually be issued without any quibble. It seems, however, that these rules might be contributing to a brand new trend in speedrunning.

Namely, people are now looking to see if they can beat a game while getting all the achievements, and do so within the technical remits of potentially being successfully able to claim a refund!

Speedrunning Takes On Steam Refund %

Now just to be clear, the concept of attempting to beat a game and successfully claiming a refund isn’t new. There are plenty of titles on Steam that are entirely capable of being smashed within the 2-hour mark. And just to get one elephant quickly out of the room, beating a game you enjoyed and still claiming a refund, while technically within the rules, is still a bit of an iffy ethical issue.

For speedrunners, however, and particularly ‘uhTrance‘ below (skip to about halfway through for the successful run), the rules are changed slightly. You see, the vast majority of the speedrunning community who engage in this challenge already own the game. They simply create a new account specifically for the purpose of seeing whether their skills are good enough to beat it, usually while 100 percenting the title, while remaining within the technical remits of being able to successfully claim a Steam refund.

The biggest challenge, of course, is that they only have one shot to do this. If they can’t hit the challenge within the 2-hour refund timeframe, they’re stuck with a second copy of the game on an alt account forever!

Resident Evil

This specific speedrunning challenge largely started to hit prominence following the release of the Resident Evil 3 remake. A game which, I’m sure many of you are aware, can be easily beaten within 4-5 hours on your first casual playthrough.

Again, while some might believe that this is a pretty scumbaggish speedrunning challenge regarding the application for a refund, I again highlight, and specifically so for ‘uhTrance‘ featured above, that the vast majority of people who attempt this already permanently own the game/s (on Steam). Titles which, it should be added, they regularly attempt speedrun world record times. The pressure of attempting to do so within the mechanics of a 2-hour one-shot Steam Refund, however, whether you agree with it or not, undoubtedly adds a lot of pressure that otherwise doesn’t exist.

Personally, I think they’re pretty cool. And with ‘uhTrance‘ successfully having met the remits of the 100% achievement Refund % for Resident Evil 7 over the weekend (unclear at the time of writing whether his refund application was successful or not), if you want to check them out and show them some love, visit their Twitch channel via the link here!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!