Solo indie developer Mateo Covic, creator of the game Paddle Paddle Paddle, has publicly criticised Steam's refund policy after claiming he was forced to refund around 55,000 sales, a refund rate of roughly 21 percent, despite the game holding overwhelmingly positive reviews. Covic argues that Steam's "no questions asked" policy — which grants automatic refunds within two weeks to players with under two hours of playtime — makes it "super easy for players to abuse this rule", particularly when players complete a short game, leave a positive review, and then reclaim their money simply because they can.

Covic said he had designed the game for roughly four hours of total playtime, with the main level taking about 3.5 hours and the demo level around 40 minutes, but noted that skilled players and speedrunners often finished in one to two hours. He stressed he is "100% pro refund" and did not intend to call for the policy's removal, only to highlight the ease of abuse. However, his comments prompted a backlash: the game was review-bombed, slipping from "very positive" to "mixed" recent reviews, and he received a surge of hateful messages. Not all refunds were tied to length, with at least one reviewer refunding while branding the game "low effort ragebait streamer trash" and criticising its janky movement, and Covic admitted he could not verify how many refunds cited genuine reasons since players can simply select any listed justification.