Steam adds proper Season Pass Support: if a DLC is cancelled, companies have to refund customers

The constant underdelivery, delaying and cancellation of season passes is a consistent problem in the gaming industry. It’s evident that Valve is fully aware of this, because it recently changed the Steam guidelines for game publishers that release new Season Passes and DLC.

The Steamworks Documentation site updated its guidelines for Season Passes, with new rules that force publishers to list all the DLC included in a Season Pass, to describe every single piece of content that will be present in each DLC, to add a specific release date and to release a minimum of one DLC before they make the entire Season Pass available for purchase.

However, the part that caught people’s attention was its new policy on canceled DLC. The new Steam guidelines explicitly state “If you cancel a DLC in a Season Pass, customers will be offered a refund for the value of unreleased DLC”. On top of that, while Steam will allow publishers to delay the release date of a DLC if they can’t release it by the quarter they promised, Valve will take action if they delay it more than 3 months after the promised date, and it will do by removing the Season Pass from its store or refunding all customers.

The new Steam policy favors gamers instead of companies

Naturally, gamers all over social media websites – like Bluesky or Reddit – reacted positively to Steam’s new policy on canceled and delayed DLCs. Some of them praised Valve for using its monopoly on PC gaming to actually improve its customer’s experiences, while others accused companies of breaking their promises and getting away with people’s money. And they’re not wrong because there is a precedent for all of this.

As some people pointed out, the game Empire of Sin has had a second Expansion listed for over 5 years. While the publisher didn’t technically cancel it, it still hasn’t come out, even though it still is available for pre-purchase on Steam. Another notable example is Assasin’s Creed Shadows, which Ubisoft suddenly delayed to February 2025 a few months ago and canceled its entire Season Pass, claiming that it would give out the first expansion for free to those who pre-purchased it beforehand. Gamers are unhappy with the companies that easily exploit this new business model, so it’s good to know that Valve and Steam are doing something about it.