Microsoft Flight Simulator has officially launched today and it is already on track to be the highest rated PC game of the year based on Metacritic score. Unfortunately, Steam users are finding the game to be at odds with Valve's refund system, causing some complaints. 

Microsoft Flight Simulator on Steam is initially a 600 megabyte download and after that, you have to download an additional 90GB to 150GB from the in-game launcher. The issue here is that loading the launcher through Steam counts as playtime, and with a download size so large, your playtime could rack up and make you ineligible for a refund through Steam before the game has even finished downloading all the files.

This is an issue that is being raised in various user reviews for the game on Steam. Due to this, there are calls for Valve to extend its usual 2-hour playtime limit for refund requests, as many people are going to have falsely counted playtime simply by downloading additional files through the launcher.

Valve has yet to comment on this, but it does seem like a loophole in the refund system that should be addressed. Many MMOs on Steam also use a separate launcher for the game download, which racks up false playtime on your Steam account. Hopefully Valve will comment on this in the next few days.

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KitGuru Says: Valve has made refund exceptions for certain games in the past, so I reckon we'll see something similar here. Either way though, the Steam devs should probably do something about launcher downloads counting towards playtime to avoid this issue in the future. 

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