Crazy hypotheticals aside, while there should be customer responsibility, the business is still ultimately responsible for providing quality customer service for instances where a customer accidentally purchases a game that doesn't fit their system requirements.

Not all users are tech savvy enough to even know what their system requirements are, or aware of the various tools or websites which can help them. Perhaps if the company linked in a system like "Can You Run It?" directly on their sales page, they would be responsible enough and thus treat the consumer good enough to be justified in denying a refund due to extreme customer incompetence. Although they should still probably issue a refund.

Not only is good customer service something we as consumers should demand from companies to the point of boycott (else the bigger companies will screw us over, like they do now) but it is actually GOOD for business in the long run.

I bought a game that was falsely advertised on Steam as a copy of another game. Literally advertised that it is basically the same game but updated. So much changed, it wasn't even close to the same game. Dissatisfaction is enough to justify a refund in any brick & mortar store, but Steam thinks otherwise. Oh well, right? Wrong. The game didn't work. I played the game 5 separate times, consuming 3+ hours total. 3 of the times, it crashed in the middle of a game (anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes into). The other two? I completed the incredibly lengthy, repetitive 1+ hour long tutorial (Level 1), and the game didn't save. I was told by the Steam CSR that it isn't their fault they sell a defective product, and my problem relies with the developer. So I check the developer's forums, and find that it is an extremely common problem for games to simply not save after beating a level. The game says "Save Successful", ends the level you're on, but doesn't actually create a save file. I put in my request for a refund due to the defectiveness of the product (Not being able to save, literally means endless hours wasted, having to repeat the same levels, and each level takes 1-2 hours to beat.) Guess what? They told me to go screw myself. I fought with Steam for over a month, and by the end of it the incompetent boss of the boss of the original CSR told me that now the product has been patched, over 1 month after I purchased it, and the save problem is fixed. Not the constant crashes, not the extreme disappointment, and ignoring the fact I requested a refund over 1 month ago.

I basically showed the higher up employee that I have spent hundreds of dollars every year, thousands in the last 5 years. I told him that the game was only $20, and that deceptive descriptions, unplayable crashes, game-destroying bugs, and extreme dissatisfaction is plenty enough to justify me getting a meager refund of $20. I told him I honestly didn't even care about the money, given the fact it's so little. I wanted to be treated with respect as a consumer; let alone an extremely loyal steam fan.

Guess what? They have to date, lost over $500 in sales because they refused to give me my $20 refund. I've never requested a refund before in my entire life, and the CSR decided that 1 second after I purchased a $0.60 DLC package and put in a ticket "Oops, wrong DLC. I meant this other $0.60 pack." was my "One Time Refund". Mind you, my ticket also included why I was confused: They had swapped out the title of two different DLC packages, and so DLC#1 was named DLC#2, and DLC#2 was named DLC#1. They didn't fix the titles, but they did give me that 60 cent "One Time Refund". The CSR also reminded me that it is their generosity, not their policy, to give out "One Time Refunds" so he doesn't even have to give me one. Honestly, I have no idea what his problem was, given how nice I was about it in the tickets, even praising steam. I was a very, very loyal user at the time.

The CSR literally told me that he doesn't care if they lose me as a constomer. Someone who has given them thousands in sales for over 5 loyal years, constantly gifting friends games, and buying nearly everything through them.

So as you can see, Steam has become like any other company. So big, they don't care about their consumers. So big, they care more for the $20 short term over the $2000 long term. I can only assume that with any other company that purposefully decides to lose money over time, they do so based on the strategy of short term gains, which manipulate their stocks and benefit them more in the short term despite the heavy loss in the long term. It's an extremely common practice for businesses, and a big reason why so many go bankrupt or sell out in the long run. In business, there is actually a legit term for this type of short term gains strategy, but I am not well educated in business so I forget what it is called.

Go ahead and try to buy a game that is a scam, such as War Z. Try to buy a game that has tons of bugs and problems, that make it literally unplayable despite far surpassing minimum system specs. Try to simply ask for a refund for $1.00 because you are dissatisfied with a product.

And if you buy into what they say about how digital goods are non-refundable, do your research in business and simply think about it. Steam decides to have the no-refund policy. It isn't because their hands are tied, it is because they want short term gains over long term profits.

Consumer Responsibility? This is simply a term for bending over, opening wide, and asking big business, "How long would you like to screw me?"
There is a reason small business owners have policies which guarantee customer satisfaction, or why certain non-digital businesses issue refunds or coupons directly simply because someone calls them and says "I didn't like your food." or "Your product SUCKS." or "Your employee was rude to me."

If these small businesses can take the hurt that a full refund on an expensive product to keep customers loyal, how much more can a massive monopoly such as Steam do so, and so much more. There is no excuse for a business as successfully large as Steam to deny its customers refunds when games do not work, are too buggy, falsely advertised, or simply dissatisfied. And you would be a FOOL to think that Steam wouldn't be able to weasel out of paying for the digital copy they sold which was "returned". Businesses claim that digital content can't be refunded because the person can simply keep it. However, they fail to mention that the person could just as easily (sometimes MORE easily) pirate the game if they truly wanted to steal, so more than likely the customer will legitimately return the digital goods. If a developer wants to be payed for that copy sold by Steam, and Steam is legally obligated to that developer to tell them of all sales, then Steam could simply say "We issued refunds for this many of the copies, so we won't pay you a dime for them." What is the developer going to do? Pull from Steam over chump change, and lose out on selling their games on what is basically a PC gaming monopoly? Yea right. However, Steam could also very readily pay the developers the chump change and say "You're welcome :)" making themselves look even holier in the eyes of gamers, as if they're being generous.

Don't be so easily fooled. The profits of businesses like Steam are astronomical, and the ONLY reason they have a no-refund policy is because they are able to screw over customers like that and get away with it.