Fuck the stupid morons who defend Apple.
Imagine if Microsoft banned Windows users from installing the software they want on their computer.
Imagine if Microsoft required all software developers to give them 30% of their earning or Microsoft will ban them from Windows
14 days, to the developer, means that you now know that you actually have the money and can plan with it. Months later, the money has either been spent, or earmarked for something in particular.
Your best hope at that point is that the developer has allocated some money for people like you but otherwise, nope. Accounting would break down your door if you granted the refund.
It is actually Valve allowing or denying refunds, not the developer. When GTAV Online stopped working on Deck, some people with hundreds of playtime successfully refunded the game, iirc someone even refunded their Deck.
They absolutely can do such things but then the money comes out of their pockets, possibly with the option to sue Rockstar for breach of contract and money back. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Rockstar contacted Valve and said “don’t worry we’ll take the hit”, having calculated what it costs to continue supporting the deck vs. taking that hit. Certainly not a company which has to worry about cashflow a lot.
Sony also refunded CP77, IIRC without getting CDPR involved, and Sony generally has a shoddy return policy. At that point, to the store, customer goodwill is more important and they’ll figure out things on the backend.
OP didn’t describe that kind of case, though, but “I bought a game without checking whether it’s compatible with my hardware and didn’t bother to launch it for six months”. Steam isn’t going to refund that out of their own pocket that’s what the 14 days are for, so that they don’t have to do it out of their own pocket.