Microsoft Flight Simulator takes a long time to download: it's a heavy game at about 127 GB, though the Steam download is only a 532 MB client. The majority of the game is installed as an "update" from the game menu.

While the game client is open, Steam's "play time" clock starts ticking. This means that even if you are just downloading a game file, you are accumulating a few minutes or hours of "play time.

Steam's policy allows for refunds for games with less than two hours of playtime, but most people take more than two hours to download a game. Therefore, some were concerned that if for some reason they tried to request a refund for Microsoft Flight Simulator on Steam, their request would be automatically denied simply because Steam would assume that they had actually played the game for more than two hours.

When asked by Valve about this issue, Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing, replied. He wrote in an email, "The time it takes to download additional content does not count toward Steam's refund policy."

"We are working with Microsoft to see if we can improve the download experience," Lombardi also said, but did not elaborate further.