Rust dev shares Steam refund data: ~330k copies, $4M+ revenue refunded

Facepunch Studios (Rust, Garry's Mod) chief Garry Newman took a break from mucking with sales stats today to share on Twitter how Rust has been refunded on Steam: nearly 330,000 times, adding up to over $4 million in refunded revenue.

That's a lot of money, but it's not actually that surprising given that Newman pegs the refund rate on Rust (which has sold over 5M copies to date) at roughly 6 percent. That's down from the 9.4 percent he reported a year ago, and more in line with the refund rates reported by both devs he knows and the many devs we talked to last year.

It's interesting that Newman's reported refund rate in 2017 matches up so well with what devs were reporting a year ago, and it lends credence to developer expectations of a sub-10 percent refund rate on Steam. 

In a conversation with PCGamesN, Newman said the majority of the refunds have "Not Fun" as their reason given. He chalks that up to “people using the refund system as a demo,” adding that “I think in the long run, people knowing the refund system is there probably gained us more sales than it lost us.”