ACCC (Australian Authorities) to Sue Valve over Refund Policy

[Soeroah]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uE8BB-ioNRw

I was wrong; changing your mind is only acceptable if store policy allows it. If there's a legitimate reason to return an item, though, the consumer has a good chance at being able to do so.

[PaladinBash]

Every country likes to throw on extra costs to 'operate in Australia'. All companies do it and it's good it's biting someone big in the arse. Maybe the others will also get bitten.

[Dezerte]

Wait, so in Australia you can basically buy anything, decide you don't like it, then go for a refund?

Essentially, yes. This is also true in most of Europe iirc.

[-aiko-]

Oft times reviewers can get free review versions of games so no, they don't necessarily have to buy it.

This really doesn't apply to most indie games, who are actually the culprits to a lot of the crappy nonworking games on Steam. Go figure.

Funny thing is, as mentioned in that video above, evil-everyone-hates-destroyer-of-games EA allows no questions asked refunds within 24 hours if you are not happy with the game. Steam, the everyone-loves-though-they-pretend-to-hate-DRM, does not. Silly gamers.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This really doesn't apply to most indie games, who are actually the culprits to a lot of the crappy nonworking games on Steam. Go figure.

Funny thing is, as mentioned in that video above, evil-everyone-hates-destroyer-of-games EA allows no questions asked refunds within 24 hours if you are not happy with the game. Steam, the everyone-loves-though-they-pretend-to-hate-DRM, does not. Silly gamers.

As sad, perverted, and ironic as this is; it's true. Which is because, for the most part, EA operates in America, and they aee by far more prolfic than Valve, and therefore under heavy scrutiny by our law.

Valve, on the other hand, doesn't mainlh work in America but rather on an overly international basis. Valve can't conform to everyone's laws, and the law can only go so far (ie, Austraila can't demand that Valve give all customers the right to refund, under the threat of closing down Valve; they can only demand Valve give refunds to all Australians under threat of no longer being able o operate in that one country). Hoefully, more nations will join in and pressure Valve to change policy.

[Sancia]

Hmm. Interesting. Norway, as most of Europe has similar laws. A 30-day no questions asked refund/return policy on physical items and a 14-day refund/return policy on digital goods. (That excluding our 2/5 year warranty and RMA)

How I know? I worked at the Norwegian Consumer Council (our version of the ACCC)

[kail]

Return policy would be nice to see in Steam, though it should remain reasonable. Give something like a 14+ day policy, and single player games will go DoA thanks to the many beating it to later on get the refund. IMO 3-5 days is more than enough to see if a game is worth the money or not.

I wonder how this would work for the sub MMOs. Can you get the sub fee back? The Box retail?

[Feral Camel]

I'm personally all for this. Australian tend to always get burnt by higher prices, so anything that gives more options to the consumer is better in the long run. Mind you I can see this being abused by the consumer.

IMO 3-5 days is more than enough to see if a game is worth the money or not.

It could even be based on gameplay time.

[DiscoGhost]

Wait, so in Australia you can basically buy anything, decide you don't like it, then go for a refund?

Well, I guess something good had to balance out all the deadly plants, spiders, snakes, scorpions, dingos, kangaroos, emus and everything else.

inb4 dingo ate my baby

OT: on what grounds can you return or get a refund from a digitally downloaded game?

[barackopala]

Reading comments, reviews and watching videos of gameplay, both official and from players, can keep you away from buying something you wont like you usually. And if there's a demo available you can even try it out. Or there is even an easier way to try out a game before buying that we all know of.

"Oh boy this game looks awesome, sounds awesome" -> Installs it and works like shit on the pc setup. GG

Wait, so in Australia you can basically buy anything, decide you don't like it, then go for a refund?

Well, I guess something good had to balance out all the deadly plants, spiders, snakes, scorpions, dingos, kangaroos, emus and everything else.

No, australian consumer laws work similarly to how they do on my country (despite some minor variations but they work on the same basis) the law doesnt allow you to return products that you didn't like, you can return a product due to its bad quality/material (our commerce code shows an example of "wedding rings", i dont even) or when the purpose that the product was supposed to fulfill wasn't done, now there's another way to get your money back and that's when you consider the contract you made as an act of volitude and you claim that there was "dolus generalis" in terms that the product malfunction was so big you wouldn't have bought it in the first place if you knew about the problem and you can either ask the judge to declare:
A) Void contract
B) Reduction of price in case the product can still work but the problem the product had was big enough you would've bought the product at an inferior price (this is not dolus generalis in itself)

[bbr]

Oft times reviewers can get free review versions of games so no, they don't necessarily have to buy it.

Most of the gaming websites tend to have higher review scores than the game deserves because of that - not always though.

I tend to just look at the valve user reviews and just check youtube for the game.
Often the video gameplay already tells a lot.

[Korgoth]

If the Death Star that is Origin can give have a 24 hr refund policy I see no reason why Valve couldn't do similar.