Valve taken to court by Australian consumer commission over Steam refund policy

[PhantomChevron]

Good, a at least some one will change valves refund system, good work Australia 

[bpw87]

Don't get me wrong I love Valve's Steam service as much as the next person but things need to change.

 

As read from Valve's TOS. It also mentions "The provisions of the U.N. Conventions on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods shall not apply" which isn't legal in the US, as eBay found out the hard way and was successfully changed to adhere to the federal laws that protect these agreements. eBay is much larger company worth more than twice what Valve is and if eBay bent over and changed it's policies it's hard to think Valve would be able to fight it.

 

Anyone thinking Valve will cut it's service to Australia should consider this and not think to lightly of the trade agreement as our trade ($54.8b in 2013) is worth more to your government then one single company, Valve is valued by Forbes at between a net worth of $2 to 4b not annually. Australians were the first to be able to receive a refund from eBay a $8.5b company when no else could, all thanks to the trade agreement. Expect Valve to bend over and take it as money talks louder than words in this economy.

[Trik'Stari]

America and Australia have what we call trade agreements and treaties, at the moment there is an agreement that the US will abide Australian laws when doing business in Australia and the reverse is also true.  That gives Australian (or American) authorities the power to hold a company based in the other country to account for violations of local law.

 

EDIT: It is really complicated, but this is the general gist of how it works.

Basically. Valve agreed to those federal trade agreements the day they started selling in Australia.

Them not having a physical presence doesn't change the spirit and letter of those laws.

If anything, it pisses Aus off more. It's all digital. They don't have the return logistics and headaches that brick and mortar locations have to account for.

Now it makes sense, I just didn't see how they could actually force anything out of them or do anything but ban them from the country. but now It makes sense.

 

I wonder what Valve's response will be. Furthermore, wouldn't they then have to offer the same thing to all of their customers if they do it for AUS customers?

[dalekphalm]

Now it makes sense, I just didn't see how they could actually force anything out of them or do anything but ban them from the country. but now It makes sense.

 

I wonder what Valve's response will be. Furthermore, wouldn't they then have to offer the same thing to all of their customers if they do it for AUS customers?

That is indeed the question. Technically, no they wouldn't (Unless other countries had similar consumer protection laws, and took Valve to court over it). They could easily have one system in place JUST for Australia. However, if AUS wins the court case, then other countries will have little-to-no trouble winning similar cases, assuming their laws are comparable.

 

The question is will they voluntarily give the resulting return policy to all regions? I would say that if their hand is forced by AUS, then they will likely try to turn it into a PR advantage by announcing worldwide refund policies.

 

If they implement the system that EA currently uses, that would be sufficient. In fact, EA's policy goes above and beyond what is reasonably expected.

 

EA's policy, as mentioned earlier in the thread:

You can return and get a refund on a game if

1. You request it within 24 hours of first launching the game OR

2. Within 7 days of the purchase

 

Whichever happens first. So basically you have 7 days to buy a game and think about it, but once you launch the game for the first time within those 7 days, you'll only have 24 hours left (meaning if you launched the game right away after purchasing it, then you have 24 hours, instead of the full 7 days).

 

What I think would be reasonable is the following:

1. Same as EA

2. Same as EA

3. Limit in-game gameplay to 4 or 6 hours, within that 24 hour period.

 

The addition of #3 would prevent the complaints of "Well what if they just beat the campaign then returned the game?". I personally think 4 hours is sufficient. If you don't like the game after 4 hours, odds are pretty good you won't ever like it. Even in games where the campaign gets much better after 8 hours or something, you should still be able to get a feel for it within 4 hours.

 

I also believe that there should be a SUBSET Return Policy for Indie and/or Short games. If you can beat the game in under 4 hours (Example would be Journey, despite it not being on Steam), then they should have a special "short game" policy where you have 30 minutes or an hour of gameplay to decide.

 

With that in mind, most Indie devs are much more open to the concept of a refund if you straight up go to their website and ask for one, but that is on a case-by-case scenario and cannot be held true for all indie devs.

[Altecice]

I remember accidentally buying a game on steam a few years back and I literally had it in my library for 3-4 mins before contacting STEAM about it. They said " no we cant refund as it has been played" I tried to argue with them that there is no way in hell I could download and install a 20gb game in 3-4 mins. It ended up with the person on the other side in full caps saying to me "WE DO NOT REFUND EVER, DEAL WITH IT"... Not being allowed to return unwanted/mistaken items is illegal in my eyes.

[Trik'Stari]

I remember accidentally buying a game on steam a few years back and I literally had it in my library for 3-4 mins before contacting STEAM about it. They said " no we cant refund as it has been played" I tried to argue with them that there is no way in hell I could download and install a 20gb game in 3-4 mins. It ended up with the person on the other side in full caps saying to me "WE DO NOT REFUND EVER, DEAL WITH IT"... Not being allowed to return unwanted/mistaken items is illegal in my eyes.

Not illegal, immoral. The correct way to say it is "it should be illegal". And technically if it was the wrong game, it would have been an exchange instead of a refund. I agree with you, but I'm just nitpicking.

 

I don't think refunds should be a law, that's just ridiculous, but valve should offer refunds, any good business offers refunds.

[NeatSquidYT]

I accidentally bought Final Fantasy 8 instead of 7 because it was late and I didn't pay attention to the one stupid "I" or the characters and Steam wouldn't give me a refund. I mean sure I played them both by now but I really would have liked to have some kind of 24 hour thing. I hope in vain that would make devs create games longer than 24 hours too, or even 12 because I sleep half the time

They shouldn't give you the refund. The whole idea of Consumer Law is that if an item is not fit for purpose, then you should get a refund/replacement.

[NeatSquidYT]

I remember accidentally buying a game on steam a few years back and I literally had it in my library for 3-4 mins before contacting STEAM about it. They said " no we cant refund as it has been played" I tried to argue with them that there is no way in hell I could download and install a 20gb game in 3-4 mins. It ended up with the person on the other side in full caps saying to me "WE DO NOT REFUND EVER, DEAL WITH IT"... Not being allowed to return unwanted/mistaken items is illegal in my eyes.

Edit

[Altecice]

They shouldn't give you the refund. The whole idea of Consumer Law is that if an item is not fit for purpose, then you should get a refund/replacement.

 

You can get refunded on mistaken items in the EU but they are allowed to take a "restocking" fee from it so long as its not damaged.

[Trik'Stari]

I can see this backfiring in a big way. When/if valve caves and agrees to give AUS customers the ability to get a refund, magically, your prices will go up on steam games, and of course the "restocking fee" out of the refund.

 

Long story short, you lose either way.

[Misanthrope]

I can see this backfiring in a big way. When/if valve caves and agrees to give AUS customers the ability to get a refund, magically, your prices will go up on steam games, and of course the "restocking fee" out of the refund.

 

Long story short, you lose either way.

 

What the fuck would it need to be "restocked" though? There is no stock everything is digital, it literally takes milliseconds to tick off a value inside a user database and boom, you no longer "own" that game. Refunding can be for steam wallet credit only (most will be ok with that) so also, just another tick. This isn't like physical goods where you actually need to physically store and transport goods all the way back to the manufacturer there shouldn't be any restocking fee at all.

And yes some games will increase in price I agree on that, but I'd argue that only the scams and crap games would increase in price, not most legit games. What would see increasing is the amount of games going for the "early access" bullcrap instead to circumvent all consumer right issues and just pocket the cash.

[Trik'Stari]

What the fuck would it need to be "restocked" though? There is no stock everything is digital, it literally takes milliseconds to tick off a value inside a user database and boom, you no longer "own" that game. Refunding can be for steam wallet credit only (most will be ok with that) so also, just another tick. This isn't like physical goods where you actually need to physically store and transport goods all the way back to the manufacturer there shouldn't be any restocking fee at all.

And yes some games will increase in price I agree on that, but I'd argue that only the scams and crap games would increase in price, not most legit games. What would see increasing is the amount of games going for the "early access" bullcrap instead to circumvent all consumer right issues and just pocket the cash.

Just because they don't actually have to restock something, doesn't mean they wont charge a fee for it.

[Misanthrope]

Just because they don't actually have to restock something, doesn't mean they wont charge a fee for it.

 

True but they can just fuck off if they go that way, I'll get what I can on gog and pirate the rest if they do something like that, not offering refunds is bad enough but that just means Valve would turn into bigger assholes than EA

[Trik'Stari]

True but they can just fuck off if they go that way, I'll get what I can on gog and pirate the rest if they do something like that, not offering refunds is bad enough but that just means Valve would turn into bigger assholes than EA

And theres my point all along, if you don't like what a company does, don't use that company. Rather than creating asinine laws that increase the cost of doing business, thus increasing the prices everyone pays for the same product (as well as giving lawmakers an excuse to increase/create taxes to "enforce" the laws), just DONT USE THAT COMPANY lol.

[Misanthrope]

And theres my point all along, if you don't like what a company does, don't use that company. Rather than creating asinine laws that increase the cost of doing business, thus increasing the prices everyone pays for the same product (as well as giving lawmakers an excuse to increase/create taxes to "enforce" the laws), just DONT USE THAT COMPANY lol.

 

I don't think the free market can fix every consumer abuse issue on it's own, case and point Valve has a big enough share of the pie right now that they could easily crush out smaller players like gog with anticompetitive shit while at the same time keep their bullshit policies (no refunds) or implement worst ones and who could seriously control them in that case? The free market has been shown to tend towards consolidating all competition into a single mega entity like Comcast swallowing virtually all ISPs and so forth.

[Legion]

Not really, you made the choice to buy it, if you didn't do your research that's no one's fault but yours.

 

Yay for the "civilized world" not getting the idea of personal responsibility.

 

So if you bought a dishwasher and it broke down two days later your opinion is fuck it move on with your life buy a new one?

 

 

A nice quote from the consumer rights bill in Ireland.

courts would be free to distinguish between defects that were trivial and negligible and those that impaired the level

of quality that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory.

If something is completely broken of course someone has the right to a refund.

This is one of the few common sense things I think I've actually seen from an Irish government.

If you don't like it because it doesn't have 12k eyefinity support but the game works I don't think you are entitled to a refund. However if a game is so bugged and glitchy that any reasonable person would say yeah its actually broken I believe you have the right to ask for your money back.

 

 

I don't understand why people are so against consumer protection.

 

 

What about games like Aliens colonial marines, it was a complete bait and switch and while the signs could be found if you followed the game enough not everyone has the time to do that for every single person. Do you expect a person to spend more time researching a product than they will using it?

 

 

Sorry for shitty post format admining a tournament

[dalekphalm]

And theres my point all along, if you don't like what a company does, don't use that company. Rather than creating asinine laws that increase the cost of doing business, thus increasing the prices everyone pays for the same product (as well as giving lawmakers an excuse to increase/create taxes to "enforce" the laws), just DONT USE THAT COMPANY lol.

Those laws exist for a reason. The problem is that if only 5% of the consumer base do the right thing, the rest of the population goes on and doesn't give a shit.

 

Companies will, if left to their own devices, turn into anti-competitive monsters that will do whatever they can to make money. Capitalism, in it's most truest sense, doesn't work. That's why we don't live in a 100% pure Capitalist world. We have laws and regulations that are there to prevent the abuse of consumers. You can say it'll increase costs, but look at Origin. Did the cost of games go up after they started offering returns while I wasn't looking? Nope. In fact, Origin, as a sales platform, has slowly been getting better, for example offering more sales (closer to the norm of Steam).

 

Second, if Valve does what you suspect, all they are doing is driving consumers into the open arms of Origin and GOG (I'd say uPlay but I don't know anyone that's actually purchased a game directly off uPlay).

 

GOG offers zero DRM in all their titles. They have a MASSIVE library of old classics, such as Wing Commander series, and Freespace 1 and 2, a growing Indie library, and a slowly expanding small selection of "AAA" games, such as the Witcher series.

 

Origin offers their, frankly, amazing game guarantee on all EA titles. They're slowly expanding the quality of their sales, and they're offering a larger and larger selection of 3rd party titles.

 

Despite the hard-on most people have for Valve and GabeN (I swear, half the forum members fap off to his picture), if they use consumer protection laws as an excuse to raise prices, then they will lose customers to their competition who did it VOLUNTARILY with no price increase.

[Trik'Stari]

Those laws exist for a reason. The problem is that if only 5% of the consumer base do the right thing, the rest of the population goes on and doesn't give a shit.

 

Companies will, if left to their own devices, turn into anti-competitive monsters that will do whatever they can to make money. Capitalism, in it's most truest sense, doesn't work. That's why we don't live in a 100% pure Capitalist world. We have laws and regulations that are there to prevent the abuse of consumers. You can say it'll increase costs, but look at Origin. Did the cost of games go up after they started offering returns while I wasn't looking? Nope. In fact, Origin, as a sales platform, has slowly been getting better, for example offering more sales (closer to the norm of Steam).

 

Second, if Valve does what you suspect, all they are doing is driving consumers into the open arms of Origin and GOG (I'd say uPlay but I don't know anyone that's actually purchased a game directly off uPlay).

 

GOG offers zero DRM in all their titles. They have a MASSIVE library of old classics, such as Wing Commander series, and Freespace 1 and 2, a growing Indie library, and a slowly expanding small selection of "AAA" games, such as the Witcher series.

 

Origin offers their, frankly, amazing game guarantee on all EA titles. They're slowly expanding the quality of their sales, and they're offering a larger and larger selection of 3rd party titles.

 

Despite the hard-on most people have for Valve and GabeN (I swear, half the forum members fap off to his picture), if they use consumer protection laws as an excuse to raise prices, then they will lose customers to their competition who did it VOLUNTARILY with no price increase.

Indeed they will, and then they will learn.

[Guest]

Think that @FireFox shouldn't go living in Australia

[Cookie Monster]

I can see this backfiring in a big way. When/if valve caves and agrees to give AUS customers the ability to get a refund, magically, your prices will go up on steam games, and of course the "restocking fee" out of the refund.

 

Long story short, you lose either way.

A restocking fee could also be challenged in Australia. If it is above the actual cost it is classed as a penalty and cannot be enforced; banks and Telstra are finding that to their cost with atm and late payment fees.

[RelentlessAF]

Valve have no problem gouging Aussie customers anyway with absurd prices

Valve doesn't make the prices on anything but their own games, prices are set by developers and publishers.

[Mooshi]

Just how exactly are you supposed to refund a digital download you have on your system..one you that is most likely cheap as dirt on top of it? Sounds like a whole lot of complaining. "This game sucks and I have it installed on my computer, can I has refund anyway?" How does that even work..I don't understand. If anything, games on Steam should be REQUIRED to have demos included so consumers can do a test play if they like it or not. Nowhere near enough demos on Steam compared to games. Actually, too much shit makes it to steam that you have to wade through terrible games to begin with. Steam definitely needs more quality control and push for demos.

[Grrizz]

Uh oh incoming Steam ban in Australia... (JK)

[dalekphalm]

Just how exactly are you supposed to refund a digital download you have on your system..one you that is most likely cheap as dirt on top of it? Sounds like a whole lot of complaining. "This game sucks and I have it installed on my computer, can I has refund anyway?" How does that even work..I don't understand. If anything, games on Steam should be REQUIRED to have demos included so consumers can do a test play if they like it or not. Nowhere near enough demos on Steam compared to games. Actually, too much shit makes it to steam that you have to wade through terrible games to begin with. Steam definitely needs more quality control and push for demos.

If you had read the thread, you'd know how it's possible.

 

EA does it already on Origin with EA published games.

 

EA's policy, as mentioned earlier in the thread:

You can return and get a refund on a game if

1. You request it within 24 hours of first launching the game OR

2. Within 7 days of the purchase

 

Besides, the main point of the refund is if the game was buggy or prelaunch material was misleading. Look at Aliens: Colonial Marines. The game was given high scores by reviews that were based on the E3 tech demo, which was literally nothing like the release. Everyone thought it was going to be amazing, and it turned out to be super buggy and no where close to the quality of their Demo.

 

So there is a system that exists RIGHT NOW that would work.

[PhantomWarz]

Guys i think your missing the point of the refund.

Its not there because you change your mind or because you didn't like the game

It is there for Major Defect reasons.

Down here in Australia we are protected under the law from large corporations via our ACCC

If a product is found to have a major flaw or defect that is unrepairable in a fair and reasonable period of time we are entitled to a refund. 

Valve as a company are trading in the confines of Australia and thus are required to respect the trade agreements and laws they trade under.

 

Also note guys, no matter what contract or fine print is written into a deal or purchase we are entitled to this right as Australian consumers

So no matter what Valve say or try to do, they are required to adhere to these laws.

 

Valve can easily work out a system to offer refunds. Every other trader inside Australia has worked it out, because they are legally obligated to.

 

This is the article people should be using for factual information as this is the grounds ACCC are taking on Valve.

http://www.accc.gov.au/business/treating-customers-fairly/warranties/warranties-against-defects