Valve (finally) loses court case/appeal against Australian Government

[Dabombinable]

In 2014 Valve was sued by the A.C.W (Australian Consumer Watchdog), over their refund policy which at the time was conflicting with Australian Consumer Law.  And on the 22/12/2017 Valve had their appeal dismissed meaning that they still have to pay the $3million fine, as well as follow through with consumer guarantees

Quote

Last Friday the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed an appeal by Valve against a ruling that it engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct - and made false or misleading representations about consumer guarantees.

Valve's appeal against a $3 million penalty was also dismissed.

Quote

"All goods come with automatic consumer guarantees that they are of acceptable quality and fit for the purpose for which they were sold, even if the business is based overseas,"

Not much else to say other than that this should lead to a domino effect, with all stores selling digital content hopefully starting to do the right thing, and provide proper refund policies in Australia.  Valve might even put some actual effort in after this to pre-emptively avoid having to give refunds by actually curating their store.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/12/icymi-the-australian-federal-court-says-yep-valve-misled-gamers-alright/
 

Edit:
Here's a video on the situation

 

[manikyath]

does valve's current policy (played less than X hours, bought less than X time ago) still conflict australia's laws? or is australia one of the reasons why we can now shove a bad dev's game right back up his own throat now?

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

does valve's current policy (played less than X hours, bought less than X time ago) still conflict australia's laws? or is australia one of the reasons why we can now shove a bad dev's game right back up his own throat now?

I'm not 100% sure. The lawsuit was initially started when they weren't offering refunds at all,and actively misleading people about their rights.

[Guest]

This is good. Proper capitalism should ensue-too many companies make it difficult/impossible to refund games even after charging hefty prices. Hopefully EA, and other DRM licensing services like steam get slammed too. 

 

Now it’s a matter of forcing game purchases to be indefinite, though that’ll likely harm many companies, and is a different topic all together. 

[asus killer]

weird topic. Ever since video games came out back in the 80's we were expected to stick with a bad purchase, no one refunded ET because it was crap. On the other hand no one released broken games (i really don't remember many cases), today it's common to just release games we can't play at all.

A game like Nier should be automatically refunded. A bad game i think current Steam refund policy is really generous, no one refunds for a bad movie for example.

 

In short what gets me is not the refund policy as it is, try for a short period and if you don't like we refund, it's great. The problem is the way we cannot get a refund for game that is broken like Nier and that is way to complicated when it should just be automatic, we cannot play get your money back.

 

Prey is another example, there was a game braking bug, you either had a prior save or good luck with all the hours you put in. I ran in to it but luckily i had lots of saves (i king of now Bethesda by now). They eventually patched it. All those that lost their save and could not progress should be refunded, this is just not acceptable, do not make a 60$ costumer your beta tester.

Imagine going to the theater and in the middle the movie stops, the guy says, came back in a couple of weeks we will patch it and watch the 30 hours from the start.

[Serin]

Yay for having consumer rights.
Will indeed be interesting to see if other stores follow suite or just sit around waiting for the Watchdog to sue them. 

[lobster_zoidberg]

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

 no one refunded ET because it was crap.

Actually about 1 million of the 1.5 million copies sold were refunded...

 

66% of people = no one

[KuJoe]

And only the consumers will suffer.

[Keg Ops]

And all this time I thought Valve actually did it to get ahead of Microsoft and Sony. 

 

Thanks Australia! 

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, manikyath said:

does valve's current policy (played less than X hours, bought less than X time ago) still conflict australia's laws? or is australia one of the reasons why we can now shove a bad dev's game right back up his own throat now?

Probably a bit of both.

 

6 minutes ago, Keg Ops said:

And all this time I thought Valve actually did it to get ahead of Microsoft and Sony. 

 

Thanks Australia! 

Yeah, valve doesn't care (if they did, they'd have done that a long time ago). The reality of it is that even if a game is irredeemably broken at launch, valve still profits from the sales and refunds "hurt" their bottomline as well.

 

18 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

And only the consumers will suffer.

On the contrary, better refund policies are only good for us.

 

4 hours ago, asus killer said:

weird topic. Ever since video games came out back in the 80's we were expected to stick with a bad purchase, no one refunded ET because it was crap.

That's not true, the whole debacle here is about the fact that digital copies can't be "returned" in the same way a physical copy can. It used to be that you could return the disc to the shop and get a refund (within reasonable limits). Now that disc (if you even have one) is tied to your steam/xbox/psplus account and unless those platforms allow you to refund it you're out of luck.

[KuJoe]

Just now, Sauron said:

On the contrary, better refund policies are only good for us.

Nope, I can guarantee you that it won't be Valve footing the bill. The added costs will be passed on to the game companies and the end users.

[asus killer]

2 hours ago, lobster_zoidberg said:

Actually about 1 million of the 1.5 million copies sold were refunded...

 

66% of people = no one

can i get a quote on that. 

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

That's not true, the whole debacle here is about the fact that digital copies can't be "returned" in the same way a physical copy can. It used to be that you could return the disc to the shop and get a refund (within reasonable limits). Now that disc (if you even have one) is tied to your steam/xbox/psplus account and unless those platforms allow you to refund it you're out of luck.

i don't know if it's a cultural thing, but in my country we could not get a refund for a opened video game. Period. Let alone saying it was crap "i want my money back this game sucks". Really??!!

Were are you from?

 

Think steam. "oh i played 30 minutes it sucks, i want my money back". It's worst now? could you do this back at your local physical store?

[Sniperfox47]

5 hours ago, asus killer said:

All those that lost their save and could not progress should be refunded, this is just not acceptable, do not make a 60$ costumer your beta tester.

Not that I disagree, but while widespread, this was still a problem affecting a limited number of users. It only affected "a lot" of people because "a lot more" people bought the game. To that affect, I'm not sure that "treating users like beta testers" is a very fair assessment of the situation.

 

With the scale of modern games, it's incredibly difficult to test every possible scenario. You do what you can to spot test parts of your game and make sure they're working okay, but sitting people down on various different machines to play the game through from start to end over and over different ways isn't really an investment most game studios could afford from a money perspective, or even a time perspective.

 

With the scale of modern games, they're getting harder and harder to thoroughly vet. Prey might not be an epic open world adventure sandbox, but it's still not exactly a small game, and an issue or two slipping through the cracks is mostly inevitable.

[asus killer]

24 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Not that I disagree, but while widespread, this was still a problem affecting a limited number of users. It only affected "a lot" of people because "a lot more" people bought the game. To that affect, I'm not sure that "treating users like beta testers" is a very fair assessment of the situation.

 

With the scale of modern games, it's incredibly difficult to test every possible scenario. You do what you can to spot test parts of your game and make sure they're working okay, but sitting people down on various different machines to play the game through from start to end over and over different ways isn't really an investment most game studios could afford from a money perspective, or even a time perspective.

 

With the scale of modern games, they're getting harder and harder to thoroughly vet. Prey might not be an epic open world adventure sandbox, but it's still not exactly a small game, and an issue or two slipping through the cracks is mostly inevitable.

ok. So let's get away from Prey. Do you think it's ok for Bethesta to release Skyrim for the 4th or 5th time (i lost count) on switch at full price, 6 year later, and the game still has bugs? more than identified and some patch by modders ages ago.

 

I do not want to go into Prey, it's a specific case and an example, could have given more. But the bug that almost made me lost all my progress was easily identifiable, those that not came across it bought the game after the patch. Come on, this is not ok.

[Sniperfox47]

6 minutes ago, asus killer said:

ok. So let's get away from Prey. Do you think it's ok for Bethesta to release Skyrim for the 4th or 5th time (i lost count) on switch at full price, 6 year later, and the game still has bugs? more than identified and some patch by modders ages ago.

 

I do not want to go into Prey, it's a specific case and an example, could have given more. But the bug that almost made me lost all my progress was easily identifiable, those that not came across it bought the game after the patch. Come on, this is not ok.

No I don't. I think by now they should have fixed a number of things, at the very very very least at least the things that the unofficial patches have already identified and fixed...

 

I don't disagree with you that it's not fair to give defective products to users, all I'm saying is that some issues are inevitable, and as long as they get fixed in a timely manner, it's not fair to characterize it as being treated like a beta tester.

 

If you sell a new model of laptop and it turns out there's a defect, its unfortunate but it happens. Your responsibility is to provide the ability for the customer's unit to be fixed or replaced with one that's not defective.

 

With a game it's the same thing, you should provide a fix in a timely manner, and if you do it shouldn't be a huge deal.

 

That's not to say you should ship a known defective product of course, that's just really shitty service and will leave a bad CX.

[RagnarokDel]

3 hours ago, Keg Ops said:

And all this time I thought Valve actually did it to get ahead of Microsoft and Sony. 

 

Thanks Australia! 

It was actually because of the EU, not Australia.

[chilicheeseburger]

The refund system is a nice thing to have but it kind of nerfed the Steam Sales in my opinion.

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, Sniperfox47 said:

No I don't. I think by now they should have fixed a number of things, at the very very very least at least the things that the unofficial patches have already identified and fixed...

 

I don't disagree with you that it's not fair to give defective products to users, all I'm saying is that some issues are inevitable, and as long as they get fixed in a timely manner, it's not fair to characterize it as being treated like a beta tester.

 

If you sell a new model of laptop and it turns out there's a defect, its unfortunate but it happens. Your responsibility is to provide the ability for the customer's unit to be fixed or replaced with one that's not defective.

 

With a game it's the same thing, you should provide a fix in a timely manner, and if you do it shouldn't be a huge deal.

 

That's not to say you should ship a known defective product of course, that's just really shitty service and will leave a bad CX.

i get your point. I guess you didn't got mine.

One thing is a big open world game, it happens. But releasing skyrim in 2017 with this bugs is not acceptable.

Prey is not a big open world game, if they had tested it they had found the bug. there is no excuses in my view. 

 

In 2011 we could all excuse skyrim problems, not in 2017. Should their be better customer protection in videogames this would never be acceptable, no one would accept this on a car for example. Oh sorry we knew of the problems in 2011 but we could not be bother to fix them, they are not major, get over it, go on the net and DIY some solution, people done it before.

 

In Prey they could have those problems we all see in steam from people complaining about almost everything, but this is a game breaking bug, you loose all your progress mid game. Should we not be compensated for a sloppy product? Would you accept this on a car. Oh sorry the car stops braking after a few kms, we could not be bothered to test it. Get over it.

[Mooshi]

Alternatively, markets could pull out of Australia as a result.

 

The whole concept is a little weird to me. I was born in the late 80's and consider myself a 90's kid. To the above poster who claimed back in the day there were no broken games, that's false. Games were still pushed ahead of schedule with bugs, bootlegs existed, some just atrocious--there's gaming channels on YouTube that showcase broken messes of the past. 

 

Back in the day, I played some games I'm definitely glad I rented first before buying. I own hundreds of roms now and consider many of them duds. Instead of refunding a digital purchase which is weird considering you downloaded the contents and games are crackable--demos should be mandatory for all games released on steam.

[Sauron]

6 hours ago, KuJoe said:

Nope, I can guarantee you that it won't be Valve footing the bill. The added costs will be passed on to the game companies and the end users.

nothing of the sort has happened the first time and their margins are more than large enough given they don't have stock costs.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, asus killer said:

i don't know if it's a cultural thing, but in my country we could not get a refund for a opened video game. Period. Let alone saying it was crap "i want my money back this game sucks". Really??!!

Were are you from?

 

Think steam. "oh i played 30 minutes it sucks, i want my money back". It's worst now? could you do this back at your local physical store?

You are legally entitled, in most countries, to return a product that is not as advertised. This isn't about not liking it, it's about not being scammed into buying an unfinished or broken game.

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Mooshi said:

Alternatively, markets could pull out of Australia as a result.

 

The whole concept is a little weird to me. I was born in the late 80's and consider myself a 90's kid. To the above poster who claimed back in the day there were no broken games, that's false. Games were still pushed ahead of schedule with bugs, bootlegs existed, some just atrocious--there's gaming channels on YouTube that showcase broken messes of the past. 

 

Back in the day, I played some games I'm definitely glad I rented first before buying. I own hundreds of roms now and consider many of them duds. Instead of refunding a digital purchase which is weird considering you downloaded the contents and games are crackable--demos should be mandatory for all games released on steam.

By that logic, overseas companies would have pulled out when the laws went into effect. Thing is though, that's not what happened and Valve has to follow Australian consumer law just like any other company doing business here, such as General Motors, Costco, McDonald's and so on.

[Matu20]

Buying a game should not have a refund option if you played it at all. There are reviewers for that.

[lobster_zoidberg]

6 hours ago, asus killer said:

i don't know if it's a cultural thing, but in my country we could not get a refund for a opened video game. Period. Let alone saying it was crap "i want my money back this game sucks". Really??!!

Were are you from?

 

Think steam. "oh i played 30 minutes it sucks, i want my money back". It's worst now? could you do this back at your local physical store?

Yes because the Australian consumer law requires refunds for everything.