Ever been stung by a bad purchase on Steam? Did you ever spend money on a game so horribly broken and half baked that you wish you could get a refund? Well rejoice — ACCC is taking action
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/08/the-accc-is-suing-valve/
The ACCC alleges that Valve made false or misleading representations to Australian customers of Steam that:
- consumers were not entitled to a refund for any games sold by Valve via Steam in any circumstances;
- Valve had excluded, restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality;
- Valve was not under any obligation to repair, replace or provide a refund for a game where the consumer had not contacted and attempted to resolve the problem with the computer game developer; and the statutory consumer guarantees did not apply to games sold by Valve.
to which Valve responded
"As with most software products, unless required by local law, we do not offer refunds or exchanges on games, DLC or in-game items purchased on our website or through the Steam Client. Please review Section 3 of the Steam Subscriber Agreement for more information."
Well it's about damn time, Valve. Even Google offers refunds on Google Play items and EA's Origin game store has a good game guarantee which lets you refund in the first 24 hours of launching the game (or within 7 days of ordering whichever comes first).
Do you think Valve would buckle and change their strict no-refund policy on games? And should they?
It's worth mentioning that's only on EA published games, though. Steam is obviously a lot more diverse than Origin. Valve's only options here are to eat the cost of refunded games themselves, or work out something with the publishers… which wouldn't be an easy endeavour by far.