The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are issuing a lawsuit against Valve.
While Valve doesn’t have physical presence in Australia, they still serve clients and customers there. This means that they are bound to Australian law. The ASCC states that Valve has not fulfilled its requirement for mandatory customer guarantees.
Here’s a list of issues that the ACCC found:
In some cases, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission stated that Valve has even mislead consumers on their rights to warranties/guaranties.
The chairman of the ACCC Rod Sims said that,
The Australian Consumer Law applies to any business providing goods or services within Australia. It is carrying on business in Australia by selling to Australian consumers, who are protected by the Australian Consumer Law.
Furthermore, he went on to say,
The consumer guarantees provided under the Australian Consumer Law cannot be excluded, restricted, or modified.
More will be heard on October 7th, when the ACCC will be looking for penalties, or any other directive that Valve will have to comply with.
Australia is quite protective about it’s citizens, so it’s not strange to see such a move like this one.
I’m not sure this will go anywhere, Europe tried to force them to change too, and I’m not sure what happened with that lawsuit, but I know we’re still not guaranteed refunds, etc.
It’s a tricky topic, let’s just say that.
Refunds on physical goods within a certain time period are common practice – along with exchanges presuming you have the “proof of purchase”. Physical goods have been around since the idea of trade (which is a long time ago). Because of this, it’s almost expected that it should apply to everything else.
A digital good I feel is a different thing. And don’t forget, you don’t technically “own” the game/title according to some due to DRM.
I’ve always been one to be very picky on which games I buy. I do my research, don’t listen to “hype”, and don’t watch people going blah blah blah on YouTube (when they have no idea what they are talking about).
I have never felt like I’ve wanted a refund for a game because of this. I know what I like, and I don’t need someone to tell me why. Sadly, it seems people have more money then sense, and throw in convenience, it’s a disaster.
Don’t forget that Valve gave away a L4D game and reverted bans after VAC banned people who had loaded a custom gamemode into Modern Warfare 2.