Gaming Refund Policies are Weird
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- In 2020 one of the most notorious releases happened. On the 10th of December Cyberpunk was officially released to the world. After a 7 year wait the fans finally got their hands on what they wanted. However, as we know this started awfully. With 30,000 copies being refunded and Sony removing the game from the PlayStation store, CDProjeck Red couldn’t really hold their heads high. What didn’t help was the lack of actual journalism from the gaming journalists on if this game was any good with most rating the game a 9 or 10 out of 10. The issues around this game were so massive that it made it onto the news. I even had my parents who have no interest in games asking me about it. Now the reason I’m mentioning this is that today’s topic is going to be around refunds. More particularly the customer's right to a refund, when should refunds be allowed, when shouldn’t they be, the confusing world of different marketplaces and the rules they have outlined, and most importantly the weird middle ground that games sit in as an entertainment product and consumptive art. So grab a cup of tea and let's sit down and discuss Gaming refund.
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Time Stamps
00:00-01:13 - Intro
01:14-06:28 - The Weird World Of Gaming Refunds
06:29-09:20 - What Are Games?
09:21-13:01 - Games with justified reasons for refunds
13:02-24:26 - what constitutes an unfinished game and an unfinished product?
24:27-28:27 - Should you be able to refund a game if you don’t like it?
28:28-31:25 - My view of the perfect refund policy
31:25-34:30 - End Thoughts - Hry
Refunds are like a warranty
Not really but I see what you are trying to say
@@Exiled7I meant the 2 weeks return policy.
I say yes. Companies must fix their return policies as well. As a pc player I’m tired of buying at full price when I’m missing over half of it.
Facts
I will say that I agree with a good portion of the video. However, I also live in America. And I've been a customer and observer of the gaming industry for quite a while. I think that, if companies were a LOT more honest, at least here in the states (don't know what UK advertising laws are), then I would let a lot more of them get away with the whole "Well you should have watched out as a customer" type deal.
But free trials and demos have been swiftly disappearing, AND we have multiple instances of bad actors attempting to either outright remove negative reviews (digital homicide comes to mind) or instances of companies subtly massaging (being generous here) review embargo policies to make sure they get lots of pre-orders and sales on release day. In addition, some companies only offer early play of the game if you pre-order it, which shoots down the idea of it being a free demo/trial. So we have certain smaller developers trying to remove negative reviews and complaints and certain bigger ones massaging the press.
The expectation seems to be "You'll buy or pre-order our game based on little to no information or information that has been subtly manipulated to be positive before release, and if you don't like it, too bad, no refunds ever, we keep your money even if the product was broken and we took steps to hide that from people until they bought it." And maybe one can say it's unreasonable to get a refund based on a negative personal opinion alone, but alright, what's stopping a company or person from saying "Well it's your PERSONAL opinion that the game is broken, and/or it's your personal opinion that lots of bugs drag down a game, and/or it's your personal opinion that we may or may not have massaged our review embargo policy, so I'm keeping your money."? Because, again, the USA doesn't have the UK's customer protection policies, meaning that stores can just outright offer no refunds whatsoever. Getting steam to offer a 2 hour refund policy was like pulling teeth for the community.
I think that consumer protection policies should be in place even if there weren't so many instances of the industry and certain smaller bad actors lying and attempting to manipulate reviews and criticism as well as sell broken and unfinished products, but in this case there's also an additional overwhelming amount of evidence that if there were no protections, bad actors on the development and publishing side would be ripping people off as much as they possibly could, quite often WAY more than good actors and quality game makers would be able to keep up with, souring people on the market, and causing another crash simply through making customers so afraid to part with cash that they don't want to buy anything. In essence, consumer protections also protect markets by making people feel more safe to buy things knowing that they could get their money back if they're broken or unfinished.
If a movie had multiple instances of placeholder dialogue and unfinished green screen, and you found out later that trailers, previews, and any review of the movie that mentioned these little facts were either prevented from coming out before the movie did OR outright taken down entirely because the director got mad, you'd probably rethink your movie ticket policy.
When people say Skyrim is shallow, they don't mean the lore, they mean gameplay depth.
if that’s the case then they should state that. Almost everyone I see use the agreement of “shallow” is that it doesn’t have anything going for it in its world.
@@Exiled7 They do. The one's who criticized Bethesda before it was cool.
its all games from that company tbh. its like ubisoft copy paste problem
Being able to return a game is like sending food back to the kitchen at a restaurant. When you sit down to eat you expect a certain level of what you order. If it does not meet that level you normally discuss with the restaurant about how to fix it
That works up until it's what the players expectations vs the reality of the situation. Theirs a difference between being miss sold something and someone having high expectations.
I've only watched 7 minutes so far, but felt like I wanted to say my piece on it
I personally feel that refunds are necessary in an industry that generally refuses to give out demos of their products, the product itself becomes the demo and if people don't like it then they can refund it, but all the same I feel at least a place like steam (which has my favorite policy for it) should give verified devs a protection through how many achievements a player have gotten which could be set at 25%-50% (which is an opinion I've gained seeing a few steam refund speedruns recommended to me)
I want to add that I'm a person who generally can't trust things like trailers or reviews due to inherent biases in them, especially reviews where anything that isn't user reviews on metacritic or the like feels inauthentic or paid for (like I love Elden Ring, but if I could refund purely based on the reviews they put on trailers which were like 10/10 across most sites, I wouldn't do it, but I would consider it since the game is not a 10/10 for me) and feels unnecessary since demos is a reasonably well established thing in the industry that most just avoid using for seemingly no reason
Everything that doesn't meet my expectations else will give me my money back.. or at least credit. YES!
Personal responsibility would be a good set of ideals if corporations wouldn't have the ability to ignore any and all criticism regardless of validity if they are large enough. It is beside the point if a product is "known" to be faulty or not. What does "known" constitute? Because the wording is so vague, it could mean anything. If this were part of a text of law a cases ruling would depend far too much on the personal opinion of judges or jury instead of universally understandable reason, and that is bad because personal opinions can always be changed by opinionated media reporting or bribes. It can't be be expected for everyone to follow games media coverage of every release one wants to buy, by that logic a normal person grabbing a game in a brick and mortar store should automatically lack the ability to refund. If the game is advertised as having a set of features but the promotional material doesn't clarify when these are being implemented or has claimed in earlier trailers that the features will be there at launch when they aren't, this should be classified as false advertising. Can someone be in the wrong for only watching one or two of the initial trailers of a game, buying it and then finding out all the promises made in those trailers have been revoked due to the publisher fast-tracking the release? Your arguments might make sense for someone deep into the topic, reading about games daily, but by the same logic companies should start refusing refunds for kitchen equipment if you haven't informed yourself about the quality of any given brand and find that what you bought is not up to your standards. Any refund discussion needs to be looked at from the position of a laymen without implying that this person is stupid for simply not being informed or having been misinformed by official advertising even.
This is why governments, laws and justice systems exist at all and texts of law need to be applied as written to prevent mistakes in their interpretation. Also why laws need to change constantly to adapt to the newly invented insidious tricks corporations think up to increase their profits, mostly by exploiting people who lack the foresight or foreknowledge to protect themselves. Games are still majorly made for children and people with more infantile mindsets, these people can not reliably know or predict the consequences of their actions. Being burned by an overpriced and overhyped game release should not be a rite of passage when it could also lead into hard addictions like many nowadays have to lootbox shooters and their subscription model, constantly triggering the subconscious of the user. Everyone who tries to take a position in favor of corporations in any topic of discussion should learn about Company Towns of the early 1900s like the one Ford wanted to establish in South America. People were easily stripped of the most basic human rights and tricked into debt slavery under the guise of "but you agreed to the terms of service". With too few or no regulations companies have too much control over peoples lives.
Should you be allowed to ask stupid questions on CZcams?
yes but this aint one of them.
There’s no such thing as a stupid question
@@kyvian251yes there is
@@kyvian251 if a potato was going to war with a cloud, what type of marshmallow flavour is best for welding?
after a few minutes of game play i know if im going to enjoy the game i think steam refund policy is fair.
What is the game being played at 23:44? I want to play it
tunic!
WTF happened to Keanu in CP2077?
When it launched Keanu looked like Keanu, now it looks like a Keanu impersonator, and not even a good one..
You are quoting refund laws that say the product must be fixed within a 14 day timeframe, but then propose that it is okay for games to not be refundable if they claim to fix the problem within months. You can't just quote laws as some kind of standard way of conduct and then pick and choose details without a clear logical throughline. Most of the modern slew of game launches with huge issues aren't patched within 14 days. Enough are never fixed so you can not be sure if what you bought will even be fixed. Looking at a companies history for an indication on how long the fixes will take is a nice idea but far from a guarantee. The right to refund is a protection of people in those hard cases. Also great stance by refusing a customer any and all future refunds just for asking for a refund for a silly reason, I doubt if this were actually explicitly allowed by law in any country that no company would ever misuse this ability by just faking customers given reason to be able to sell broken goods with no possibility of refunds.
you mistake moments of me quoting what laws state and me giving either my opinion or a perspective that is different to the law
No shit. NEXT
16:00 Why would you considerer a less that 100% functioning game 'fixed'? That attitude is why devs will keep pushing out broken games.
what is a 100% fixed game?? No game can release without issues so I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to get at.
@@Exiled7 No game can release without issues - Is what I'm 'getting at'. Acceptance of inferior product.
Just dont buy the game.
Don't know if this comment is satirical or if it's real. Hopefully it's the former
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