We can provide a remedy if the game or DLC fails to meet a consumer guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law in Australia or the Consumer Guarantees Act in New Zealand. Details of Australian consumers’ rights under the Australian Consumer Law can be found at www.consumerlaw.gov.au. Details of New Zealand consumers’ rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act can be found at www.consumerprotection.govt.nz.
When you buy video games from Valve Corporation as a consumer located in Australia, the video games come with guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot be excluded, including a guarantee that the video games are of acceptable quality. You are entitled to a replacement or refund from the retail supplier of the video games for a major failure and for compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. You are also entitled to have the video games repaired or replaced by the retail supplier of the video games if the video games fail to be of acceptable quality and the failure does not amount to a major failure. Certain other rights are available directly against manufacturers that cannot be excluded or limited.
I don't think our guarantees extend to you just not liking it. The game has to be defective, or incomparable with your computer, or have been misrepresented before you bought it. IANAL
Updated after your update: In this case I think we can assume "acceptable quality" has already been established by Nintendo's QA department. Its not an open store after all.
Whether or not something is acceptable quality is not up to Nintendo, right? Otherwise it would be a weird conflict of interest that Nintendo would set the standards for their own store with no recourse for the consumer.
"acceptable quality" is very broad and subjective. I don't think you'll have much luck convincing a court a game is objectively bad. (unless the game actually crashed like where somebody mentioned in KOTOR)
If you take a game back to a major retailer like Target or Big W, they won't accept it with the seal broken unless you tell them there is something wrong with the physical disk or cartage. They won't accept a return if you just tell them you didn't like it. (in my experience - also not an expert on this either)
My point is just that their broad "we don't accept returns, ever" policy in the UK is not legal in some jurisdictions, and nothing about returning a game because you don't like it. How that's interpreted is, of course, a matter of convincing the courts but the language Nintendo uses in the UK is not applicable worldwide, as many other companies have been raked over the coals for trying to do the same. Note that the wording on the UK page definitely excludes things like KOTOR II from being returned!
There's a AAA game from a major studio on Nintendo's store right now that can't be completed due to a game-breaking bug (the new Knights of the Old Republic II port), so Nintendo's obviously not doing that much of their own QA for things they're selling on their store.
Early on in the Switch's lifespan, the GameGrumps decided to check out the "Worst rated games on the Nintendo store". For reference, these are two games that Nintendo gave the green light to sell in their store:
Nintendo's Lot Check doesn't really establish anything. Nintendo Switch's game store is flooded with games that don't really work as the testing was minimized.
Interesting. In 2017 I purchased a game on Steam that was said to work on Linux (SW KOTOR 2). It didn't get past the initial splash screen. Contacted Steam support and they refunded without question.
Would that experience have been different if I wasn't an Australian?
eh, it’s not the end of the world if games just have to provide more than 2 hours gameplay. Steam is targeted at longer form entertainment. Just extend the story out with some puzzles or challenges that send the gameplay over 2 hours.
As another poster mentioned, some have done just that - added "filler" to a game to inflate it over the 2 hour bar, which is disappointing.
There should be some sliding scale where you can make a great 2 hour or less game without the risk of infinite refunding (perhaps the game could be marked with a "half-way" point, etc, though that would involve the shop actually playing it).
There is a minor genre of YouTube content with people speed-running longer games (e.g. Fallout, Skyrim) to fit into the two hour Steam-return window.
Ironically because speed-running requires a lot of practice this often means purchasing two copies of the game - the first to practice with, and the second to be (potentially) refunded!
I'm still upset with them: A couple of years ago, Linux support for Rust (the game) was discontinued and the publisher said that all Linux users would get a refund on Steam, regardless of play time. I tried several times but all my attempts at getting a refund were rejected.
Not much you can do - if the machines decide you don't get a refund, well, then you don't. I haven't bought anything on Steam since.
Hard to tell. It's Steam that refuses the refund, no idea how the decision is made. Apparently others managed to eventually get the refund by trying again and again; maybe I gave up too soon.
Only if there's the possibility of a massive fine involved. The ACCC receive FAR too many reports to action any more than a tiny percentage of them. More often than not they respond saying they can't confirm or deny any violation, but you should try mediation.
The threat of the ACCC is usually enough for international companies to provide the refund, in my experience. Link them to the Repair, Replace, Refund page[0] and you're good.
I remember when the latest DOOM title added a rootkit for anticheat. I had like 4-5h of playtime but still got a refund when I gave the reason "I didn't buy a rootkit". Not in Australia either.
Also, before then, Valve had a "one-time exception" to "no refunds" that you could use.
I bought 2 copies of a game advertising co-op to play with a friend, only to discover it's local-only. (Steam didn't have separate "local/remote play/online co-op" labels yet) I opened a ticket and they refunded me as a "one time exception".
I bought a game in 2020 on valves Steam that said it was macOS compatible. Did found out after starting it, that it required a dedicated GPU, which I didn't had. If I would have looked into the System Requirements I would have seen clearly that dedicated GPU was required.
They refunded my game after a short and polite message without any fuzz. I said thanks by buying a different game instead. Shame for the dev yes, but it was already an older one, that the developers moved on from years ago, so I didn't felt too bad about that.
Yep. I tried again a year or so later and it "just worked". Still one of my favourite games, even though it hasn't aged well.
I suppose I could have invested time to diagnose the original issue (drivers, OS upgrades, etc). But, it was good to see that Steam just refunded without insisting it was an issue on my end (which, it may well have been, given the disparity of Linux systems).
As is Sony for digital purchases - but believe me you have to fight tooth and nail to get anywhere, I had one return request email chain top 100 replies. I'm amazed the ACCC/ConsumerVIC aren't onto them more about it.
Put in a report with the ACCC. They’re usually very interested to hear your story and they almost always follow up with a company. I’ve had many problems solved just be reporting it, getting a case number, then calling the company back and giving the them case number. Usually gets their attention
I've logged at least 5, most of the time they come back with we don't deal with that you should contact consumers Victoria - I contact them and they only tell me my rights but don't do anything.
That sounds as if their share of the email replies causes more cost than the refund itself. Unless that's all AI replies now. In which case the solution is an AI that negotiates the refund.
Yeah exactly, with one I was really annoyed about that they kept saying they don't have to provide refunds for digital goods and I kept supplying Australian consumer law, it got to about 80 emails over 6 months trying to get a reply - then I hunted down people who work at Sony and started guessing their emails, regional ceos, cios, support managers - you name it! Eventually one of them replied an issued a refund. Obviously my time is worth more than the refund but it was just the principle of it that cheesed me enough to keep pushing.
I don't understand this sentence; it must reference some context I'm unaware of:
"When you purchase digital content in Nintendo eShop, at the time of your purchase, you consent to Nintendo beginning with the performance of its obligations immediately, before the cancellation period ends, and you acknowledge that you will thereby lose your right to cancel at that point."
Vague English summary here (the Sample story simply says "the 14 day cooling off period doesn't apply to concert ticket purchases" which seems insufficiently precise).
UK Consumer Contract law has a 14-day cancellation period.
For digital goods, the legislation states:
——
Under a contract for the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium, the trader must not begin supply of the digital content before the end of the cancellation period provided for in regulation 30(1), unless—
(a)the consumer has given express consent, and
(b)the consumer has acknowledged that the right to cancel the contract under regulation 29(1) will be lost.
——
Therefore, Nintendo is stating that the 14-day cancellation period is to be waived, and digital goods are to be deemed as supplied immediately upon purchase.
Wait, does that piece of law states that if you buy something as an Internet download, you then have to wait two weeks before you can actually download and use it unless you either a) ask the seller to not wait for two weeks; or b) give up on refunding?
In practise lets take a digital activation key for lets say Steam. Sold by thid-party.
They have automated system in place where after purchase the key is hopefully allocated, but hidden. And in EU and UK as this was remote purchase you have standard 14-day return window. Now you can reveal the key by accepting a pop-up that you forgo this return right. Which makes sense as it is digital one time key...
You need to pay a toll to use Austria's highways, by purchasing a sticker. You can purchase that sticker online, but not within 18 days of your intended first use day, because you by law you have 14 days to request a refund for online sales, and then they add 3 days because you could ask for your refund by snail mail. So they won't issue a first validity day within 18 days of purchase. <face palm>
> Q: Why is the digital vignette valid from the 18th day after purchase at the earliest when purchased in the Toll Shop?
> A: For consumers, the digital vignette or the digital section toll annual card cannot be used immediately after purchase. This also means, however, that you can edit your product before the start of the validity period without having to give any reasons (registration number, validity period).
> This restriction does not apply to companies. The reason for this is that, according to the European Consumer Protection Directive, consumers have the right to withdraw from the online purchase of a product or service within 14 days. As this withdrawal is possible by e-mail and by post, a further three days are allowed for cancellation by post until arrival at ASFINAG.
It's a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that basically means: you can refund within 14 days, as long as you haven't started downloading the content yet (which is also Sony's legal policy), because then it hadn't been "delivered" yet.
But purchases on eShop queue up a download immediately (as opposed to Sony's "download now" button), so I don't know how that period can "exist". Maybe you have a case if all of your Nintendo devices are offline at the time or something.
It sounds like legal gibberish to me as well, but here's my best guess:
* Contracts may have some cancellation period associated with them. You and I have entered a contract where I renovate your kitchen, and in exchange you pay me. I have you on the calendar in three months. If you change your mind in the next month, you can cancel the contract at no penalty.
* Two weeks later, I call you back and ask if you'd like me to start immediately. Somebody else canceled, and I have an opening in the schedule. You agree, and so I start the renovations.
* Another week passes, and the renovations are complete. But we're only three weeks into the original month-long cancelation period, so you slyly say that you'd like to cancel with no penalty. I could say that since I had begun the performance of my obligations, the cancellation period ended early.
So, I can understand where the concepts would come in. What makes no sense whatsoever is to have a cancellation period that ends at the same moment that the cancellation period starts. In the example, the cancellation period ended based on a follow-up choice. In Nintendo's wording, it seems like an attempt to negate any cancellation period whatsoever, because it would be created and dismissed within the same contract.
No. It’s correct as written. The point of this phrasing is to establish a waiver of the cancellation period for distance selling. The reason for the UK and EUs 14 day cancellation period for distance selling is to give a proper opportunity to inspect the goods and ensure they are fit for purpose.
There is a waiver that vendors can require customers to accept for various types of purchase, such as digital purchases, on the grounds that there’s no need for the goods to be inspected, or that “inspecting” the goods is so indistinguishable from “using the goods” that the 14 day period makes no sense.
Here, Nintendo are saying “our obligations under this contract are being met immediately, not after you’ve had 14 days to inspect and accept the goods”.
Maybe it's some legal coverage for the one exception of pre-orders? IIRC you can pre-order games on the eShop and cancel >=30 days before release. Maybe it has its own "cancellation period" definition.
You have a right to be able to return online purchases within 14 days in EU, but you can lose/waive that right for digital purchases, under the same law that gives you that right.
Even though this is Nintendo UK, I'm pretty sure this is what they are referring to.
I hate usage of verbiage like "unable to" when it's very clearly "don't wish to".
Abusing language to make it seem like there is some hard barrier to you performing some task really annoys me.
They clearly are able (and in some jurisdictions will be compelled) to refund purchases, they are just expressing their desire for you to go fk yourself.
This is really the truth of the matter, isn't it. All major payment processors permit merchants to refund. Each merchant in this case can revoke licence keys, if only they were to connect refunds to revocations in their store.
This isn't a "can't do", it's a "we don't want to do" situation.
Even worse is when it is put into passive language to intentionally remove the subject - which is done in political speeches to address negative outcomes. It has the subtle effect of shifting blame from the subject. Examples [1].
"We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases" becomes "Refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases are unable to be provided."
Not really. I looked into this last time it came up, and it seems to be mostly confirmation bias. A Google search of news stories and police statements showed plenty of examples where the passive voice was used to describe suspect actions and the active voice used to describe police actions, including shootings.
I don't think anyone would claim that literally every single time that is true but only that it is a non-negligible effect. (It still might be false, but you need to try harder.)
I think though that in this case the person who needs to try harder is the one who originated the claim, not the person trying to dispute it, given that the person who made the claim originally didn't provide any evidence.
It's a well-known thought process that has even been covered by places such as the Washington Post (among others, to be clear)... which I took the 30 seconds just now to find for you -- even though I think it is extreme frustrating when people whine about proactive citations for this kind of thing as it simply isn't a fair way to have a conversation -- and then when I switched back here to write this I realized that "the person who made the claim" in fact said it as well.
Like, this is a well-known enough thought process that the person I responded to had already felt a need to dig into this themselves before, only they dug into it wrong as a misinterpretation of the claim. Where I'd say we currently stand is thereby "seems like a credible hypothesis worthy of discussion". If anything, I can see a more useful way to ding the original claim here -- based on my knowledge of this ongoing discussion -- but it isn't to whine about how they should have already needed to provide evidence in their initial post, and nor certainly is it "I found a bunch of counter examples".
But even that seems like a non-sequitur as the interesting thing here clearly wasn't an attempt to sideline us into a discussion about police but was instead just an attempt to make a wider discussion about annoying usage of passive voice and other language shenanigans to avoid directly admitting blame or control -- which is an entirely fair point and I will strongly claim is a fully valid thing to be discussing and criticizing of this statement by Nintendo -- and while I could see reasonably pushing back on it in that light in a ton of ways, again: that set doesn't include whining about citations during a discussion and likely doesn't include defenses of oblique rebuttals :(.
'Normal' people fall for it all the time. Had to explain to my gf there's nothing stopping you or I from doing something like that with our own company.
(Seems to originate with the EU, but I thought it was much older, intending to cover mail order at first. I can't find reference to what it replaced if that's the case though.)
language is the way to control the brain. By making language passive, they make the reader passive, and make them avoid thinking about the subject. By calling it "unable", they make the reason un-askable.
Not trying to defend them but I often see these sentences when Japanese is translated too verbatim.
「申し訳ございませんが…出来ません。」is a very formal way of saying this. Context then of course tells the receiver if they really can’t or just don’t want to ..
When a company simply chooses not to do something, they often use 致しません。When they use 出来ません it would mean not possible (eg unable to ship an order due to time constraints) or because they want to pretend it’s too difficult and unreasonable of a request.
I don't know much Japanese, but yeah that's one of the ideas that comes up immediately. Definitely not my place to say if it's too verbatim, the one I've heard several times is muzukashii / 難しい.
I think it's hard to translate because just 'no' loses part of it, "no thank you (but I didn't actually say no)". So it sort of develops into the translation having a coded meaning, where difficult things are 'polite' refusals.
After buying a few Switches and using Nintendo's online service they seem very stodgy to me. It just feels like they are struggling to get it. The user experience is horrible.
You go from the ease of slapping in a cartridge to navigating thier downloadable content--it feels like getting hit by a brick wall.
Older people and the disabled, good luck using their system. I got tired of mucking with it and simply stopped playing games on the Switch. Remarkably clunky--reminds me of Jira.
This bit of news is no surprise at all--they are basically refusing to deal with a problem they created. Sad.
I wish statements like "We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases, and/or if you don't like the game" weren't legal.
It's obvious that they don't want to provide refunds, not that they can't, and that they're trying to mislead consumers into believing that it is some technical issue preventing them not avarice.
Issueing a chargeback is not always as simple “exercising you right.” You get your money back, ok. But you may still owe the provider the amount that you have taken back - or the goods received. The credit card provider is not legally entitled to make a decision on that matter. So the store owner is entirely entitled to refrain from servicing you until you pay up.
The problem is that I have issued a chargeback by mistake (I confused the charge from the store with something else, as they have changed the name in credit card reports). I immediately called my bank back and explained that this was a mistake, but it was too late — the chargeback processed, the card reissued, my last order in the store marked as “fraudulent”, and I am banned for life from this store. I even cannot pay again for that order, as they are not accepting anything from me, and their support is telling me there is nothing they can do.
Have they banned you for life, or just that card? I can't really see how they (especially assuming not a tiny low-volume owner-run business) could do the former.
Chargebacks are not the way you do things in Europe. It's a solution for the US because consumer protection laws are non existent, but most European countries require you to provide dozens of documents for a chargeback. Going through normal channels,escalating to the mediator of the state is the way it's done.
Also, issue à chargeback to Steam, Apple, Microsoft, Google and you will also be banned for life
Essentially it is often forgotten to note that chargebacks are outside clear fraud really the option of nearly last resort. Basically saying that I want my moneyback and I will risk not dealing with your company ever again.
It should be against consumer law to ban customers for issuing chargebacks. Or credit card companies should make respecting it part of the requirement for taking payments. Can't handle chargebacks? Then don't accept Visa/Mastercard etc.
So companies should be mandated to allow fraud? Ship something paid with credit card, the person does chargeback. And now you need to keep sending them new stuff?
Maybe it would be better to mandate better customer service. Stopping companies from banning those who do chargebacks is wrong solution to the problem.
You can't just do a chargeback for no reason. You have to show to the credit card company you have not received something, or got damaged goods etc. and you have tried to resolve it with the company.
All that takes coordination and manual labor at both the card servicer and the retailer. That overhead is tremendous. The actual refund is the least concern.
I'm not sure what your point is. They have to do that now, and the overhead is manageable. The vast majority of purchases do not involve a credit card chargeback.
Admittedly, spending 5+ hours trying to get a refund for something that cost $80 is counter productive. If you don't care if you ever do business with the company again, and you have a clear reason for a refund that you have explained to them, and they refuse to help you, then a chargeback is a single, efficient way of putting an end to all of it. Plus it punishes the company, because the more chargebacks they have against them, the more it costs them to do business using credit cards.
Those companies ban you because they have insane charge back rates (constant flow of charge backs), high enough to where servicers do not want to deal with them. They ban you in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
I used to sit next to a compliance department at a card servicer and it was Google, Google, Google all day long, every day. Charge backs from the play store. Very costly for servicers to man call centers to process a constant stream of charge back requests from these companies. Nevermind the cost of the actual refund.
There really needs to be a consumer protection law against retaliation for valid chargebacks.
Chargebacks are not an effective consumer protection tool when using it can get you banned. Doubly so when the company is the exclusive provider of a good (e.g. app stores), or when the company is a majority of national eCommerce (i.e. Amazon).
This is the only thing that keeps me from going insane.
There is something properly cathartic about submitting a claim after a pointless back and forth with some customer support agent regarding these matters.
You may also find more success by mentioning that you will be performing a charge back if the interaction does not conclude to your satisfaction up-front.
At some level, every business cares about this way more than your $100 purchase. Too many charge backs can cripple your ability to operate as fees increase and processors drop your ass.
It's because of anti-consumer behavior like this that I refuse to buy anything from Nintendo now. I used to own a Switch, but I eventually got tired of their ass-backward policies and sold it.
There should be a law forcing companies to write "we don't want to" when they just don't want to. Of course Nintendo is able to, provided that their bank didn't lock them out.
I suspect a bank that would get a share of the massive transaction volumes going through the Nintendo store would accommodate any return policy Nintendo wanted to offer. Look at Google and their 2 hour play store returns, it can be done they just don't want to (sorry they're unable to but I'm sure they really really want to if they could /s)
Respectfully I disagree; Nintendo fell apart after he was willfully assassinated by Nintendo executives. (cough, cough). I think despite what is perceived as a recent renaissance (it isn't) The Big N (god do I hate myself) has never reclaimed it's pre-Lost Generation magic. There aren't people to replace that, "manga and computer games" generation in Japan. Hideaki Anno made comment on this a few years back:
I think it's worth noting too (now that we're all in the same room) that despite a kind of mythology from people my age (31) that it really wasn't Shigeru Miyamoto and the 80's Star Fox brigade that made Nintendo what it was; Nintendo has and I hope always be a kind of weird ass toy company that happens to sell, "home computers."
I think it depends. A movie theater or a streaming multimedia platform? Blu ray in hand or Netflix? I feel the business model and format are factors in this equation.
In this particular case, the cost to the vendor of expensing merchandise is negligible because it is digital. If it was physical, or time & place, the conversation would be a little different.
I think if you watched 10% of a movie (which streaming platforms can track) and decided you didn't want to watch it, yeah. A good service provider would give you your money back. Would 1% of people take advantage of this and watch 10% of a movie and ask for a refund? Probably, but the good will to the other 99% would pay for that, IMO.
Stand up right in the middle, walk to the entrance, demand my money back if it sucked to bad. Turns out, there is a too low for quality and a too much to riddle a product with exploitive "features" - people have a right to walk out on that and demand their money back from the scammers.
I see Nintendon't and Apple as very similar companies.
Deeply anti-consumer with a fanbase that will defend them regardless.
Some kind of stockholm affect.
Just look at the joycon debacle which they refused to acknowledge or honour, very much Apple way of it's your fault.
I believe it's more an image/marketing issue. If you made -in your opinion- the best product or the most fun game you could make, it's difficult to stand by that statement and also acknowledge there could be something wrong with it. Publicly apologising takes away some of the brand value so that's something you only do as a last resort.
Nintendo replaced my out of warranty broken Joycons for free btw.
I think that's the key point there. They have a history of making some amazing games, and still continue to do so to some extent. But their business practices in recent years have been, quite simply, abysmal. Stuff like not doing refunds at all (unless they're forced to by law), and also them guarding their intellectual property like their lives depend on it even when this is detrimental to their own business model (remember when they took a cut out of YouTubers making videos of their games leading to many just not bothering, and Nintendo losing out on publicity?)
I'm not much of a gamer anymore but I still enjoy playing them from time to time. I just feel like the gaming industry has being getting worse, and worse. Games are so monetized now that some are now borderline (or ought to be considered) gambling. At least there is still some amazing creativity coming from independent development studios.
> Games are so monetized now that some are now borderline (or ought to be considered) gambling. At least there is still some amazing creativity coming from independent development studios.
In their defense, games have gotten an incredible amount larger and more complicated without adjusting the price of the games since the 90's. We're effectively paying half the price we would have in the 90's due to inflation.
I don't know that people would buy them at inflation-adjusted prices. Adjusted from the early 90s, a game would now cost ~$120. And that's discounting the difference in development costs. The latest Call of Duty had a budget of $250M; Ocarina of Time had a budget of $12M, which is ~$21M after adjusting for inflation.
I don't love the direction either, but they have to make money somewhere.
I do understand that argument. Games have certainly gotten much more expensive, which I think is inevitable because the increased computational power of newer consoles is leading to developers wanting to fully utilise this power. I am however skeptical that this has lead to an increase in quality.
I agree that people probably wouldn't buy games at inflation-adjusted prices. People would find it hillarious if a company came forward, and offered a base game at $120 (although we do sometimes see games with addons that cost this much; the Assassin's Creed Valhalla Complete Edition costs nearly £120 (British pounds) but this comparison comes with the caveat that this includes stuff that wasn't in the original base game.) But if micro transactions are considered the consequence of having high-budget games then, frankly, I don't want them. As I said, there are still some incredible games made by independent studios, and these games are often made at a fraction of the price of their AAA counterparts.
I suppose I can't complain too much because my solution is just not to buy, and sink money into high-budget games, and just opt for the smaller budget games.
(I think companies underestimate the fallout from such things because it is so subtle: nintendo sells you an experience, they create the game, the console, and the controller - everyone in my household now subtly associates the nintendo experience with frustration, "I just died because link moved by himself! That's bull**!". Multiplied by the amount of households affected, what is the true effect on Nintendo's brand over the 5 years that the switch is the flagship? And they STILL don't offer a fixed joycon version.)
Its electronics parts cleaner spray that pretty instantly and cleanly evaporates. Solved my drift problem with one use and have never had another problem.
> Just look at the joycon debacle which they refused to acknowledge or honour
Indeed, please do look instead of blindly repeating falsehood. Nintendo is repairing joycons for free, as many times as needed. Inconvenient, but that is not “refused to acknowledge or honour”.
I feel like Nintendo is able to survive to this day only because of their first-party IPs which are exclusive to Nintendo consoles (Pokemon, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Zelda, Animal Crossing, ...). Without those IPs, I don't see why customers would buy a Switch otherwise. I personally was roped into buying a Switch because of Breath of the Wild.
If you grew up playing Nintendo games, the best games on the market at the time, you'll excuse and forgive a lot. Nintendo was the toy in the house, even surpassing LEGO.
I thought this might break distance selling rules in the UK but it seems like you can "contract out" for streaming and download products as long as you get the customer to accept a no refund policy prior to purchase.
Imho this is sharp business practice and one of the reasons I still buy physical video games.
If there are any lawyers lurking, can this refund policy be circumvented if purchasing with a Credit Card under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act? I'm assuming you'd need to somehow prove it wasn't what you expected (accidental purchase)?
I think that “reasonable steps” here could be: “we asked the user to review their basket before checking out, and displayed a final list of everything in the order directly above the payment options at the last stage of the check out process.
I once purchased a subscription for a game, and only then learned that it required an additional ToS (which I did not agree to) and external Ubisoft account to use.
Believe it or not, I was actually able to get a refund!
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[ 11.1 ms ] story [ 597 ms ] threadUpdated after your update: In this case I think we can assume "acceptable quality" has already been established by Nintendo's QA department. Its not an open store after all.
The Nintendo online market pretty much has no oversight anymore. They don't do any careful pruning of shovelware these days.
https://legendsoflocalization.com/this-be-bad-translation-19...
NES games often had some pretty rough translations, but I can't think of a single game in that era that was this garbled.
If you take a game back to a major retailer like Target or Big W, they won't accept it with the seal broken unless you tell them there is something wrong with the physical disk or cartage. They won't accept a return if you just tell them you didn't like it. (in my experience - also not an expert on this either)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGtanhZvjcM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFJwO7AbfCk
They've actually published games with Nintendo before, so they discuss how such terrible games were allowed on the shop in the second video
Would that experience have been different if I wasn't an Australian?
The usual refund conditions are “less than two hours of play, within two weeks of purchase.”
There should be some sliding scale where you can make a great 2 hour or less game without the risk of infinite refunding (perhaps the game could be marked with a "half-way" point, etc, though that would involve the shop actually playing it).
Ironically because speed-running requires a lot of practice this often means purchasing two copies of the game - the first to practice with, and the second to be (potentially) refunded!
Not much you can do - if the machines decide you don't get a refund, well, then you don't. I haven't bought anything on Steam since.
0. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...
I bought 2 copies of a game advertising co-op to play with a friend, only to discover it's local-only. (Steam didn't have separate "local/remote play/online co-op" labels yet) I opened a ticket and they refunded me as a "one time exception".
They refunded my game after a short and polite message without any fuzz. I said thanks by buying a different game instead. Shame for the dev yes, but it was already an older one, that the developers moved on from years ago, so I didn't felt too bad about that.
I suppose I could have invested time to diagnose the original issue (drivers, OS upgrades, etc). But, it was good to see that Steam just refunded without insisting it was an issue on my end (which, it may well have been, given the disparity of Linux systems).
"When you purchase digital content in Nintendo eShop, at the time of your purchase, you consent to Nintendo beginning with the performance of its obligations immediately, before the cancellation period ends, and you acknowledge that you will thereby lose your right to cancel at that point."
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/83/2022-05-28
Vague English summary here (the Sample story simply says "the 14 day cooling off period doesn't apply to concert ticket purchases" which seems insufficiently precise).
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
For digital goods, the legislation states:
——
Under a contract for the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium, the trader must not begin supply of the digital content before the end of the cancellation period provided for in regulation 30(1), unless—
(a)the consumer has given express consent, and
(b)the consumer has acknowledged that the right to cancel the contract under regulation 29(1) will be lost.
——
Therefore, Nintendo is stating that the 14-day cancellation period is to be waived, and digital goods are to be deemed as supplied immediately upon purchase.
They have automated system in place where after purchase the key is hopefully allocated, but hidden. And in EU and UK as this was remote purchase you have standard 14-day return window. Now you can reveal the key by accepting a pop-up that you forgo this return right. Which makes sense as it is digital one time key...
Now faulty products are a fun mess...
> Q: Why is the digital vignette valid from the 18th day after purchase at the earliest when purchased in the Toll Shop?
> A: For consumers, the digital vignette or the digital section toll annual card cannot be used immediately after purchase. This also means, however, that you can edit your product before the start of the validity period without having to give any reasons (registration number, validity period).
> This restriction does not apply to companies. The reason for this is that, according to the European Consumer Protection Directive, consumers have the right to withdraw from the online purchase of a product or service within 14 days. As this withdrawal is possible by e-mail and by post, a further three days are allowed for cancellation by post until arrival at ASFINAG.
https://shop.asfinag.at/en/maut-produkte/digitale-vignette/0...
But purchases on eShop queue up a download immediately (as opposed to Sony's "download now" button), so I don't know how that period can "exist". Maybe you have a case if all of your Nintendo devices are offline at the time or something.
* Contracts may have some cancellation period associated with them. You and I have entered a contract where I renovate your kitchen, and in exchange you pay me. I have you on the calendar in three months. If you change your mind in the next month, you can cancel the contract at no penalty.
* Two weeks later, I call you back and ask if you'd like me to start immediately. Somebody else canceled, and I have an opening in the schedule. You agree, and so I start the renovations.
* Another week passes, and the renovations are complete. But we're only three weeks into the original month-long cancelation period, so you slyly say that you'd like to cancel with no penalty. I could say that since I had begun the performance of my obligations, the cancellation period ended early.
So, I can understand where the concepts would come in. What makes no sense whatsoever is to have a cancellation period that ends at the same moment that the cancellation period starts. In the example, the cancellation period ended based on a follow-up choice. In Nintendo's wording, it seems like an attempt to negate any cancellation period whatsoever, because it would be created and dismissed within the same contract.
There is a waiver that vendors can require customers to accept for various types of purchase, such as digital purchases, on the grounds that there’s no need for the goods to be inspected, or that “inspecting” the goods is so indistinguishable from “using the goods” that the 14 day period makes no sense.
Here, Nintendo are saying “our obligations under this contract are being met immediately, not after you’ve had 14 days to inspect and accept the goods”.
What's the point here?
yeah nah, that doesnt fly in countries with consumer protections, no EULA or TOS has power to void your rights
You have a right to be able to return online purchases within 14 days in EU, but you can lose/waive that right for digital purchases, under the same law that gives you that right.
Even though this is Nintendo UK, I'm pretty sure this is what they are referring to.
Abusing language to make it seem like there is some hard barrier to you performing some task really annoys me.
They clearly are able (and in some jurisdictions will be compelled) to refund purchases, they are just expressing their desire for you to go fk yourself.
This isn't a "can't do", it's a "we don't want to do" situation.
"We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases" becomes "Refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases are unable to be provided."
[1] https://www.ranker.com/list/times-politicians-used-passive-v...
> The suspect produced a semi-automatic handgun and fired numerous times striking the victim in the torso.
> The suspect then ran towards the officers still armed with the sword and an officer-involved-shooting occurred.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Like, this is a well-known enough thought process that the person I responded to had already felt a need to dig into this themselves before, only they dug into it wrong as a misinterpretation of the claim. Where I'd say we currently stand is thereby "seems like a credible hypothesis worthy of discussion". If anything, I can see a more useful way to ding the original claim here -- based on my knowledge of this ongoing discussion -- but it isn't to whine about how they should have already needed to provide evidence in their initial post, and nor certainly is it "I found a bunch of counter examples".
But even that seems like a non-sequitur as the interesting thing here clearly wasn't an attempt to sideline us into a discussion about police but was instead just an attempt to make a wider discussion about annoying usage of passive voice and other language shenanigans to avoid directly admitting blame or control -- which is an entirely fair point and I will strongly claim is a fully valid thing to be discussing and criticizing of this statement by Nintendo -- and while I could see reasonably pushing back on it in that light in a ton of ways, again: that set doesn't include whining about citations during a discussion and likely doesn't include defenses of oblique rebuttals :(.
IANAL, but including in the UK I believe, which this FAQ purports to serve.
https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
(Seems to originate with the EU, but I thought it was much older, intending to cover mail order at first. I can't find reference to what it replaced if that's the case though.)
https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
exactly that.
language is the way to control the brain. By making language passive, they make the reader passive, and make them avoid thinking about the subject. By calling it "unable", they make the reason un-askable.
When a company simply chooses not to do something, they often use 致しません。When they use 出来ません it would mean not possible (eg unable to ship an order due to time constraints) or because they want to pretend it’s too difficult and unreasonable of a request.
You go from the ease of slapping in a cartridge to navigating thier downloadable content--it feels like getting hit by a brick wall.
Older people and the disabled, good luck using their system. I got tired of mucking with it and simply stopped playing games on the Switch. Remarkably clunky--reminds me of Jira.
This bit of news is no surprise at all--they are basically refusing to deal with a problem they created. Sad.
It's obvious that they don't want to provide refunds, not that they can't, and that they're trying to mislead consumers into believing that it is some technical issue preventing them not avarice.
Issue a chargeback. Cause them more problems.
I liked that store.
Also, issue à chargeback to Steam, Apple, Microsoft, Google and you will also be banned for life
Maybe it would be better to mandate better customer service. Stopping companies from banning those who do chargebacks is wrong solution to the problem.
I used to sit next to a compliance department at a card servicer and it was Google, Google, Google all day long, every day. Charge backs from the play store. Very costly for servicers to man call centers to process a constant stream of charge back requests from these companies. Nevermind the cost of the actual refund.
Chargebacks are not an effective consumer protection tool when using it can get you banned. Doubly so when the company is the exclusive provider of a good (e.g. app stores), or when the company is a majority of national eCommerce (i.e. Amazon).
There is something properly cathartic about submitting a claim after a pointless back and forth with some customer support agent regarding these matters.
You may also find more success by mentioning that you will be performing a charge back if the interaction does not conclude to your satisfaction up-front.
At some level, every business cares about this way more than your $100 purchase. Too many charge backs can cripple your ability to operate as fees increase and processors drop your ass.
Whatever happened to the wonderful company Yokoi Gunpei made toys at?
https://kotaku.com/evangelion-creator-predicts-the-death-of-...
I'm sincerely hoping the kids are still alright!
http://blog.beforemario.com/p/nintendo-before-mario.html
I would fight in bloody wars for a competent, "modern Famicom" with a sort of Mario Paint Forever built in.
In this particular case, the cost to the vendor of expensing merchandise is negligible because it is digital. If it was physical, or time & place, the conversation would be a little different.
Nintendo's ecosystem is the most closed down and money mongering machine I had a pleasure to use.
Just look at the joycon debacle which they refused to acknowledge or honour, very much Apple way of it's your fault.
(not to say they don't make good products)
Nintendo replaced my out of warranty broken Joycons for free btw.
I think that's the key point there. They have a history of making some amazing games, and still continue to do so to some extent. But their business practices in recent years have been, quite simply, abysmal. Stuff like not doing refunds at all (unless they're forced to by law), and also them guarding their intellectual property like their lives depend on it even when this is detrimental to their own business model (remember when they took a cut out of YouTubers making videos of their games leading to many just not bothering, and Nintendo losing out on publicity?)
I'm not much of a gamer anymore but I still enjoy playing them from time to time. I just feel like the gaming industry has being getting worse, and worse. Games are so monetized now that some are now borderline (or ought to be considered) gambling. At least there is still some amazing creativity coming from independent development studios.
In their defense, games have gotten an incredible amount larger and more complicated without adjusting the price of the games since the 90's. We're effectively paying half the price we would have in the 90's due to inflation.
I don't know that people would buy them at inflation-adjusted prices. Adjusted from the early 90s, a game would now cost ~$120. And that's discounting the difference in development costs. The latest Call of Duty had a budget of $250M; Ocarina of Time had a budget of $12M, which is ~$21M after adjusting for inflation.
I don't love the direction either, but they have to make money somewhere.
I agree that people probably wouldn't buy games at inflation-adjusted prices. People would find it hillarious if a company came forward, and offered a base game at $120 (although we do sometimes see games with addons that cost this much; the Assassin's Creed Valhalla Complete Edition costs nearly £120 (British pounds) but this comparison comes with the caveat that this includes stuff that wasn't in the original base game.) But if micro transactions are considered the consequence of having high-budget games then, frankly, I don't want them. As I said, there are still some incredible games made by independent studios, and these games are often made at a fraction of the price of their AAA counterparts.
I suppose I can't complain too much because my solution is just not to buy, and sink money into high-budget games, and just opt for the smaller budget games.
I bought a new switch with 4 joycon controllers. A year later, 2 were unusable (the sticks drift), a third one with slight but acceptable drift.
On the other hand, I have 4 xbox 360 controllers from 10 years ago that are still perfectly usable.
I sent nintendo an email, they only offered to replace them at a cost, and I would have to send the console in as well, which may be wiped.
Buying new joycons was also not an option, given a (seemingly) >50% chance that they would be unusable within less than a year.
Now, I use a mayflash ns stick (incredible product! https://www.mayflash.com/Support/showdownload.php?id=34 ), to use my 360 controllers wirelessly in the switch (with a xbox wireless receiver that I also use for PC https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-Wireless-Receiver-Wind...)
I find this entire situation absurd.
---
(I think companies underestimate the fallout from such things because it is so subtle: nintendo sells you an experience, they create the game, the console, and the controller - everyone in my household now subtly associates the nintendo experience with frustration, "I just died because link moved by himself! That's bull**!". Multiplied by the amount of households affected, what is the true effect on Nintendo's brand over the 5 years that the switch is the flagship? And they STILL don't offer a fixed joycon version.)
CRC Precision Electronics Parts Cleaner
Its electronics parts cleaner spray that pretty instantly and cleanly evaporates. Solved my drift problem with one use and have never had another problem.
Indeed, please do look instead of blindly repeating falsehood. Nintendo is repairing joycons for free, as many times as needed. Inconvenient, but that is not “refused to acknowledge or honour”.
https://joyconrepair.nintendo.com/
If you grew up playing Nintendo games, the best games on the market at the time, you'll excuse and forgive a lot. Nintendo was the toy in the house, even surpassing LEGO.
I think consumer's advocacy groups should look into that.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
Imho this is sharp business practice and one of the reasons I still buy physical video games.
If there are any lawyers lurking, can this refund policy be circumvented if purchasing with a Credit Card under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act? I'm assuming you'd need to somehow prove it wasn't what you expected (accidental purchase)?
https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
> [You must] take reasonable steps to let customers correct errors in their order
That should cover accidental purchases at the very least.
I love that the kid game company is the one with the biggest nuts on this
It's to the point where I would not be surprised if there are lawyers and judges who play emulated Nintendo games.
In many european countries a child can only buy something if the parents agree.
I as a father just would tell Nintendo to reimburse because I didn't agree with my child's purchase, give them some time then start a charge-back.
If they are upfront to the why, people would be more understanding.
Believe it or not, I was actually able to get a refund!
In my region they don't even allow buying any games online, you insensitive clod!