Poll: Digital Refund - Should it be an Option?

[bells]

It's really not the same as Piracy.

First of all, if you like the game, you are not going to return it. Even those who do form a minority. And Being aware of a Minority of exploiters is not a justification to negate rights for a majority.

Secondly, not all games have Demos and it's not always possible to get an actual fair look at a game before buying it. Even above that, sometimes, Hype and marketing just gets ya... this attitude of "Sucks to be you then" is just PR Bullshit people are eating up and taking it as "If i don't get tricked by the Big mean corporations it just means i'm smarter than everyone else". No... it just means they have an excuse to shove shit all over all of us.

You shouldn't get full price for a refund or return. But you should be able to do it, maybe in just the first few days after Buying. Maybe the 2013 version of a game comes out and i want to trade in my 2012 version of it to get a 5 or 10 bucks discount. I'm being rewarded for being loyal to the brand, i bought the previous version and now i'm updating to the newest one. I don't need to have both... but if it's a Digital game, i HAVE to. It's just not a fair case.

All and all, it allows the Consumer, the gamers to vote with their wallets, to make a positive statement that 60 bucks games with no replaybility and 3 hours of content is NOT Okay, that some people DON'T like to find out their games have On Disc DLC. That sometimes a game is Trully different and WORST then what you expected from reading Biased or Lazy reviews, Screenshots and Gameplay Trailers... that's even when we GET those things...

Because here is the thing. Once you bought it, you don't matter. They already sold you the game, you already paid for it. Your voice is MUCH lower... why the hell people as consumers want to have LESS say on the quality of the products they buy? Why you want to essentially lock yourself out of actual feedback the companies can understand? Their bottomline. it's all about the profit margin.

If people turn away from Shaddy DLC and Poor games, returning them out of insatisfaction THAT makes noise. Is it hard to do? Not my problem! THere is a lot of shit they do nowadays that back then was consider to be too hard to pull of. Steam being one of them, Always Online DRM being another (which seems ok as long as the Name DIABLO is on the print...) .

People here are essentially doing unpaid internships for the PR departments of the very same companies the screw the consumers over and over and over again, it trully boggles my mind how could anyone not want to have a bigger say on the overall quality of the games they buy...



EDIT:

If anybody needs EXTRA reasons to break apart the whole "Research before buying it!" bullshit, you have to look no further than this thread

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.376541-Games-that-fooled-you?page=1

Put this games as Digital Avaliable titles (which some are) and now you have another reason why players should be allowed to request a refund or return a Digital Purchase.

 

[everythingbeeps]

There will probably have to be a refund option, but a week is way too long. I'm thinking like a day. Maybe two.

Amazon offers refunds on Kindle books up to a week I think, but apparently they monitor your returns to make sure you don't abuse it.

What game companies will need to watch out for is those losers who abuse the refund privelege in order to "rent" whatever games they want, play them for a day or a week or whatever, and then return them. The same losers who buy a game in the store, finish it in a matter of days, and then return it for a full refund just because they can.

Digital distribution needs to weed out those people.

 

[Flames66]

I think some kind of refund system is essential, especially as we are not usually able to (legitimately) test the product before purchase. I think within seven days of first attempting to use a product, refunds should be given for ANY REASON. "I don't like this game", This game does not work on my system", "Authentication servers are not usable", and of these reasons should immediately warrant a full refund, within a reasonable time period.

Is that really feasible in a world where the majority of games have an average play through time well below the time period you're suggesting to be an automatic refund?

I don't know, I have never played through a game in less than two weeks.

 

[bells]

I think this would be a very good incentive for Developers to stop thinking it's OKAY to release mediocre half week experiences at premium prices...

 

[Wintermoot]

partial refund something like 25% refund regardless of purchase but based on the current sale price ex. a game bought on launch is $60 but lets say you sell it when it,s down to $20 you only get $5 back.
or maybe a option to transfer it to a friend (with the penalty that this can only be done once per copy with no take-back option)
or maybe a rental service where you get a temporary license (10% of the purchase price for one day) most devs seem to be allergic towards demos (I get it with stuff like TES but COD?!) this is one way to circumvent this.
most of my prices may need to be tweaked a bit since I,m just making them up as I go along.

 

[Podunk]

I think a week is too long, 2-5 days would be fine, depending on length of game. Short indie games probably should only have like an hour to get a refund, since they can usually be beaten in 1-2 days.

 

[TrevHead]

If its broken yes otherwise no.

The problem is the lack of demos that let us try before we buy. Imo its a goddam crime the industry gets away with this on PC since they have the worse bugs and not even an used sales market to recoup lost money.

Honestly it boggles my mind as to think how retarded so much of the industry is with PC. Apart from populated servers I cant think of anything else that would make any sane person buy a PC game at launch. Especially pre-order players have no idea if they are buying a lemon or not. (ok bug fixes MIGHT come later but thats little solace to the poor bloke who pre-ordered it.

In the absence of demos for DL games then they should be a no quibble returns policy for any game with less than one hour of playtime.

 

[Podunk]

Well...

I would like an option that isn't on the list.

The beauty of the digital distribution is that you can keep track off how much you have used the product.

So I would like to see a system that allowed for a refund if the the product have little to no use at any time (may need some additional rules on that).

Blizzard did this with a large amount of American customers. Steam does this with Products that doesn't run on your computer. It is a good system.

This is the best way.

 

[Worgen]

I've bought some games which don't work at all (Oddworld games on Steam) and I'm not aware if they can be refunded so yes I think they should be refunded.

I got a game on steam that didn't work and I couldn't get a hold of the dev for it but I did contact steam and they refunded the game for me, although they also said a one time thing so I'm not certain I could do it again.

 

[sanquin]

The problem is you don't buy the game when you purchase one digitally. You only buy the rights to download/use the software. A license to use a product does not have to be refunded unless you can prove that the product does not work as advertised. And 'the game wasn't fun/good enough' or 'the game didn't last long enough' doesn't fall under this.

Physical copies are different in that you fully purchase the product. And with that, you are allowed to sell it again. (A refund is getting full price back. Otherwise you only sell it back to the store.)

As for DLC. Those are meant to be additions to the game, not part of the full product. Now, some companies (like ME3 with the prothean dlc) try to make a part of the game a dlc. That's where they cross the line. But otherwise it's nothing more than a 'thank you' for buying the game retail instead of second hand. As for DLC you buy afterwards. Once again, you only purchased the rights to use the software, not the software itself.

It's why I try to get as much of my games physically as possible, and even outright refuse to buy some other games if they're digital only. Because you don't actually physically own the game. Only the right to use the software.

 

[bells]

The problem is you don't buy the game when you purchase one digitally. You only buy the rights to download/use the software. A license to use a product does not have to be refunded unless you can prove that the product does not work as advertised. And 'the game wasn't fun/good enough' or 'the game didn't last long enough' doesn't fall under this.

Physical copies are different in that you fully purchase the product. And with that, you are allowed to sell it again. (A refund is getting full price back. Otherwise you only sell it back to the store.)

That has been debunked and destroyed at least 3 times in this thread and you are not making a single new argument for it... so, no. For reasons already stated before...

As for DLC. Those are meant to be additions to the game, not part of the full product. Now, some companies (like ME3 with the prothean dlc) try to make a part of the game a dlc. That's where they cross the line. But otherwise it's nothing more than a 'thank you' for buying the game retail instead of second hand. As for DLC you buy afterwards. Once again, you only purchased the rights to use the software, not the software itself.

You never own the game, you only own a license to play it. Be it on Disc or anywhere else. There are no rules ANYWHERE saying otherwise. you can just sell a disc because it's a physical good other can buy, which is something the Publishers DONT want you to do, cause it hurts their bottomline and gives the consumer more control then what THEY want you to have.

As for DLC... again, why? "'cause it is"? Define the difference between an Addition to a game and Two games connected. Can you? Knights of the Nine for Oblivion was an Expansion pack. It came in a Disc. Dawnguard is an Expension for Skyrim, it's Digital... the only difference is that one comes in a Physical disc (but you can ALSO get it Digitally.)

So... again, No. That's just Marketing Bullshit to take away any rights the consumer has to cause an effect when he feels he was dealt misleading advertisement or products.

 

[sanquin]

-snip-

When you buy a disk that has the full game on it, you DO own the game. Companies want you to think otherwise. That you're only owning a license, but you do actually own the game when buying it physically.

DLC is not the same as an expansion. A DLC is just a small addition to the game. A little bit of extra content to add to an already completed game. An expansion is, as the name implies, a full on expansion on the game. It expands the game that was already there into something more. And I'm saying DLC is meant to be an addition to the game because that was just it's original purpose. Sure, companies are trying to alter said purpose to mean 'let's get some more money out of you' or 'pay us or don't get the full game' (when buying second hand), but that was still not the intended purpose at first.

I'm not trying to argue that companies aren't trying to take away our consumer rights with bullshit. They are, constantly. But by buying digital editions and dlc's, you're only giving them incentive to do it even more.