Valve is trying to play God again... no Steam refunds for EU

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/19314/valve-effectively-gets-rid-of-eu-steam-refunds.html

" The EU requires businesses let customers return their purchases up to two weeks after they have been made. This requirement was an annoyance to Valve since it does not offer Steamrefunds. Instead of offering refunds, Valve has decided it will skirt around the law and continue preventing refunds.

Steam's subscriber license agreement has been updated to prevent refunds. Valve will recognize a customer's right to a refund and also require that they waive that right in order to make a purchase."

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I think two weeks is a bit absurd, since you can easily finish a game in two weeks and say "I want my money back" but there has to be some sort of safeguard like GoG or Origin offer. Origin gives you 7 days if the game hasn't been downloaded, or 24 hours after it's been installed to get a refund.

EU has some great consumer protection laws though and I doubt Valve will win this one. I wish we had stricter consumer protection laws in the USA. But it seems the politicians only want to protect the RIAA and MPAA despite ludicrous requests.

 

Yeah, the USA is all about consumer anti-protection, and they have the absolute most vocal public about things too. Most of the US is a huge minefield.

 

Oh so this was what the recent update to the subscriber agreement was about...

 

I don't really care tbh.. I get most my games through humble bundle anyways and if I am buying a game like COD, it's after I've read about how it performs etc.. However this doesn't give Steam the right to skirt around the Law.. If the EU Comission notices this, they're going to be in a deep soup!

 

Told you Valve would turn evil one day!

 

Yeah, considering you can buy most games for like $2-$5 who cares. lol.

 

I guess that's their strategy.
But what if you buy a game for full price and it turns out to be crap? I mean, I would definitely ask for a refund for ACU.
Or (relevant to Germany/Australia/some other pansy country) what if you pre-order a game and it turns out to be cut. I was actually once refunded a discounted game because it was cut and Valve had no warning put up.
If a game is good people won't ask for a refund (well OK, there will be a small percentage of jerks, but most are OK), but if it wasn't as advertised they have all rights to ask for money back.

 

Yeah I agree, this is one area where Steam definitely needs to step up compared to GOG and Origin. I've no idea what Uplay's policy is since I never use it but being Ubi I bet it's just as bad as Steam if not worse.

 

I dunno, I've bought games for 25+ years and have never been able to return them once opened. Not something I'd say Valve is being evil over, just the way the industry woks. Same with movies and CD's back in the day...

 

I did once in Germany. Shop accepted it back without a problem. It was opened too.