Valve allowing refunds for 14 days after purchase. (EU, UK, AU)

[Old Skool Raver]

Seems this is a new feature Steam will offer to EU and a few other countries. 14 day refund policy's now exist on Steam. Its worth noting that in EU as soon as you run the game you lose your right to refund (in accordance with EU distance selling laws) while Aussies get the ability to refund if the product is not of satisfactory quality.

Source - http://hexus.net/gaming/news/industry/81742-steam-offer-refunds-eu-customers-14-day-period/

Valve has quietly adjusted the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The agreement changes mean that European customers will be able to get refunds for their Steam Store purchases - no transaction charges and no questions asked - for up to fourteen days following their purchase.

The updated section of the agreement is under Part 3. 'Billing, payment and other subscriptions'. The new wording is as follows:

"If you are an EU subscriber, you have the right to withdraw from a purchase transaction for digital content without charge and without giving any reason for a duration of fourteen days or until Valve's performance of its obligations has begun with your prior express consent and your acknowledgment that you thereby lose your right of withdrawal, whichever happens sooner. Therefore, you will be informed during the checkout process when our performance starts and asked to provide your prior express consent to the purchase being final."

However the 14 day period doesn't let you give any purchased software a test run. As noted by MCVUK, and implied above, Valve's "performance of its obligations" starts as soon as you download and install the software, so these acts can cut short your refund window with immediate effect. When you download and install the game the Steam Client offers up the following prompt:

"By clicking 'Purchase' you agree that Valve provides you immediate access to digital content as soon as you complete your purchase, without waiting the 14-day withdrawal period. Therefore, you expressly waive your right to withdraw from this purchase."

Overall the usefulness of this 14 day refund window to EU residents is therefore probably very limited. Meanwhile New Zealand based subscribers get extra rights in that they can theoretically get refunds if a software product is not of "acceptable quality." It will be interesting to see how many Kiwis manage to pry their money back out of Valve's fists thanks to that new clause.

I should clarify two things. First EU law only allows the 14 day cool off period for goods sold over the internet if they're returned unopened. As soon as you open or use the item you lose the right to return it. Second is Steams refund to wallet policy. The refund button on the account page refunds to wallet however with pre orders, as long as you submit the ticket before the game is released and you've not installed it you can submit a ticket to have the refund returned to where ever you originally purchased it from, I'm fairly sure they'll apply the same policy to 14 day refunds so as long as you haven't installed the game (and in the process used the key) and the ticket was created before the 14 day period expires they'll refund it back onto your debit/credit card or where ever you bought it from.

[TirithRR]

Old news. There is a discussion here from when it first happened a month ago.

"If you are an EU subscriber, you have the right to withdraw from a purchase transaction for digital content without charge and without giving any reason for a duration of fourteen days or until Valve's performance of its obligations has begun with your prior express consent and your acknowledgment that you thereby lose your right of withdrawal, whichever happens sooner. Therefore, you will be informed during the checkout process when our performance starts and asked to provide your prior express consent to the purchase being final."

Valve fulfills it's obligation when it delivers the game to your Library and gets your consent on checkout. So in the end, very little has changed, just the wording. Actual practices remain the same.

[Pheace]

Valve fulfills it's obligation when it delivers the game to your Library and gets your consent on checkout. So in the end, very little has changed, just the wording. Actual practices remain the same.

Which, before someone starts saying this is illegal, is an exception that exists in the actual law.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by Smokin' Scream:

Meanwhile New Zealand based subscribers get extra rights in that they can theoretically get refunds if a software product is not of "acceptable quality." It will be interesting to see how many Kiwis manage to pry their money back out of Valve's fists thanks to that new clause.

It is worth noting that the EU has similar laws on unfit goods. Buy a game in the EU which does not work, and you can prove you have shown good faith by working with publisher and retailer to rectify the issue, then you have an absolute right to a full refund.
The only difference is someone successfully took VALVe to court in New Zealand because of the wording of the SSA, while in the EU no-one has.
It could be because consumer groups know consumers can just call VALVe's bluff on the cause or they've only got a limited amount of resources and quite a few companies trying things like this.

Originally posted by Pheace:

Which, before someone starts saying this is illegal, is an exception that exists in the actual law.

Yes there are exceptions, and unfortunate from what I've read they are vague and more suited to the streaming of a multi-media performance rather than the delivery of a complete binary package whose content and suitability is not in the control of the VALVe.

I am not a lawyer, but have worked in the legal industry.

Once again
Criminal Law. Try and take a Game from a shop with out paying and the police will track you down and punish you.

Civil Law. A company takes away a legally protected right, it is up to the general populus (normally via a consumer group or ombudsman) to take a lot of time, pay a lot of money and risk loosing a lot more to take that company to a civil court in order to force them to comply.

Criminal Law: Someone misrepresent details in order for financial gain and they're commiting fraud which is a criminal offence. Have suffcient proof you can pass that to the police and they can investigate. No cost to you except what you lost in the fraud.

Civil Law: A company says their product comes under this law, not that law, or the law itself is ill-fitting to the product then it is up to the general populus (normally via a consumer group or ombudsman) to take a lot of time, pay a lot of money and risk loosing a lot more to take that company to a civil court in order to fix the issue.

It is also worth noting both Criminal cases I mentioned can have Civil laws to go with them. The Criminal court is more concerned in getting the thief and fraudster into jail, and the victims may need to take the culprits to a civil court in order to fully regain any losses.

The point is many (often large multinationals) have teams of lawyer whose job is it is to assess how the laws effect their companies, which laws will cost them money and whether those laws can be avoided. Whenever a legal team put a practice in to avoid a particual law it will be fully aware to which degree that law could effect them, and the likelyhood of a consumer/legal group countering that practice. They'll also build a defence plan at that point to.

A good legal team can save a company vasts amount of money.

Companies have contract clause that have absolutely no legal founding and could never be legally upheld. Having such clauses is not a criminal nor civil offence, but if a company inacts one of those clauses, it is upto you to take them to a civil court to prove they're not binding.

Are those companies acting illegally when they try to avoid a civil law? It is unfortunately like schrodinger's cat, no way to know for certain until you open the box and take them to court.

But to assume a companies actions are entirely legal is naive and shows no understanding of the complex nature of the laws that govern our world.

[Pheace]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

But to assume a companies actions are entirely legal is naive and shows no understanding of the complex nature of the laws that govern our world.

We both know 'law' in relation to digital media is at it's best in it's infancy still. Half of them seem to try and apply retail law to the digital space which is an ignorant way of doing it and would in some cases all but destroy part of the industry if applied directly like that.

I'm not in law myself but I'm fairly sure that if something is left 'vague' in a law, the defendant (which would be Steam in this case) will pretty much always get the benefit of the doubt. And Steam is hardly the only place doing this, half the digital industry is applying the same interpretation of this exception to the law in their EULA/services.

Whether that was intended or not (in the spirit of the law), I'm sure will come up at some time in the future, in which case I assume the law will get amended (if it wasn't intended), but until then the law is at 'best' unclear about the matter.

[MainframeMouse]

Agreed wholeheartedly. Laws for digital products still don't suit its real world application. They will most definately be clarified over time, but each clarification requires a consumer or lobbying group to rasie a court case or government proposal to challange its current implementation.

[Start_Running]

Have you ever looked into how hard it is to get a law done up? There's a problem. A Law that is too specific in scope can be more or less easily sidestepped.. A LAw that is broader tend sto be more vague thuis subject to interpretation.

Laws once set down are very difficult to change

[Satoru]

Lets be clear

Steams provisions only apply to the "I can get a refund for any reason 14 day period"

If you want to invoke not fit for purpose or other provisions those are separate things.

[MainframeMouse]

Actually I've realised something, I've made a rather large error. The digital performance laws VALVe is using do not need to be changed (as long as there is provisions for refund due loss of service mid-performance).

Why have I come to this conclusion, because VALVe is choosing the closest legal area for a product they have decided is not software. Not being software, and not being a traditional licenced copyrighted product such as a book or movie, VALVe has chosen laws that cover digital performance.

Under that framework VALVe's disregard of the 14day refund laws, ownership and so on has a fairly legal basis.

While i believe there is a lack ownership laws for digital multi-media licenses (such a music and video) the laws for the digital media streaming VALVe is using is quite clear and apt for the real world.

Of cource, this arrangement is the proverbial House of Cards which only holds together until a court of Law decides whether computer games can be clasified as Software.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Of cource, this arrangement is the proverbial House of Cards which only holds together until a court of Law decides whether computer games can be clasified as Software.

Actually that's not likely to happen. Games are indeed software but the term software will probably be expanded in definition. Probablem is many legal systems are slow to adapt to new things. Hell tomatoes are still classified as vegetables legally when any botanist or 3rd grade student knows wnough to say they are fruits.

The classification seems to stem from the purpose rather than the material since that in fact determines when the value has been extracted from the product. Now in terms of that.. video games are more akin to digital movies as opposed to say a copy of Adobe Photoshop.

[MainframeMouse]

I was having a discussion on this, but it got deleted. Not sure why. Had it been in the wrong area it should have just been moved.

As for Games being Digital movies, how would you define the difference between Photoshop and Doom.

[MainframeMouse]

As I said in the other thread, GTA-V is 35 Gig, the total ammount of actual code in which I'm including the base executable and libraries, and event scripting would make maybe 1-2% of the total. The other 98-99% is all multi-media and data regarding motion capture (which i don't consider as programatic code).

You delete 2% of that multi-media data, the game will still try and load most likely failing on a data check sum. Delete that 2% of multi media and fix the check sum the game will load and run. Sure a face or building might look wrong, or the game will crash tring to load a model thats not there. But its still following a program.

Delete that 2% of executables and libraries. You have nothing, no game, no "interactive multi media experience"

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

I was having a discussion on this, but it got deleted. Not sure why. Had it been in the wrong area it should have just been moved.

As for Games being Digital movies, how would you define the difference between Photoshop and Doom.

Like defining the difference between a tool and a sandwich. The value of a tool does not diminish over time. There's no point at which you say Welp I'm done...

Doom on the other hand, once you've finished the game , you've extracted the utility. Heck you don't have to play the entire game to extract sufficient utility. (which is why shareware is no longer a thing)

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

I was having a discussion on this, but it got deleted. Not sure why. Had it been in the wrong area it should have just been moved.

Looks like it was moved.
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/618459405715587711

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

I was having a discussion on this, but it got deleted. Not sure why. Had it been in the wrong area it should have just been moved.

Looks like it was moved.
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/618459405715587711

Thanks, I did look through the forum it was originally posted in but couldn't see the move notification.

[ExiaRS]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Of cource, this arrangement is the proverbial House of Cards which only holds together until a court of Law decides whether computer games can be clasified as Software.

Actually that's not likely to happen. Games are indeed software but the term software will probably be expanded in definition. Probablem is many legal systems are slow to adapt to new things. Hell tomatoes are still classified as vegetables legally when any botanist or 3rd grade student knows wnough to say they are fruits.

The classification seems to stem from the purpose rather than the material since that in fact determines when the value has been extracted from the product. Now in terms of that.. video games are more akin to digital movies as opposed to say a copy of Adobe Photoshop.

Steam is service - declared by Berlin court.
And Valve already won two cases against them in Germany.