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Comment by ninjinxo | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, Valve were sued into enacting their return policy by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), and no longer offer flash sales because of it.

Linux support is nice though.

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That doesn't change the fact that noone else really offers this. I accidentally bought a wrong copy of a game on PS5 and they just told me to go away because I "already downloaded it". The download started automatically. I didn't even boot up the PS5 from the time I did the purchase and the time I contacted support (which also gave me a runaround of "oh, you're on UK store not EU store, go away and wait for another 45 minutes).

Seems like Australia should sue other stores as well.

Fwiw Meta offers this on the quest store. But that might just be that it's a new space. And my personal experience is this policy made me buy more stuff. Every game has basically a 2hour demo for 14 days

EGS offers the same return window.

That's just not true, GoG offer a 30 day refund even if you played the game with no maximum time, Xbox say you get a refund if you haven't "accumulated a significant amount of play time", Epic offer a under 2 hour refund and Origin seem to have a similar stance. Looks to me like 2 hours play time is a industry standard and Steam aren't doing anything special.

These windows appeared after Steam pioneered them and most of them require contacting support which can literally take hours if you're not from US (if you can even get it).

Haven't tried with GoG though, never needed it there.

Origin was doing 2 hour refunds around 2 years before Steam

The oldest articles I can find:

Origin [2013]: https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-origin-refunds/

Steam [2015]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/06/02/valve...

And as another person (and if my own memory serves) mentioned, Steam's move was nearly entirely driven by pending lawsuits.

Don't get me wrong, I primarily use Steam and support them because they're the only company really caring about Linux, but I don't think they can be given the credit for pioneering the current refund landscape.

The one time I requested an Xbox One game refund (downloaded, unplayed) it was a brief form to fill out online - quick and easy.

EA with Origin was doing refunds years before Steam was, so could you clarify how Steam "pioneered" them? Check your facts.

Steam was the first store implementing the 2 hour limit.

And for GOG not to have a limit on playtime makes sense, since (unless you use Galaxy), they have no way of knowing how much you've played a game.

When SimCity was an unplayable mess that basically couldn't deliver on most of the features for weeks after launch, I emailed EA, said it didn't match the quality or features they advertised. Within 2-3 days I had a refund.

This was years before Valve would issue refunds even for other similarly broken titles.

I requested refunds from them before they got sued by the ACCC, got told to take it up with the game developer. Contact the game developer who told me to take it up with Valve.

Afterwards they just tell me I played too many hours (ironically because I was trying to repro the issue on a few maps to demonstrate it wasn't me/my computer/etc that was shit)

I don't care if they offer or not, if a company refuses me a refund as per consumer law in Germany, I will file a complaint against them on the Consumer Protection Agency and let their legal team handle it.

Guess what, I usually get my refunds back from companies that tell me to f** off.

>"oh, you're on UK store not EU store, go away and wait for another 45 minutes"

Is anything stopping the UK from keeping the same consumer protection laws inherited from the EU?

I don't know - the issue wasn't the laws in my case. It was that I opened my local PSN page, clicked "get support" and it somehow connected me with UK support chat. Which then, after 45 minutes of waiting, just told me that I need to try again on my local support page with no helpful link. Back in line for me it was. I never noticed at which point exactly did the PSN page redirect me to UK page...

so far we have kept those same laws, so no, in principle nothing is stopping the UK from keeping them :)

The whole point of Brexit was to boldly charge ahead into a bright future, unburdened by EU's anti-innovation laws (some of which are known as "consumer protection laws").

Apple App Store does no questions asked returns, devs complain. When it's Steam, devs praise.

But yes, to your point, Sony doing it on Cyberpunk was extraordinary.

I purchased movies to watch with my kids on Google Play after which I found out they did not come with Dutch subtitles, which was unexpected for me. Asked for a refund and received it immediately, unexpectedly!!

Sure, they did that because they got forced to by a specific regulatory body, but most companies when something like that happens enable it only the regions they're legally required to do so. Valve appear to have just implemented it, then turned on worldwide because it seems like a good idea.

Australia only requires returns for defective products. Valve used to be in violation but now they are well beyond the legal requirements in allowing change of mind refunds as well.

And to give credit where credit is due, EA Origin was earlier to the punch at refunding digital sales. In fact that was one of it's selling points when it initially started.

I see flash sales often, what is your definition of a flash sale?

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