
Valve appeals $2.4M fine as Australian legal battle rages on - AdeptusAquinas
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/313608/Valve_appeals_24M_fine_as_Australian_legal_battle_rages_on.php
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foodislove
Most commenters seem not to have read the actual case. This is not about Steam
"preventing abuse".

The case here is purely about Steam MISLEADING buyers about what their rights
are. The law is very specific here. For example, if you buy a game off Steam
that says it's compatible with Mac, but turns out not to be, you are entitled
to a refund. This case is about the fact that Steam's policies misleading
people by saying there are no refunds even though consumer protection law in
Australia states so.

This is a warning to companies who sell software- don't tell people they don't
have rights and protections when they actually do.

~~~
meta_AU
I recently bought some Bose headphones and saw that they had a big booklet of
warranty terms and conditions. Then on the front of the booklet it said they
none of it was applicable in Australia or New Zealand.

I expect this is due to the same "don't mislead the consumer as to their
rights" issue.

~~~
SyneRyder
Bose actually has great customer service in my experience, though. I've had
problems with two pairs of QC25s after a year of heavy use (the early models
had a bug where one of the earcups would stop working) and on both occasions
Bose replaced them for free. The first time was swapped out on the spot in a
Bose store, the second time they did it via RMA.

The Bose store also told me they have a policy that if you're ever unhappy
with the product, even years down the track for any reason, bring them to the
store & they will swap them with a new pair for half price. (I realize this
means there must be at least 60% markup on the headphones, but I still thought
it was a great policy.)

~~~
mezzode
I've had similarly good experiences with Bose. Had a pair of SoundSport
earphones which stopped working after like a year, just went to a store and
they replaced it for free. Eventually same thing happened to that pair, and
got those replaced for free too.

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jen729w
The ACCC is _great_. They just stung MSY - one of the cheaper components
suppliers - $750,000 for misleading signs about consumer rights.

If you buy stuff here, you’re protected pretty well. As a consumer, I think
that’s terrific.

For example, a friend bought a hard drive from one of MSY’s competitors. Very
shortly afterwards, it failed. The law says he’s entitled to a replacement
from the shop that sold it to him, but they refused and claimed that it had to
be sent back to the manufacturer. From a consumer’s perspective, that’s
ridiculous: you just sold me a thing, and it doesn’t work! I don’t want a
repair, I want _a thing that works_.

The shop he got that from - Scorptec - used to have similar signs to MSY. We
checked last week. They’re gone.

ACCC notice: [https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/msy-technology-
ordered...](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/msy-technology-ordered-to-
pay-penalties-of-750000-for-consumer-guarantee-misrepresentations)

MSY home page with court-ordered notice, as of 25/01/18:
[http://www.msy.com.au/home.php](http://www.msy.com.au/home.php)

~~~
ianhowson
Unless you're buying food, electricity, superannuation, health insurance, a
mortgage, mobile phone service, Internet service, streaming TV, news media,
cars or housing.

For some reason the ACCC can't find evidence of anticompetitive behaviour in
those industries.

~~~
bigB
While they are not as good as they could be, there have been many cases
awarded against Telcos, ISP's, Banks and Energy providers. It can only operate
within our laws though so I do agree they could be given more powers, but only
a decent government can do that, sadly which we havent had for a long time
now.

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mmanfrin
I hope they lose. There is no legitimate argument against Steam having a good
refund policy. Strict refund policies for games came around because people
could buy a game, copy the disc, then return it. That is explicitly not
possible with Steam, their whole system prevents that kind of abuse and so
they should have a much more relaxed return policy than they do now.

~~~
xedrac
And what if you buy a Steam game, play it to completion, and decide you didn't
like it very much? What if you only played half way through? At what point
does it become unreturnable?

I tend to agree with you, but it just seems like Steam would need a way to
prevent people from abusing the system.

~~~
jph00
The Australian law in question requires refunds be made available if you can
show that the product was not "fit for the purpose for which they were sold".
It is an entirely reasonable expectation for a purchaser to make of a product,
and entirely reasonable that they should receive a refund where that
expectation is not met.

~~~
richforrester
Refunds apply:

> if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has
> been played for less than two hours

Based on the premise that games are made for entertainment, 2 hours seems (to
me) like a solid enough amount of time to figure out if something's worth it
or not.

~~~
jackvalentine
What if the game has a showstopper bug in hour #3 of gameplay?

It’s not fit for purpose.

~~~
FRex
This is the limit for a no-questions-asked refund that is automatically
available.

If you run into a bigger issue you can contact support.

There was once a case where a supposedly multi-level game contained only one
unbeatable level that seemed like it was supposed to waste over 2 hours to
lock you out of refund. Valve made that game refundable at any time and now
it's off Steam (at least I can't find it, the developer said it was the wrong
build but I'm quite skeptical at this point)[0].

Of course Steam support is total hit and miss, i.e. I once reported an error
on their website (I got "An error occurred while processing your request." in
the store + some long GUID so I reported it to them) and I got told to check
if my internet connection is okay which is fucking ridiculous.

But if it blows up on social media and in news (like [0] did) or there is
legal threat (like with this article linked here or soon with CS:GO gambling,
maybe) then they take action.

[0] - [https://www.vg247.com/2015/08/07/amazingly-broken-steam-
game...](https://www.vg247.com/2015/08/07/amazingly-broken-steam-game-
provokes-no-questions-asked-refunds/)

~~~
jackvalentine
Yes but the Australian Consumer Law specifically has penalties for misleading
consumers about their rights - which steam does.

ACL > Steam terms of service, full stop. Any barriers Steam put up to knowing
about or exercising your ACL rights are illegal.

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bigB
Its pretty simple really, Valve just need to get over its god complex and
abide by a countries laws. Lets be honest, the Policy in Australia mandates
that it must be "fit for purpose" and it pretty fair with its judgement on
such things. I know through personal experience that some games state
controller support when they dont actually have it, ive got a couple of games
which say co-op when its not actually true, I have a VR game which was VR then
pulled VR support a month after I got it ( though it was a free to play game
so cant complain there). The fact is they have to offer a fair refund policy
and in Valves case this would be best to be decided on a case by case basis.
All they have to do is state in its current refund policy that it doesn't
revoke any users refund rights within their countries laws. Many refund and
warranty statements say this and they are perfectly legal. Its not an issue of
abuse, its an issue of doing the lawful thing when its the law

~~~
sgift
> Its pretty simple really, Valve just need to get over its god complex and
> abide by a countries laws.

I'd like to sign this and hammer it down for every software company that has
customers in more than one country.

All this ridiculous discussions about "why should we abide by EU law just
because we do business with EU citizens" ... because we are not in a Cyberpunk
world, you are not some extra-legal entity which makes their own laws. At
least, Australia does something to remind the companies of that. Good for
them.

~~~
tutts
Businesses don't have to abide by EU law when doing business with EU citizens,
but when doing business in the EU. It's a small, but sometimes meaningful,
distinction.

~~~
shakna
Check the GDPR. The EU requires certains things of businesses not in the EU,
who interact with EU citizens.

~~~
danieltillett
Even worse it is EU residents and who may or may not be in the EU when they
interact with you.

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abtinf
> All goods come with automatic consumer guarantees that they are of
> acceptable quality and fit for the purpose for which they were sold, even if
> the business is based overseas.

Does that mean that pretty much all software licenses are illegal in
Australia, since most specifically include a phrase stating the software is
not fit for any purpose?

~~~
gpm
It likely means that that for sold software that term of the license is void
and does nothing. It might, but probably doesn't, void the entire
EULA/license. It almost certainly isn't "illegal" in the sense that it's
perfectly legal to send people contracts that don't do anything because they
are legally void.

I don't know Australian law, this is just me guessing from the mix of Canadian
and American law I am somewhat familiar with (and I am still not a lawyer even
there).

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simion314
I had issue with a game that crashed at launch but Steam continued clocking it
as running. Other issue is if you buy a game when it is on sale but you do not
have time to play it in the 14 days.

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WillReplyfFood
Does that mean- if i have a chip, which gets speed reduced by 30 % via patch,
that i can return it under australian consumer law?

~~~
imtringued
If the vendor explicitly promised you 30% more performance then yes.

Except I doubt that intel releases raw benchmark scores or explicitly tells
you the baseline they compare against. So in practice no.

