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Nintendo begins trial to defend their "right" to deny pre-order refunds, German and Norwegian government accuse of violating EU consumer law
- Thread starter Atheerios
- Start date
Maybe a stricter time limit. I said 14 because we have to take into account how long it may take someone to download the game before they can even try it. At first I thought 2 hours but that might be too strict.
Their defense will most likely be that they do not offer pre-orders, but pre-purchases. The law states that a refund does not have to be given after the file has been transferred. Since all eshop pre-whatevers download the game immediately upon purchase, they are within the letter of the law. These pre-purchases do open them up to hacking threats, they have a legitimate concern that's more than just screwing people over.
Yes it does. It one of the exception to the 14-day cool down policy.
I'm using "hacking" very broadly, but these datamining threads we see all the time, typically come from those files.
I'm sure you have been quoted to death for this but oh man would I hate if consumer rights got scaled back on steam, thank god not everyone is a pushover.
No, it doesn't. The exemption for software is if it's opened. It is not about file transfers.
For downloadable software, the exemption is explicitly for this:
For Nintendo to have a case here, a file transfer categorically is not enough.
They need to: transfer the file, meeting the definition of "the performance has begun" (which is intended for movies and music, not for games, but there's very little chance that a court is going to decide that a consumer's idea of a "performance" is some bits being flipped), and also for consumers to express consent beforehand that they are losing their right of withdrawal.
So no, the law does not say that no refund is needed in the event of a file transfer.
Yep. If it is argued that they've begun 'performing' (supply of digital goods? -- the way performance is used in the directive is so vague), then you might as well argue that they're delivering a faulty product that isn't (yet) working. It's an inane point to make. You can't play a sealed/wrapped game. Which is essentially what this is. And you can return a wrapped item that contains digital media. The same should and probably will apply here. Downloading or unlocking a pre-load is like unwrapping a digital product on physical media
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The only way Nintendo's argument holds (really flimsy) water is if you can cancel a preorder at any time until the pre-load.
And even then, it's not great.
I'm completely unaware here of the process, so apologies if I'm off-base - do dataminers/netizens/pirates analyse the preload code? Is that what Nintendo is concerned about - pre-loading a game, people taking the code, then cancelling the order?
And even then, it's not great.
I'm completely unaware here of the process, so apologies if I'm off-base - do dataminers/netizens/pirates analyse the preload code? Is that what Nintendo is concerned about - pre-loading a game, people taking the code, then cancelling the order?
Not sure if I'm being misunderstood, but I think it would be good if Nintendo would at least follow the Steam model.
Unless Nintendo provides unencrypted preloads, I have no idea how anyone could datamine a preload without the key provided by Nintendo.
As far as I know these datamines rather come from early copies breaking the street date, but feel free to correct me on this.
Hope Nintendo loses. The way we treat digital content needs to change, and these sorts of cases will start that
Good to see Nintendo choosing to die on such an anti-consumer hill.
They seriously need to lose this.
They seriously need to lose this.
Again: The heat death of the universe will come earlier than a pre-load getting decrypted. They are protected by a 128-bit value which is impossible to brute force. The value has roughly 340 trillion trillion trillion combinations. Even with a lucky guess you're more likely to win the lottery several times in a row than brute force a 128-bit value.
There are a lot of reasons, schedule issues so have the game preoled, you bought it during sales, or there are incentive in preordering, and more. You don't have to question the buyer's choice in this, it's nintendo's fault for not offering a preorder refund
I hope Nintendo loses this one and honestly I wish they would get one step further and disallow any kind of promotion or rewards being tied to preorders because as far as I'm concerned that is quite scummy to trick people into preordering a digital item that doesn't benefit from preordering at all.
Sony lets you refund preorders, they updated the policy a few months ago.
This is indeed a grossly anti-consumer policy, I hope they lose this case.
But I STILL don't get why people preorder games. Like, just buy it when it comes out, why are people so keen to give people their money months ahead of time? It's madness to me, it's better of in your own pocket than there's, and it's not like there's any real benefit to preordering (let's be honest, nobody needs that shit skin they try and tempt you with).
But I STILL don't get why people preorder games. Like, just buy it when it comes out, why are people so keen to give people their money months ahead of time? It's madness to me, it's better of in your own pocket than there's, and it's not like there's any real benefit to preordering (let's be honest, nobody needs that shit skin they try and tempt you with).
I need 2:30h to download 50gb and the majority of people overall have slower internet than that.
It's still not acceptable. It has a 14 day limit, which means if you preorder and a month or two down the line you find out something that makes you want to cancel, you can't.
You should be able to cancel a pre-order whenever you want before release. I hope Nintendo loses.
No, Nintendo are concerned about making less money. Preorders are a part of hype culture - selling you the idea of a game instead of the actual game. And they're trying to prevent people from being able to change their mind about hype. Marketing departments work tirelessly to get people to buy into hype. They offer preorder bonuses because again, they're trying to sell you on your imagined ideal version of the game that their marketing campaign crafts. They want you to not be able to get disappointed when reviews and impressions drop. That's the whole point. Screwing over people that they manipulate with marketing campaigns. That's the only reason to ever not allow cancelling preorders.
I don't think that's the case. From Sony's site:
"PlayStation Store refunds can be issued for pre-ordered content, as long as the request is made before the release date, or within 14 days of purchase, and the content has not started to download or stream."
Their completely backwards Lets play / Game streaming policies? did you forget all that shitty forcing monetisation of other people's videos for years? They didn't get anywhere near as much negativity over that compared to what it deserved. It was less than a year ago they changed that policy after years of stealing other people's earnings.
Exactly. I don't know what time limit it should be but it shouldn't be unfair to those with slow internet. Maybe 24 hours and just have it so if you play it too long you can't refund it like Steam does.
This defense only works within the EU laws if Nintendo explicitly states that you as a customer will abdictate your rights of cancellation once you activly use the service (not product) that you've paid for. You also have to click some kind of checkbox or button and just having that statement written somewhere is not enough. The customer needs to activly consent before using the service.
I would argue that people pre-order a game because they want to play that game. That makes "playing the game" the service you're paying for while "downloading the game" is just a necessity to access the service of the product. Nobody will pay a fee just to download random files that they can't use or that don't work. It becomes evevn worse if you can't download your pre-order yet because Nintendo can't argue that the download is supposed to be a part of the pre-paid service.
TL;DR: Nintendo is toast.
Well they could actually tie the time to the game actually running I guess.
Some games people want to play the second they can. Unless you pre-order a game like Smash, good luck getting it at launch night. And with digital preloads the game can be on your system and ready to play once the clock turns over.
There's very few games I would pre-order nowadays though.
I thought Sony limited how many times one can cancel pre-order? Do they allow cancelling the pre-order if the publisher included a game like Sega did with Sonic Mania on Steam?
For the record, I hope Nintendo loses this. That said, I have no idea why people are still preordering games prior to the launch & review windows. The stores won't run out of copies. If it's digital, there is no finite number of copies.
This is a complete piss in the wind attempt by Nintendo. They know they can't win this, they just need to be looking like they're fighting on behalf of their shareholders.
Yep. But Nintendo has always been like this, so it's no surprise.
EU courts in general seem very pro-consumer and are not afraid to take big tech companies to task, Nintendo is probably going to lose this and rightfully so.
This. I love Nintendo but this is something they are dead wrong on. A customer should always be able to cancel a pre-order whether it's for digital or physical. Forcing digital pre-orders to be permanent is just a very greedy way to get extra revenue. EU needs to throw the hammer down on this.
This. I love Nintendo but this is something they are dead wrong on. A customer should always be able to cancel a pre-order whether it's for digital or physical. Forcing digital pre-orders to be permanent is just a very greedy way to get extra revenue. EU needs to throw the hammer down on this.
