I’d like to discuss the PlayStation Store’s not great refund policy
- Thread starter Deleted member 19293
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So, since you have the time to do research, go to forums, read reviews, watch videos; NO ONE else should be allowed the option to have a refund within a reasonable set of criteria?
Seems legit.
What's STUPID about it?
Heres a different example you hire a chef cause his current job makes him work too much, you make him cook you the most time consuming thing then after spending all that time you eat half then go meh make it again.
Seems kind of hypocritical huh
if seal is broken item is no longer new
Also its not just video game industry
Every retail store has the same refund policy in europe. Once you opened the case and played with the disc you can't return the game other than when the game is totally broken.
It's not great, hopefully they will improve how to get refunds on PS5.
But honestly, playing the game for 3 hours and then having it refunded for full price is not justifiable anyway.
By the way, european law doesn't grant you a refund if you don't like the product.
Refund is only granted by law if the product doesn't work. And even then the seller has the right to repair/fix the product before he is obliged to grant a refund.
OP
OP
Hold on, wait a minute. I've been trying really hard to not call out or respond to specific users in this thread, but this one deserves a response for sure. Like you, I've spent hundreds of dollars on the PlayStation Store. There's been some games I really like and love, and some games I didn't like very much in the past. It just so happens this game is the first time I disliked a purchase enough to look into the refund policy Sony offers, and thought I'd share the experience and advocate for a better system in place than what presently exists.
I'm glad that you have the time to conduct research, field tests, interviews, supporting arguments and all of that. I'm a grown man with a job, a family, and more obligations. If you are, too, then I suppose it's impressive that you find that kind of time, but I can assure you that I don't have time to do that AND play a game or two. I'm glad you've never purchased something that you consider a "dud", but making the argument that anyone who doesn't extensively research a video game before purchasing it is automatically wrong for wanting their money back for making a digital purchase is a terrible argument.
Yeah, it's great but still not as great as Microsoft's and definitely not Steam. However, Nintendo is now the only digital store that doesn't allow refunds on preorders. They have a one time exception rule and that's it.
4th person that hasnt actually added to the thread just gotcha posts
Is anyone expecting to be able to play half a game for free? You should be able to try a game first and the standard 2 hour limit within 2 weeks to me seems fine. Is Sony not offering the standard refund policy? If not they should, simple as that. Are people that young who forgot about a thing called demos? If they don't offer them anymore then surely a 2 hour trial seems reasonable, no?
I don't care how good your food is at your restaurant, if I don't get what I ordered or there is something wring with the food I either expect my money back or make it right.
Playing a game for ~3hrs and wanting a refund because they didn't like it isn't reasonable IMO.
If it was technically broken or an accidental purchase is a different story.
Seems like not a lot of people know about GOG's great new refund policy. 30 days regardless of play time.
Digital products are much more difficult to asses than physical and you can't get any secondary value out of it once it's bought. It only makes sense for there to be a robust and forgiving refund policy. Meanwhile, digital sales have immense benefits for developers and publishers over physical — higher revenue, no resale, etc. Why do consumers get shafted then, and why do some people here seemingly have no issue with it?
People cry abuse or whatever, but it allows for potential buyers to be less risk averse with their purchases. And it's not like there isn't fine print in all of these policies that say a request can be rejected if abuse is suspected.
Digital products are much more difficult to asses than physical and you can't get any secondary value out of it once it's bought. It only makes sense for there to be a robust and forgiving refund policy. Meanwhile, digital sales have immense benefits for developers and publishers over physical — higher revenue, no resale, etc. Why do consumers get shafted then, and why do some people here seemingly have no issue with it?
People cry abuse or whatever, but it allows for potential buyers to be less risk averse with their purchases. And it's not like there isn't fine print in all of these policies that say a request can be rejected if abuse is suspected.
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I actually was unaware of that. I'm thinking that I should just look into building a PC. The freedom that comes with building my own system and many more options on where to purchase games and potential refund policies is a pretty enticing criteria. Thanks for letting me know. I'll see if I can research that further.
Imo the return should be based somehow on progress maybe achievments or trophies cause a 50 hr and 5 hr game cant really be compared.
But 3 hours of a 10 hr game doesn't seem right to me if it's not faulty
To me 2 hours is enough to see if a game is broken or if you like it or not I never said 3 hours. Again I wil ask, does Sony not allow a full refund if you play less than 2 hours in a 2 week span? If not it should since that is a pretty standard policy now.
Your comments about crunch time have no relevance, not sure what your point was.
It happened to me when I refunded No Man's Sky. Shortly after the refund I had a problem adding funds via Amazon codes and Amazon said to contact Sony about it. I couldn't use chat at all. A lot of people around that time reported the same thing.
Absolutely, I was mainly referencing Sony and Microsoft but yeah Nintendo's is probably the worst of them all.
You played it for 3 hours, you could have asked for a refund before that but didn't and decided to complain. Maybe researching would have helped you in this situation.
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Only time I've ever asked for a refund was from MS because I bought Witcher 3 like 2 days before it dropped in Gamepass (I didn't know it was coming). It was the easiest refund process ever and they didn't give me any hell. I've never refunded on PSN but I've heard nothing but bad things. I rarely buy digital so this conundrum doesn't really affect me.
That said, 3 hours is a little extreme imo. I think even a 2 hour max is pretty gracious. But I do think there needs to be an allowance for buggy ass, shit releases. No one should be forced to be out money for a game with malfunctioning components, be it offline or on. And to that one person: there are some games that get reviewed without information regarding online services (prior to server launch). Take for example a fighting game where the single player modes are praised but the reviewer doesn't offer much if any insight to online play and you find out day one that the netcode is a dumpster fire. That shouldn't be on the consumer.
That said, 3 hours is a little extreme imo. I think even a 2 hour max is pretty gracious. But I do think there needs to be an allowance for buggy ass, shit releases. No one should be forced to be out money for a game with malfunctioning components, be it offline or on. And to that one person: there are some games that get reviewed without information regarding online services (prior to server launch). Take for example a fighting game where the single player modes are praised but the reviewer doesn't offer much if any insight to online play and you find out day one that the netcode is a dumpster fire. That shouldn't be on the consumer.
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Apparently, no I could not have. Hence the actual subject of the thread.
Yes you could have. it's 2 hours but you played for longer.
This wasn't a digital only release. For a console game there are ways to get a physical copy to see if you actually would like it and get a refund if you don't.
I got my first refund after downloading/playing Snowrunner, I requested it because the game is hilariously broken and after going back and forth with a few customer reps I said I was gonna file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Office in Spain.
They granted me the refund as a "gesture of good faith" but they kept saying that no one else had filed a refund application regarding Snowrunner and that according to their testing the game runs just fine (I LOL'd hard reading that).
To be honest this is my second refund, the first one was for Days Gone which I bought on sale but didn't download because I'd just finished AC:Odyssey and I was really tired of open world games.
SONY needs to change their stance regarding refunds because it is quite anti-consumer, I hate that "your account is flagged" and all that nonsense.
They granted me the refund as a "gesture of good faith" but they kept saying that no one else had filed a refund application regarding Snowrunner and that according to their testing the game runs just fine (I LOL'd hard reading that).
To be honest this is my second refund, the first one was for Days Gone which I bought on sale but didn't download because I'd just finished AC:Odyssey and I was really tired of open world games.
SONY needs to change their stance regarding refunds because it is quite anti-consumer, I hate that "your account is flagged" and all that nonsense.
Sure. If you go about it in the most circuitous way possible. You can also go to a theoretical friend's house. That doesn't make the policy less shit or the distribution of benefits from digital less uneven.
I appreciate that what's reasonable differs from person to person. What concerned me was the general sentiment of "suck it up" that many (not from you two) had in this thread, when as consumers we should be striving for better outcomes for consumers or just generally displaying some empathy as I'm sure we've all made a bad purchase.
Video games expect players to sink many hours in to them over extended periods of time, particularly now as we move towards ongoing services and transaction models where the game might well be summarised in the first few hours.
When even a matress sold online can offer a 100 day return policy, is it that unreasonable to hope for a return/refund policy for a digital product after 3 hours?
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No, it isn't. It's literally "Did you download the game? If so, fuck you."
Yeah Playstation needs an automatic refund policy, they've seemed to loosened up a bit over the years, when going through chat support. They will refund if you bought something by mistake or if a game launches with a lot of bugs.
What would be ideal is a refund option after you buy for X number of days or until you play it for a couple of hours.
What would be ideal is a refund option after you buy for X number of days or until you play it for a couple of hours.
I don't see the relevancy when we're discussing what consumers want, not what the standard currently is. The latter of which is literally the problem the OP is bringing forward.
It's never that simple, and you know that. Some people might experience a problem while some others won't. Some people might experience nausea due to flickering, stuttering, low framerate or flashing images.
Who are you to speak for anyone else and tell them "No, you can't have this problem. Accept you lost money and move on."?
That's currently the case on Steam, GOG, EGS and Xbox. You can request a refund for whatever reason you wish.
Even if that wasn't the case, why shouldn't people be able to issue a refund for whatever reason? As long as it's within a reasonable time frame.
If you have time to play a 10-20 hour long game, I think you have time to take 10 minutes to research it first. You can even research it after purchase, and still get the refund if it hasn't been downloaded. In the early console days, games were a lot more expensive than now, and the only thing consumers had to go on were whatever marketing was on the back of the box which might even include doctored screenshots. Now, it only takes a few minutes to check out YT for a trailer or a quick review, Twitch, forums, etc. You can even do that on your phone while watching some TV or traveling or whatever. Compared to the length of the game, research is negligible. Certainly far less than the three hours you already spent.
EB Games gives you credit tied to the store right? Because opened software is non returnable in almost every other retail place. Sony's PSN return policy is stupid as fuck, and even their current basic as hell refund policy is pathetic. It however is in line with the return policy on used physical media in most places.
Steam requires that you have not played the game for more than 2hrs, so in the OP's case, they would have had the exact same issue there too (Steam will allow you to still request and may allow a refund, so that's significantly better than Sony's "lol GTFO" policy).
Steam Refunds
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Well, I didn't just buy it totally on a whim. It's a very well-reviewed game. Unfortunately, it's just not for me, it turns out. And I don't play games for 10 hours straight on end. It's bits and pieces. I think I spent more time in the game's options fucking with the lighting options than actually playing it. It's so dark, or it's completely overblown. But regardless, the take that unless you conduct research into the game you should not get a refund is a bad take.
You can research a game for hours and hours, it doesn't change the fact that a game can still end up unenjoyable, broken or incompatible with your disabilities.
And I don't think it's reasonable to expect every consumer to research every product they buy. It's simply impossible. No market works like that, especially in a market where marketing is such a big part of it.
Playstation's (don't want to say Sony's because this isn't about TVs) customer service is just shit altogether. I've had a few issues with my payment method in the past and the answer is always "nothing to be done", even though I'm always just trying to give them money to buy games lol - why the fuck do they even have a support chat?
Not to mention all the horror stories of people having their accounts stolen and not being able to get them back/get refunds on games a hacker bought on their accounts etc.
Not to mention all the horror stories of people having their accounts stolen and not being able to get them back/get refunds on games a hacker bought on their accounts etc.
Can only speak for Australian stores, but EB Games gives refunds within 7 days for new games and 14 days for preowned games, provided there is no damage or wear. Official policy here:EB Games gives you credit tied to the store right? Because opened software is non returnable in almost every other retail place. Sony's PSN return policy is stupid as fuck, and even their current basic as hell refund policy is pathetic. It however is in line with the return policy on used physical media in most places.
Steam requires that you have not played the game for more than 2hrs, so in the OP's case, they would have had the exact same issue there too (Steam will allow you to still request and may allow a refund, so that's significantly better than Sony's "lol GTFO" policy).
Steam Refunds
store.steampowered.com
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Hey, all. Can we do something a little different here? I get that a lot of you seem to be hung up on three hours. I want to address that super quickly and then hopefully move on from it:
I did not play it for a full three hours. I am rounding up pretty significantly to reach that time.
But let's bypass that discussion altogether, because according to Sony (and Nintendo apparently), you get nothing in the way of refunds. This thread is really not intended to be about how long I played the game for. We're talking about three hours at most after it finished downloading that I realized it's not for me. Same day. The thread was intended to be about the PlayStation Store's lack of any reasonable refund policy.
Some of the takes in here are helping me see how they (and others) get away with having such bad policies.
I did not play it for a full three hours. I am rounding up pretty significantly to reach that time.
But let's bypass that discussion altogether, because according to Sony (and Nintendo apparently), you get nothing in the way of refunds. This thread is really not intended to be about how long I played the game for. We're talking about three hours at most after it finished downloading that I realized it's not for me. Same day. The thread was intended to be about the PlayStation Store's lack of any reasonable refund policy.
Some of the takes in here are helping me see how they (and others) get away with having such bad policies.
I've gone most of my life knowing that if I open and use something, I probably can't get a full refund if I change my mind later, so no it's not a bad take. So I always do some research, which is easier than ever these days.
Since you feel 30% of a game played is OK for a full refund, where do you think the line should be? 50%? 75%? 100%?
I bought Resident Evil 5, downloaded it, played it for 10 minutes, and was basically told "tough luck, you downloaded it" when I asked for a refund. Sony's return policy is so damn terrible.
This is why I still think we should have demos for games. Sucks that you can't get a refund because of Sony being an idiot with refunds. Though, I don't see if you could have gotten refund on PC either, seeing how you did 'play' 3 hours. Of so called 10-12 hour game. I mean, this issue of refunds being tied to hours played is kinda problematic. Some games you can finish under two hours and get refund, and for some games you might be battling with options etc. for hour or two and then not be able to get refunds. Maybe there should be option for partial refund if hours played goes over X limit.
If I am stuck with Bravo Team after playing the first level of that dumpster fire, then everyone else should have to suffer too
In seriousness, there are tons of stores that won't accept returns on opened merchandise, and tons more that don't accept "i didn't like it" as a reason for return. Consoles don't have the same issues as Steam where there are millions of hardware configs and some software might not be compatible with your hardware.
In seriousness, there are tons of stores that won't accept returns on opened merchandise, and tons more that don't accept "i didn't like it" as a reason for return. Consoles don't have the same issues as Steam where there are millions of hardware configs and some software might not be compatible with your hardware.
Here's the Canadian one for comparison -
We do not accept returns of:
- Any product(s) returned more than 30 days from the date on the packing slip.
- Any product(s) that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap).
- Any product(s) not in its original condition.
- Any product(s) that is damaged, played, or is missing parts.
- Any product(s) that were sold as part of a bundle, unless the bundle is returned complete.
- Please do not send us product(s) that do not meet the return criteria listed above, as we do not issue refunds for non-qualifying items and cannot return the items to you.
OP
OP
First of all, I had no idea how long the game is. In terms of when I think a full refund should be issued, I think that's a bit of discussion for sure. However, the answer to that question should not be "Nope - fuck you." There are many stores that sell items where they offer full refunds in a time period for any reason you want. Not games, admittedly, but the principle is similar. However, you're literally over here arguing against your own interests.
That's such a weak argument: "arguing against your own interests". Others have said similar, and nobody has said where the line should be. So let's run with that. Maybe we should get 100% refunds at any time ever, regardless of 100 hours played or 100% completion. That would be in my best interest right? Except for all the developers going out of business and not having any more games to play, so maybe not. My point is, there is a balance.
Out of curiosity is this something that people feel should only apply to digital game purchases or do they feel it should apply across the board? For example:
If you buy a film and only watch the first 15-20 minutes should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a CD and only listen to the first 2 tracks should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a book and only read the first 5-6 chapters should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a suit and only wear it once should it be refunded?
I'm genuinely curious as it's not something I've hear people complain about outside gaming circles so I don't know if it's a broader issue in general but gamers are just more vocal about it.
If you buy a film and only watch the first 15-20 minutes should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a CD and only listen to the first 2 tracks should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a book and only read the first 5-6 chapters should you be able to get it refunded?
If you buy a suit and only wear it once should it be refunded?
I'm genuinely curious as it's not something I've hear people complain about outside gaming circles so I don't know if it's a broader issue in general but gamers are just more vocal about it.
Sony does have a standard policy now and also allows cancelling preorders, even subscriptions.
PlayStation Store cancellation policy
www.playstation.com
I think Sony had done just about what everyone else does to improve it. The ongoing notion that they are worst than the industry standard (that they abide to as well) is starting to get ignorant and absurd.
Can all companies do better? Yes, but people acting like it's crazy to want people to make better purchasing decision before even getting into an investment that you are likely not going to like, is really not. If you created something and someone after 3 hours or 6 months is requesting a refund, you would be a bit pissed too. I think it's just about the ethics of the situation, that's it.