Valve appeals $2.4M fine as Australian legal battle rages on | Hacker News Reader

Valve appeals $2.4M fine as Australian legal battle rages on

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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.

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.

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.)

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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

Am I missing something? They do have a refund policy:

http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

Although that policy is fairly recent - I wouldn't be surpised that this case predates the policy.

It's fairly draconian and may not meet Australian standards:

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

Per that wording, it seems like Valve's policy is both stronger and weaker than the Australian standards, isn't it?

E.g. if a game clearly specifies that it's Mac only, and you buy it but only have a PC, AFAICT Valve will give you a refund even though Australian standards wouldn't require it. Ditto if you buy the game and realize you'd already bought it elsewhere, etc.

It sounds like it's only in the narrow case where the game, say, claims to support Mac but doesn't, that Valve's policy becomes weaker than the Australian standards. Or am I missing something?

(Note this is all referring to Valve's current policy - I understand it wasn't in effect when the ACCC case started.)

The refund rate on steam is like 10-20%. I'm sorry but that really only makes sense if people are using it as a demo/abusing it.

The products certainly aren't defective at that rate.

With the amount of asset flips and flat out shit on the market, I wouldn’t be surprised if the high refund rate is within reason to some degree.

I am not talking about those "games". I manage like 60 real games on Steam, many of which have review scores between 80-95. These are real games that definitely are not defective on 10-20% of pcs.

Like this one: http://store.steampowered.com/app/263980/Out_There_Somewhere...

And this one: http://store.steampowered.com/app/300380/Road_Redemption/

I don't see anything wrong with demoing something and returning it if it isn't for you (especially in this sphere, where returns incur virtually no cost to the vendor).

This is part of the standard business model for most retail stores.

Well you certainly can't return other similar media products in this way.

I'm not even saying it is wrong necessarily, but in a system that allows around 90%+ of returns to have nothing to do with the product being defective I am just confused why people are saying the policy is draconian.

Also valve has stated specifically that the return system is not meant to be used as a demo, even though it is very clear that everyone is.

I mean does amazon allow you to return movies after watching them for 2 hours?

> I mean does amazon allow you to return movies after watching them for 2 hours?

I don't know what Amazon's return policy is, but most games are longer than 2 hours.

Looking at https://howlongtobeat.com/stats_more.php?s=Most_Submissions and the top 10 games, all of them are much longer than 2 hours. Some are on the shorter end of the scale, but in general a 2 hour playtime return policy seems to be about right.

I would also bet that if your game is only 2 hours long, you would have coffee-level pricing, and users probably wouldn't bother refunding if it's that cheap. Maybe I'm wrong about that though.

>I would also bet that if your game is only 2 hours long, you would have coffee-level pricing, and users probably wouldn't bother refunding if it's that cheap. Maybe I'm wrong about that though.

You are very wrong about that.

> Well you certainly can't return other similar media products in this way.

Counterpoint: Amazon offers ebook returns. Barnes and Noble offers audiobook returns. It's not wholly true that media products cannot be returned to other sellers.

> I am just confused why people are saying the policy is draconian.

Very short return window.

I think you're looking at this backwards. "If only Steam would prevent returns, I would keep 10% more sales!" No, if Steam prevented returns, you would never have had those sales in the first place.

The australian refund policy covers defects and software incompatibility. Steams software policy covers anything within 2 hours of playtime or up to 14 days.

pfisch claims that the refund rate is higher than the defect rate.

In other words the steam refund policy is less draconian than the australian refund policy.

Refunds make customers less risk averse. They are more prone to buying on impulse to try something new. Good game developers like pfisch profit off of the impulse buys while bad developers will see high refund rates even from non impulsive customers.

Overall it's a win win situation.

>I think you're looking at this backwards. "If only Steam would prevent returns, I would keep 10% more sales!" No, if Steam prevented returns, you would never have had those sales in the first place.

I never said that. Honestly I'm not sure what I think about it, but I'm certain that it helps valve more than it does developers. Those people will end up spending the money on some game so valve wins either way. Also this policy makes it harder for devs to sell steam keys so they don't lose 30% to steam, because steam keys are not refundable.

14 days is really not very short. Also returning an ebook only has a 7 day return window.

The case does indeed predate the current policy.

Actually Steam refund policy now goes beyond what Australian law requires. That is, you can refund a game simply because you change your mind (and have played less than 2 hours of the game). Australian law does not specify change of mind as a reason for refund.

The refunds came (I think) in 2015. The original case was in 2014 (as said in the article).

I always thought they implemented refunds as a result of this case

They seem to now. At least for AU:

> Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within fourteen days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours [1]

[1] http://www.pcgamer.com/australian-court-reaffirms-that-valve...

Since 2015

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06/02/steam-refunds/

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.

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.

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.

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

It’s not fit for purpose.

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...

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.

To add to your point, there are many types of games that dont even let you get to all the features until pretty far in. Brutal legend basically changed genres mid game, thats not a 2 hour find

This seems quite far removed from the issue being discussed. Having features late in the game that you don't enjoy hardly means the game isn't fit for purpose. That's like saying a novel isn't fit for purpose unless you enjoy the ending.

One of the listed items under the ACCC's guide for "major" problems is: "it is significantly different from the sample or description".

So, it could be argued that such a sudden change, if not clearly advertised, could constitute an issue for the product under their guarantees.

I agree that it could be argued, but it seems like a pretty big stretch. I mean, if it's advertised as a multiplayer racing game and there's no multiplayer or racing that's one thing. But if it's advertised as a PC adventure game and it turns out to be a PC adventure game whose story goes differently than you hoped, it sounds very much like something the ACCC standards don't cover.

> But if it's advertised as a PC adventure game and it turns out to be a PC adventure game whose story goes differently than you hoped

That wouldn't fly. Significant difference, however, would.

For Brutal Legend, you'll notice almost all advertising lists both adventure and real time strategy, to avoid such a problem.

I meant more that you could be sold on a feature that is marketed but not available until sinking 10s of hours into a game. When you get to that point however, there is no guarantee that the marketed feature works as advertised, or even works at all

I think the point the above poster is making is that features may very well be broken deep in to a game and you just don't know until you get there.

Depends on the type of 'game'.

For eg. a racing sim, it could take 90+ minutes just to set up controls satisfactorily (this has happened to me).

And for some titles, even getting them running is something that previously takes hours. Stream counts any time the game exe is running as play time, regardless of playability.

i wonder what 'the purpose' of video games are, in the judiciary's eyes. if i didn't like the ending of a game, is it thereby not fit for purpose?

whitebox goods have set plenty of precedents for such reasoning - if it works as advertised, then you can't return it simply because you didn't like what it did (or its looks etc, or that it didn't fit your cabinet/spacing etc). It has to be defective, or didn't perform the full range of functions that is advertised.

For a video game, i'd assume that as long as the game ran (no crashing etc), and the game has all the elements that is advertised, you can't return it for a refund.

A good example was no man's sky. I would say it's refund-worthy, since they advertised that it is possible to multiplayer, and meet other people.

See my comment above;

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

Purpose of games, is entertainment.

2 hours should be enough for you to decide if the game was worth it or not.

Let's say the average game gives you 40 hours of entertainment. (Bit arbitrary, granted.)

2 hours would be 5% of it's total lifespan.

Sounds reasonable?

40 hours is not a good guess at a game's play time. Many indie games are around 4h long. I've played a story game that was only 2 hours long

> Sounds reasonable?

Not under the Australian consumer law. We’re (rightly) quite proud of the level of protection it affords consumers.

2 hours should be enough for you to decide if the game was worth it or not.

This seems to be straying off-topic. The question isn't whether it was worth the price paid. The question is does it violate consumer protection laws vis-a-vis does it do what they said it would.

Sounds reasonable?

It does not. Applying a uniform hard limit to the full range of all possible games seems unreasonable. Practical, but not reasonable.

Let's also say there's a show-stopping bug that kills your save at hour 37.

You might have enjoyed the game, but due to its broken nature, you are still entitled to a refund under Australian Consumer Rights.

Just to back up my statement above with actual ACCC advice:

"it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it" is considered a "major" problem with the product.

Would bad PC-Ports with a ruined UI qualify to that?

That depends on the advertising for the PC platform.

If "it is significantly different from the sample or description" or "it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it" or "it doesn’t do what the business said it would, or what you asked for and can’t easily be fixed." Then yes, it would qualify.

So a bad port that still used the same graphics from the original platform to advertise could be an issue. Or if it contained show-stopping bugs, it could be a problem. Or if the business drops features after you purchase.

"fit for the purpose for which they were sold"

Does that mean in Australia you can return your iPhone when it slows down?

At the time of sale the phone wasn't defective.

That's mostly irrelevant under Consumer Rights.

However, the phone slowing down probably doesn't constitute a major problem, but rather a minor one.

If only a minor problem exists, Apple has the choice of giving you a free repair, replacement or refund, but which is up to them.

So I expect in this particular case, they'll just give you a new battery and the problem will be solved.

So what if a game breaking bug introduced with a later content patch? At the time of the sale the game wasn't defective

Id say the companys can refund the whole thing or start applying value to the parts of their game which they can refund if they were used. Physical goods dont just stop having user protections if 90% of the item works but the last piece doesnt

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

I don't just get to ignore laws when they conflict with my goals. I mean, that's kinda the point of laws, right?

I'm sure Steam can avail themselves of whatever legal mechanisms ozzies have for fraud in general or w/r/t returns in specific. If Steam is, in fact, obligated to honor a return with no legal recourse, even in cases that they still classify "abuse," then that is exactly the point of the statutory consumer protection. Just because they call it abuse doesn't mean the Australian people agree.

They might be able to convince the government that what Valve perceives as a weakness in the boundaries of consumer protection is, in fact, against the public interest. They're also free to leave the market.

Doesn't Steam track your game completion/hours played?

I had an issue where the game crashed but Stream continued to think the game is running, maybe they fixed this bug I do not know for sure.

Worth noting that the "2 hours" thing is just the cutoff for automatic refunds, it doesn't mean Steam never grants refunds past that cutoff.

Did you try requesting a refund with a note explaining about the time issue?

No, it was a cheap game and I am using Linux, probably there is some workarounds, I did not wanted to waste time or affect my account reputation. For other game that crashed and did not worked I made sure this issue s not happened and I asked for a refund immediately and it was an easy process.

I've had that fairly recently (last 6 months) but it's only ever happened once - I'm guessing it's fairly low down the bug tracker priority list.

It's not enforced for most titles, you basically can go offline and play whatever you want unless you need to use multiplayer.

I'm pretty sure steam tracks hours played in offline mode.

I suppose it does, but what I mean it's will be a loophole with refunds.

Steam knows how long you play a game. Their policy could easily be "X days OR less than Y hours in game"

It already is (well, "AND"):

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

Needs to be an OR, IMHO. Sometimes we pick up games, play 30-ish minutes, come back 2-3weeks later when there is more time, and bam. Game-breaking issues. (Especially with corrupt saved games. Seriously, how is it difficult to check integrity of a file after you write it out to disk)

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

> 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.

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.

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

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

"fit for purpose"

Does that mean in Australia you can return your iPhone when it slows down?

> If you have a minor problem with a product or service, the business can choose to give you a free repair instead of a replacement or refund.

No. But you can get Apple to give you a new battery without charging you for it.

> 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?

Probably. "Signs and statements that limit, or seem to limit, consumers’ rights are unlawful"

https://cdn.tspace.gov.au/uploads/sites/60/2016/05/0553FT_AC...

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).

If the software is free (no cost), I don’t think it would count as a sale. It would apply to paid software though. (It also doesn’t apply if it costs more than $40k though, since that’s no longer a business-to-consumer transaction.)

It wouldn't be a sale anyway, it's a contract, and contracts aren't required to transfer monetary means, only benefits.

If the free software includes analytics or automatic bug reporting, then the company has a significant benefit, so the contract is active. Other things may also make such a contract live.

However, unfair terms in a contract, such as MIT's no warranty or claim under any circumstances, would simply get ignored. The entire contract isn't void if unfair terms are present, just those terms.

I should probably note, the last time I explored this area, the only software licenses I could find that had decent legal terminology where the Creative Commons, everyone else tends to forget to precede broad statements with classifiers like "to the extent permittable by law".

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.

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?

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.

This may be one of the reasons Intel is trying so hard to ensure (through shoddy software design) that such a patch would not be active during benchmarks, so they could hide behind such a statement being harder to prove.

Haha. Oh dear. I can't think of a good reason why not, according to Australian Consumer Law. That's interesting.

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