Consumers Aren’t The Problem With Digital Refunds
A mild gaming controversy erupted this past weekend over No Man’s Sky and the topic of digital refunds. It started after a Reddit user falsely stated that “Steam is offering No Man’s Sky refunds regardless of playtime.” That isn’t true. Valve (thanks Kotaku!) has even added a disclaimer to the game’s store page saying “[the] standard Steam refund policy applies to No Man’s Sky. There are no special exemptions available,” but a number of users on both Steam and PSN were able to get refunds after citing poor performance, false advertising and making other claims in order to circumvent the policies that both Sony and Steam have in place. In fact, one NeoGAF user even got a refund after over 50+ hours of playtime due to the game crashing frequently.
Non-surprisingly, these events have led to a lot of deserved and overblown outrage from players, game developers, and critics. One of the most vocal people on the subject was former Sony employee Shahid Ahmad, who claimed on Twitter that “If you’re getting a refund after playing a game for 50 hours you’re a thief.” Now, I know that Twitter isn’t exactly the place for nuanced takes, and that anyone can get overzealous and use poor word choices that make their overall point moot (and Ahmad later went back on that term), but that’s simply preposterous. I’m not here to defend the actions of these consumers, as I don’t feel like they’re entitled to any refund after dozens of hours of play, but the blame is being placed on the wrong people here. If anyone is to blame here, it’s Sony and Valve for allowing these ridiculous refunds to take place. It’s up to these two digital marketplace owners to enforce their own rules. If they aren’t doing that and are allowing consumers to game the system, then it’s simply on them.
Consumers will always take advantage of deals when they can, ethical or not. If a game accidentally goes up on Xbox Live or PSN for free (like we’ve seen happen with Fallout 4 and God of War Ascension) then people will click on that purchase button as soon as they can without a second thought. Do they think of it as theft? No, they’re not doing anything wrong in their eyes. They don’t realize the impact that this can have on developers. It’d be something else if the gamers were hacking into PSN and causing this, but they’re just taking advantage of a situation that was caused by these marketplace storefronts.
I fully understand why Ahmad, who has done an incredible job helping developers thrive, is defensive here, but theft is too far. Nobody did anything illegal, they simply went through Valve and Sony’s return process and a few customer service reps gave refunds when they weren’t supposed to. That’s on those employees, and those companies for not enforcing their own policies. Are these people shining examples of gamers? No, these are opportunists that are looking to save a buck, but they certainly aren’t thieves.
I’ve also seen ridiculous claims from the other side of the debate, claiming that “refunds are a good thing,” and acting as if people like Ahmad are saying that there should never be refunds. This is not a simple topic, and it can’t be boiled down to absolutes. Any intelligent person will say that digital refunds should be happening. After all, we’ve seen games like Grow Up launch completely broken on PlayStation 4, and almost every gamer has that game in their Steam library that they can’t figure out how to launch anymore. If something straight up doesn’t work, then people should get a refund. It’s that simple.
Things get murkier when other reasons are given for wanting refunds such as a game “not being worth the money” or “being bad.” There is more room for debate here, but I don’t believe that anyone should get a refund for finding out that a game isn’t for them. We live in an age of unprecedented access to information, it’s not difficult to make an informed buying decision. Buying a game shouldn’t be treated as a glorified rental for two to three hours, and then deciding to return it. If someone is so worried about value, especially for a game like No Man’s Sky, then they should have bought the game physically so they could then trade it into Gamestop. Nobody deserves to get their $59.99 back after playing (and probably enjoying) a game for dozens of hours. You have indulged in the product, and that’s all you purchased with your money. There isn’t a special clause saying it’s free if you didn’t enjoy it. It’d be like watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens and then demanding a refund because it didn’t live up to whatever expectations you had. At that point, you’re just an entitled child who doesn’t know how to spend their money or act like an adult.
While a small minority of gamers are being less than stellar by using these workarounds, they are still playing within the rules set by Sony and Valve. These companies need to enforce their rules better if they’re going to offer digital refunds (as they should), and will need to get better at implementing them. Clearly there is still room to grow in this ever-changing digital marketplace, and eventually, this talk will cease to exist. It won’t for a while, though, as even these huge companies are still learning to deal with these new issues.