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Valve hit by legal action in Australia over Steam refunds

by Mark Tyson on 29 August 2014, 10:30

Tags: Valve

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has announced that it will be taking legal action against Steam owner Valve for making "misleading consumer guarantee representations". The online gaming and entertainment platform company is accused of allegedly contravening the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), which protects consumers' contracts and rights when buying goods and services, as well as product safety.

The ACCC points out that Valve's refund policy misleads Australian Steam users on the following fronts:

  • consumers were not entitled to a refund for any games sold by Valve via Steam in any circumstances;
  • Valve had excluded, restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality;
  • Valve was not under any obligation to repair, replace or provide a refund for a game where the consumer had not contacted and attempted to resolve the problem with the computer game developer; and
  • the statutory consumer guarantees did not apply to games sold by Valve.

Steam states in its refund policy that "unless required by local law", Valve do not offer refunds or exchanges on games, DLC or in-game add-ons purchased. However, speaking about the matter, ACCC chairman Rod Sims underlines that the consumer guarantees provided under the Australian Consumer Law cannot not be changed.

"Valve may be an American based company with no physical presence in Australia, but it is carrying on business in Australia by selling to Australian consumers, who are protected by the Australian Consumer Law," explained Sims. "It is a breach of the Australian Consumer Law for businesses to state that they do not give refunds under any circumstances, including for gifts and during sales."

Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi wrote in a statement provided to IGN that the company is "making every effort to cooperate with the Australian officials on this matter, while continuing to provide Steam services to our customers across the world, including Australian gamers."

The suit has been filed in the Federal Court's Sydney Registry, and the first directions hearing is set for 7th October before Justice Jagot. Do you think Valve's Steam refunds policy could change worldwide? Let us know what you think of the legal proceedings in the comments below.



HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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Yeah, I think that Valve/Steam should rethink its refund policy and make changes accordingly. As it stands right now the customer has practically no recourse with Valve/Steam if a purchased product does not live up to expectations. In general Steam's customer service is practically non-existent with the prevailing answer to almost any kind of question being a resounding “NO”.
I hope this means Valve catch up to Origin in giving refunds for games that are not acceptable to gamers. It is very sad that the horrible store that is Origin actually manages to provide better customer service in this particular area, Valve should have addressed this a long time ago.

I know Valve have a nice flat setup, and low overheads due to their success, but they can't ignore the need to support their store with a customer service team. It is insane to think they have gotten away with it for so long and have even moved away from curating content on their store which is harming developers with the ridiculous amount of old games being thrown on and making it to the front page.

I certainly hope this is something other countries do as well to make sure consumers are not taken advantage of as they often are on Steam due to the lack of hands on control that Valve exert over the store. We don't need a walled garden but we do need better protections against developer's unjustifiable claims and general exploitative behaviour that is inherent in an unregulated marketplace.
I hope Valve won't tussle over whether or not the “local law” or “Australian consumers” terms really apply, and instead come up with more sensible policies for the whole world. Few customers will attempt to abuse a retailer's willingness to replace/refund sales, and for those who do so, it's every retailer's right to refuse service. Even a giant like Amazon follows a no-quibbles policy, unless you really start to take the p***.
I'd be interested in knowing what the PSN situation is in Australia, anything I have ever read is that they just outright lie and refuse to obey abey right to a refund, even whn they are a t fault.
Otherhand
I hope Valve won't tussle over whether or not the “local law” or “Australian consumers” terms really apply, and instead come up with more sensible policies for the whole world.

Nah, what will happen is that Australian users will start the Steam client and receive a message saying “Due to incompatibilities between Valve terms and Australian laws, your account has been deactivated. Sorry for the inconvenience, please contact your local politician and whinge at them.”