Hey all,
Someone mentioned in the Starbound thread about GOGs impending money back guarantee thing. I remember vaguely reading about it on another thread a while back.
Anyone care to tell me whats that potentially all about?
And if its what i think it is, will it impact on having beta/alphas on GOG? (if ever)

Haven't run across that yet. Just to compare this is GOG's current refund policy: http://www.gog.com/support/policies/terms_of_use


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Also, why the hell did you get de-repped for asking about it?

This is discussed in the media thread: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_in_the_mediainterviews/post58

HOWEVER, all links to the reports seem to have gone dead. It's a conspiracy! (Or maybe a premature anouncement or maybe they changed their minds).

Edit link to cache of article: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://m.incgamers.com/2013/12/gog-offering-money-back-guarantee-game-functionality&espv=1

They already linked the post in the "GOG in the Media" thread where it was discussed. I also recall TET mentioning it before, though can't recall exactly where.
Basically, it boils down to this. You buy a game on GOG (where you meet the requirements), try to run it and fail. You contact support, and follow their directions. If nothing support suggests during the next 30 days gets the game running, you get your money back.

It's on!

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/announcing_our_new_guarantee

That one?

Just a heads up GOG Admins your policy won't fly as it stands in Australia; I'm not being a i think i know better than you guy.
I actually know that another online distributor is currently being taking to court by the A.C.C.C (our consumer watchdog) over misleading and hence fraudulent terms considering refunds.

In particular what stops your policy from being legal in Australia by Australian consumer law is:
8. What if I don't want to bother with trying to get my game working? All I want is my money back!
Our top priority is to help you get the game working, and this means that we will require some cooperation from you. We won't ask anything extravagant, or super time-consuming, like a system reinstall, but if you absolutely refuse to try anything, we won't be able to determine whether the problem can be fixed or not, and won't be able to issue a refund.
This is especially relevant if there are some glaring issues with your computer, like DirectX faults, or drivers that are ancient, or even missing.

The current court case against Steam, is obviously more blatant in their disregard for the laws of our sovereign nation in regards to consumer returns policy, but none the less if you sell to Australia you sell IN Australia.
Australia's return policy does not stipulate that we must try every measure of yours, nor allow continued testing on your own 'lab conditions' to assess whether or not 'we' are allowed to return an item or product; only that for us it was not 'fit for purpose'.

I refer you to the publicized case of ACCC vs Valve (https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/full-steam-ahead-accc-institutes-proceedings-against-valve-for-making-alleged-misleading-consumer-guarantee-representations)
I point you in the direction of the mid third paragraph...

Valve made false or misleading representations to Australian customers in that they were "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".


I don't like being that guy, but your leaving yourself open to litigation and our Government has deep pockets & a long history as the worlds foremost developed nanny state.

Pretty sure the ACCC states that you do need to give the seller an opportunity to fix the problem before you can ask for a refund.

That said, with software I kind of fail to see how one can one sidedly call something not 'fit for purpose', particularly when the exact same COPY of that game is being sold to everyone else, and likely works for most of them. There's only rare cases where a game was absolutely broken on Steam.

And for GOG, I'm still not sure where they are breaching anything here, except maybe from the point on where they ask the customer to fiddle with stuff to fix something, rather than fix it from their side.

Still, with computer software and countless computer configs, that's a reasonable thing to ask imo, that doesn't mean a product is broken.

Hey they want to argue the point in a court of law all power to them; I'm not a lawyer. One would think they would minimize their legal liability any way they could as a margin business.
That being said your point of being 'one sided' though being quite reasonable & logical, doesn't overcome the fact that such a thing is not explicitly handled and as such cannot be held to grant right to ask for such a measure.
Our Government has never been about being reasonable or logical, that's why Abbot is at the helm and is the only guy between for example Australia going to war (other countries have to deliberate; our 'king' can go 'awe fuck it, i need to distract the public') and the preservation of our good stable diplomatic relations with other countries.

Australia is the biggest half baked post American War of Independence crock of bullshit to have ever of crawled out of white English Catholic arse.
That being said go up against it and your going up against a highly static (thus rigid) system built on hundreds of years of delusions (not only of grandeur) that has a primary focus on becoming as litigious as the powder-keg that is America.
Have fun with that.