Changes to the Consumer Rights Act have come into effect in the UK today, and with key amendments designed to deal with software purchases and digital goods, there are some important gains for gamers.

Most obvious is the provision of a clear 30-day period in which consumers can return goods that they deem to be faulty, and ask for a refund or a replacement. In the past, the act ambiguously required that goods needed to be returned within a “reasonable time”, which allowed more wriggle room for retailers, who could also insist on just offering a repair.



The act makes clear that goods must be fit for purpose and “free from minor defects”. With an increasing number of major games now being released with significant technical issues – including the likes of Battlefield 4, SimCity and the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight – consumers will now be in a much stronger position to request a refund from the supplier of the game if it won’t load or can’t access online features.

“The reasonable time has been clarified, which is good,” says Alex Tutty of entertainment law firm, Sheridans. “Retailers previously relied on this – especially if you think about a game that can be completed in 10 hours; they would say ‘you can’t return this after 20 days’.”

The act applies, not just to physical boxed game releases from online or highstreet stores, but to digital games purchased from online sites like Steam, Origin, or the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network stores. Most of these have refund policies in place, but the new act makes their specific responsibilities much clearer. Titles will have to match the descriptions given on the website and be fit for the indicated purpose.

“The update clarifies that the sale of goods act will now apply to digital products,” says Tutty. “Previously you had more rights if you bought a game on disc, now you get the benefit of that even if you’re buying digitally. From 1 October, anything you download has to be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and meet the description that’s given. If you download a game and it’s bug-ridden, you can demand a refund and quote the sale of goods act. Before this, it wasn’t especially clear cut.”

The act also covers free-to-download games. There is obviously no refund potential on the title itself but virtual goods, such as customised characters or new maps and levels, will be covered by the act and users will be able to demand refunds on unsatisfactory in-game purchases.

Early releases and day one disasters

The new ruling also allows for the growing number of titles now released in unfinished or “beta” form, through services like Steam Early Access. “If you do indicate to people that the game is going to be buggy, that is allowed,” says Tutty. “But the act will allow people to get a refund on games that are released as full titles, yet are filled with bugs and don’t work.”

So how will this affect those big day one releases, especially multiplayer games, where players want to get online and start levelling up their characters as soon as possible – but find that the code is broken or the servers have collapsed? “There are two remedies under the act,” says Tutty. “The right to repair or replacement, or the right to a price reduction up to a full refund if a repair or replacement is not possible within a reasonable time. So a company could possibly say, ‘well, we’ve got a patch coming that will fix it pretty quickly’. That’s a repair.”

“However, where it gets quite interesting is that lots of people really want to play on day one – that’s a key selling point, especially when you get these exclusive deals where a certain map pack may be available first on a specific platform – well, presumably you’ve bought that game because you want to play it online, on day one, against your mates.”

Pre-orders have become a contentious area of the games industry, with a greater number of publishers and retailers looking to get players to commit to a purchase before the final release. Tutty believes that the new act may mean that these customers find they have more power to ask for a refund if the final game doesn’t live up to early promises given on the pre-order page.



He explains: “If the company says, this is how the game is going to work, and later they pivot and say, actually it will be slightly different, players could complain that, well I bought it under the belief it was going to be something else, so I want a refund.”

So could the changes to the consumer act – which only applies in Britain – lead to any significant changes in how major games get released? It’s possible. Although the UK is only one market, games revenue was £4bn last year, making it second only to Germany in the European sector. Britain also boasts a large development community and is home to some of the most highly subscribed, vocal and influential YouTubers. “If I was a games publisher I would be more mindful now of releasing buggy products,” says Tutty. “I think the quality assurance process is really going to have to ramp back up. It should make things better.”

In an age where publishers are relying ever more heavily on bug-fixing patches, as well as on post-release downloadable content such as DLC and virtual goods, the relationship with gamers is becoming much clearer – and the responsibilities more rigorously defined. Although it is the supplier, not the game publisher, that will be responsible for providing refunds or replacements, it seems there’s going to be much greater pressure throughout the pipeline – from developer to consumer – to get things right first time.

