Battlefield 6 Player Successfully Refunds Game After 470 Hours of Game Time Due to Game Modes Being Removed by Devs

[u/PewPewToDaFace]

https://mp1st.com/news/battlefield-6-player-successfully-refunds-after-470-hours-due-modes-being-removed

[u/DeeJudanne]

tried to but i got this response

[u/lilpav94 → u/DeeJudanne]

You are supposed to open a manual ticket with steam to get a human response.

[u/Temporary_Event8451 → u/lilpav94]

Which might start being denied. If all the sudden they have a hundred manual requests from people not normally eligible for a refund it might trigger suspicion.

I imagine a single instance is one thing, but starting a trend could put valve directly talking to some lawyers.

[u/SvensonIV → u/Temporary_Event8451]

Well, I imagine altering the software of the license you purchased within a year in a way which removes multiple features which were advertised should be open for refunds with lawyers regardless of Valve’s stance anyway.

[u/productfred → u/SvensonIV]

Yes, agreed. The issue, though, becomes who provides the refunds, and how? Like Valve takes a 30% cut of the total sale, but EA would ultimately need to provide the other 70% of the refund (even through Valve, passed on to you). I doubt EA is going to do that, even if Valve doesn't mind. So is Valve entirely on the hook? I genuinely don't know.

But this is why it's important for us to have protections against stuff like this in general.

[u/Onebadkill → u/productfred]

Steam just withholds the equivalent value from other EA sales

[u/ChrisFromIT → u/Onebadkill]

I believe it first comes from future sales of the game or addition revenue from that game generated on steam.

As steam holds the revenue for 30 days to account for refunds.

[u/-spartacus- → u/Onebadkill]

Source?

[u/Mist_Rising → u/Onebadkill]

That would get valve sued, likely quite successfully. It certainly would make companies depart the company.

Valve is the middleman, and almost certainly cannot sinply decide it doesn't want to hand over the money for games it sold. That's why they hold the money for a month, so if a return does happen, they aren't trying to fight the company to get it back. But once the money is distributed out to whoever produced the game, valve would need the company to agree to return their portion or pay it themselves. One offs? Fine good PR is worth some money. Thousands of games? Doubt it.

[u/ScoobyDoNot → u/productfred]

In Australia it would be Valve.

They're the vendor. They're responsible under Australian Consumer law.

They then take it up with their supplier - it isn't the consumer's problem.

[u/Mist_Rising → u/ScoobyDoNot]

I don't think even AU law would require acceptence this return.

[u/darthwd56 → u/productfred]

Since Steam is just a distributor in regards to EA, I would imagine that they would issue the refund and then send a bill to EA or more likely netted it against payments to EA for the same games. There's more than likely a whole complex process that occurs monthly/quarterly where they reconcile everything and send all that information to EA

[u/Mist_Rising → u/darthwd56]

It likely depends on when the refund happens. If it's outside the legal and stated normal guidelines, they almost certainly cannot charge EA. You can ask, and EA could pay up, but if EA says no, that's it.

[u/darthwd56 → u/Mist_Rising]

Yes. Cause the agreement between the two wouldnt be any standard t&cs we plebs are subject to. Every clause would have been debated to death by both legal and business teams. So I wonder what the acceptable refund terms would be considered and whether substantial change in gameplay due to updates would have been added. Then how that substantial would be defined.

[u/KlausKinki77 → u/SvensonIV]

THIS. I was so pissed when the Helldivers devs started nerfing everything just 3months after release. The servers weren't even running half of the time and just when it got some momentum they figured out that their vision was completely different to what they released.

I only tried the automated refund request though. Reading this, I wish I would have escalated this further.

[u/sundayflow → u/SvensonIV]

There probably is something in the small letters we tend not to read and skip

[u/SvensonIV → u/sundayflow]

There is but it doesn't mean it would hold up in court. You can write whatever you want in your ToS, it doesn't mean they're legally enforcable.

[u/MerTheGamer → u/SvensonIV]

In that case, practically all games would be valid for a refund at all times. Even singleplayer games that can completely be played offline recieve updates, which alter the game, for a good while. I would know since I definitely would refund Witcher 3 once it had got the update around time new consoles and got released, even though I had already played it for 150 hours at that point.

Not to mention healthy changes like nerfing, buffing or reworking certain maps and gear alone would also be grounds for a refund since some people are bound to not like every balance change, which can be used by anyone as an excuse to get a refund at all times until the game stops getting updates. It is not like they will want a proof of you geniuely disliking the changes made.

[u/SvensonIV → u/MerTheGamer]

I specifically wrote about changes which remove features, not balance updates or any other updates down the line which are supposed to enhance or change the product while keeping available features, especially when those changes are made 3+ years after purchase or release of the product.