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Valve Fined by Australian Federal Court for Not Offering Refunds

btarunr

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Valve Software, which through its Steam platform sells and supports games and software on behalf of other game publishers, has been fined AU $3 million by an Australian Federal Court for "misleading consumers," and for not conducting commerce in line with the local consumer protection norms, which guarantee Australian consumers a host of remedies that include refunds, if a product or service purchased doesn't live up to its marketed standards.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2014 pulled up Valve for not offering a satisfactory refunds system to Australian consumers. The case, heard by a Federal Court, after two appeals by Valve against penalties, ordered Valve to pay up AU $3 million in fine, and set up a consumer-satisfaction system in line with Australian Consumer Law. As a private company (not listed on any stock exchange), Valve is not obligated to reveal its net-worth, which was estimated by the press in various points in time. It was valued at USD $3 billion in 2012. Its founder Gabe Newell has an estimated net-worth of $5.5 billion, according to a Forbes report.



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So....Valve has to pay, what....maybe a half a day's worth of the Holiday sales money it takes in? They've probably spent more in legal fees to battle this fine.
 
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It's almost impossible to tell how god game is made, for different people, and how well it will work on different computers. Also, they are not DRM free in physical disk. I go for Tomb Rider i played it before and now it costs 3 euro. WW2 is to expensive even for brother.
 
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So if I'm unhappy with a game in Australia I can get a refund for it? Seems stupid. Hours played:132
Yeah, Valve? I'd like a refund, your game sucks.

Australia- Pay the man ,Valve!
 
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So if I'm unhappy with a game in Australia I can get a refund for it? Seems stupid. Hours played:132
Yeah, Valve? I'd like a refund, your game sucks.

Australia- Pay the man ,Valve!

Its not that black and white sadly, it would have a cool down period, not 132 hrs, maybe within the first 24/48hrs.
 
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The only problem with that is some games don't even last that many hours.
 

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Australia apparently has better consumer protection services than here in the USA but I remember a time when you couldn't return a game for refund no matter how much it sucked. At least we can now. imo Steam is extremely profitable and 3 million is a trifle to Valve. Last I heard the Gaben is worth around 5 1/2 billion in wealth.
 
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To me Gaben is worth a lot more than that :love:
 
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