EU to impose 2 year guarantee period on games?

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Looks like the EU commission is investigating if they should impose a 2 year guarantee period on games.
Of course, such guarantee could be exploited since no piece of software released today is bugless.

What's most funny though, is that one argument raised against the proposal by Business Software Alliance director Francisco Mingorance is that "people could invent bugs or glitches in order to get a refund". I can only laugh out loud at that... As if with the current state of the market, you need to invent anything...

Anyhow, I don't think there's much need for a 2 year guarantee period since I guess the response from the software developers is a toughened EULA with even more legalese and stricter minimum requirements to run the software.

And let's be reasonable here. There is no way you can make guarantee rules that fit both "software" and "a toaster". I encourage the commission to make new laws about guarantee requirements (although somewhat laxer than proposed), but I do hope they don't copy paste from their other guarantee laws.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/15/eu-commission-proposal-wants-two-year-guarantee-for-games/
 
Games bougt at retail stores in the EU have alsways (or nearly always) had a warranty/guarantee period for two years. No EULA in the world can better the laws of any land, including the EU.

If you have a faulty product, you can get it exchanged.
 
I Guess the description of faulty product is the key; Is this about the "Hard"ware part like the discs, booklets and the other promotional bits or does it extend to the "soft"ware? If it extends to software than, I guess there won't be any more game sales in EU, seeing that any game in any platform has some glitches and bugs in these modern times....
It does not seem to be too harsh if it is only about the hard parts but when you want to extend it to the soft... Well you get this for political solutions I guess.
 
there are 3 things that i really hate and have to say about software games.


1) if there is game stopping/crash-on-launch bugs, then the product is faulty and people should be allowed to return the product and get a full refund.

its not the consumers fault the game company released such a product, why should the consumer be liable for the incompetence of the developer?

2) developers thinking patching resolves all issues. simply, it wont and not ALL bugs get fixxed, only high priority ones that the developers think is important.

forcing your consumers to wait for a patch to play the game is unacceptable. forcing your consumers to wait for a patch to fix a bug would only be acceptable if you also provide the source code for the consumer base to fix. if you want to keep the source secret, then you are liable for that source code and what it does or what it fails to do.

if i cannot play the game because of a problem in YOUR game, i should be able to return it because YOU FAILED to live up to your side of the agreement. i paid for the game now, if it doesnt work as expected now, i should not have to wait till later to get use out of it. unless of course you are willing to delay me having to pay for the game untill it does work.

are you willing to let me pay for your game later after i can make sure it will run for me? if i have to pay first, then i should be able to return it if it fails to live up to expectations.

3) saying to not buy the next game the developer puts out is not a solution. its a fucking cop-out. i paid my money for THIS game. if i have a problem with THIS game, i should be able to return THIS game and get my money back because THIS game is the one with the problem.
 
The problem there with all your, it's THEIR fault and MY game shouldn't have any bugs because I paid for it with MY money and THEIR game shouldn't have any at all, is this.

You can't find and fix every single little bug and error before the game comes out. Some of them don't even seem like they're there until you release the game and someone stumbles upon it, oops, but then, that game gets returned, and then many more get returned just because people beat the game or got bored so they wanted their money back.

So there goes lots of money for the people that make it, thus making it impossible for them to fix it, thanks to everyone taking their money back, because of some bug or slight mess-up that some of them probly didn't even expierience.
 
aries369 said:
Games bougt at retail stores in the EU have alsways (or nearly always) had a warranty/guarantee period for two years. No EULA in the world can better the laws of any land, including the EU.

If you have a faulty product, you can get it exchanged.
Click to expand...
the current warrantee does not extend to the software side of the deal.

if you can get it exchanged after such a long time for a software issue, then it's due to local laws in your country, not european ones.

and my point was that they can put tighter restrictions on which kinds of hardware can run their software. if you buy it and you don't have the required hardware to run it, you cannot return it under guarantee (but you can under the law that says you have x days to reconsider return a product, but that return period is way shorter).
 
I'd rather have a guarantee of quality. bugs are easily fixed and most developers do fix them. a crappy game is always a crappy game. if I don't still like it within 2 years, I want my money back.
 
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