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0 pointsanonymoushn2y ago0 comments

If you buy a defective game on PSN and then get a refund, your entire PSN account is nuked. If you buy a game on Steam and the devs push malware in an update and you get a refund, your entire Steam account is nuked. An example of a defective game you can currently buy on PSN is Kingdom: Two Crowns. An example of a game whose developer pushed malware in an update automatically downloaded by Steam is Street Fighter V.

In the case of PSN, official policy is that defective games are refundable. They just make it impossible to reach anyone about this during the refund window. In the case of Steam, official policy is that devs are free to push malware to your device.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

johnnyanmac2y ago· 3 in thread

This sound more like an argument for companies needing to be punished for retaliating against refunds and chargebacks, more than an argument for piracy.

squeaky-clean2y ago

How else do you punish them if not by affecting their revenue?

johnnyanmac2y ago

Government regulation I guess.

But i feel "punish" is the wrong lens to look at this. It's hard for the individual to punish a corporation. Ultimately the goal is to maximize your own purchase so the best way to achieve that is to find a better product. Then that merchant grows based on their ability to serve the customer. In my experience, most companies tend to be punished not by people or competition, but by their own folly.

And if there really is no merchant serving your product for your price, that's a much larger discussion to have.

nomel2y ago

You can't punish them for something they haven't done, by pirating before they do it. There will be no correlation, so no feedback mechanism, in that scenario. What do you see as the signal they should pick up on? How will they differentiate it from "they pirate no matter what we do"? These are genuine questions.

tadfisher2y ago

Your account is nuked if you make your credit card issuer perform a chargeback, not if you request a refund and are granted one. I have refunded at least 10 titles on Steam, and my account is still there.

squeaky-clean2y ago

I wouldn't say Street Fighter 5 put out an update with malware. It did put out an update that opened up a kernel level vulnerability to unprivileged programs which is extremely bad and worth requesting a refund for. But I wouldn't say Intel sold me malware because my CPU was susceptible to spectre and meltdown.

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