The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing US game development and digital distribution company Valve over claims it misled customers about refunds, warranties and guarantees for games downloaded on its Steam platform.
As reported by Fairfax, court documents filed on Thursday reveal that the ACCC are accusing Valve, the maker of Steam, which has over 65 million users worldwide, of making false or misleading representations to Australian customers.
The ACCC claim that Valve informed consumers that they were not entitled to a refund for any games sold by Valve via Steam “in any circumstances”. The consumer body also alleges that Valve “excluded, restricted or modified” guarantees and warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality.
Additionally, the ACCC said that Valve claimed that “it was under no obligation” to replace or refund games if affected customers hadn’t contacted the particular game developer about their issues, and that consumer guarantees did not apply to the games it sold via Steam.
According to Kotaku, Valve says that unless required by local law, it does “not offer refunds or exchanges” on games.
Although Valve does not operate out of Australia, the ACCC is firm in its stance that Australian Consumer Law applies to any business providing goods or services within Australia, and that they can therefore sue the US company.
“It is a breach of the Australian Consumer Law for businesses to state that they do not give refunds under any circumstances, including for gifts and during sales. Under the Australian Consumer Law, consumers can insist on a refund or replacement at their option if a product has a major fault,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.
Valve’s vice president of marketing has issued a statement that the company is “making every effort to cooperate with the Australian officials on this matter, while continuing to provide Steam services to our customers across the world, including Australian gamers”.
A date for the first hearing is set for Tuesday, 7th October 2014 at the Federal Court in Sydney before Justice Jagot.
