New UK laws - consumer rights for gamers

software in a car , has nothing to do with a person buying software for a computer.

so i do not see the connection you are trying to make andi06.

when you buy a copy of the software for a computer, all you are buying is a licence to run that software, the buyer does not have "IP" over the software. only the owner of the "IP" has rights over the ownership. of the software

WestSideRailways said:

when you buy a copy of the software for a computer, all you are buying is a licence to run that software, the buyer does not have "IP" over the software. only the owner of the "IP" has rights over the ownership. of the software

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Andis argument is that the current model of software licensing is complete crap and anti-consumer, their's your connection. His statement is no different to yours in that it's convenient for the parent company to hide behind the guise of licensing to avoid the responsibility of ensuring that their product is fit for intended use. This new legislation is intended to give consumers the protection from this in the form of refunds.

Jack

As far as the legislation is concerned there is no inherent difference between goods, services and data.

You own the car, you own the media on which the data is stored, you own the data. You are entitled to assume that the system as a whole will perform as advertised. If it doesn't you are entitled to redress.

You own the computer, you own the media on which the data is stored, you own the data. You are entitled to assume that the system as a whole will perform as advertised. If it doesn't you are entitled to redress.

The fact that you owned the computer before you purchased the data is irrelevant, you are purchasing data which will be used in conjunction with your computer to form a system.

What you don't own are the ideas and source code which are used to prepare the data, the intellectual property - this can be described as a license, the data itself is treated as if it were a physical object or a service.

i still do not see where the connection is, VW problem was that they KNEW what they were doing, and were caught out.

the software did not malfunction it was reconfiguered to give a wrong result.

any body/company who sells software, can not and should not say that the software is 100% soild. even if they did, no one would belive. that is why software is sold "as is" and company say that "it should" work with this type of hardware or that type of hardware. if the user has differant type of hardware or differant software that might cause problems with this software, then the user is at fault.

i thought that we were talking about software here....

you own the computer YES
you own the data properly (not a lawer , so do not know about that, could be a lot of grey areas there)

what you do not own is the software, you only lease the software from the company, and here is a lot more grey areas, the company says that the software "should" work on your hardware. if your hard ware is compatible with what the company says it will work with.

Now here is some hard facts.... not all computers are the same , even if they have the same hardware in them.

and software will not always work with other software.

As far as the consumer is concerned it doesn't really matter whether the fault is due to deliberate fraud or plain incompetence. It still doesn't work as intended and he is still entitled to redress.

Goods, services, data are sold 'as described' and must be of merchantable quality. If the description is that it will work on Windows 10 and it doesn't work on Windows 10 then it is not 'as described'. It remains to be seen how this will pan out in practice but it will almost always be cheaper and easier to refund the money than to prove that there is no substance in the claim.

There is some recognition of the special circumstances of software production. For instance a consumer will not be able to insist on a repair (bugfix) if the cost of the repair is out of proportion to the value of the software.

[Edit: I'm simply commenting on the legislation itself. You seem to disagree with it in principle but I can assure you that this won't affect the approach of the courts in the UK]

am not going to bother any more as you andi06 do not seem to be understanding what i am saying ....

you are confusing cars with software.

can you debate my post #26

I'm not confusing anything.

Software on its own is just a collection of ones and zeroes. To be of any practical value it needs to be combined with some form of hardware to produce a 'system' which is capable of carrying out a meaningful task.

It should be obvious that if the 'system' is a car which fails to perform correctly due to a fault in its software, then the owner is entitled to some form of compensation for that failure.

By the same token if the 'system' is a computer running a video game which fails to perform, then again compensation is due.

In the context of this legislation there is no difference between the two, in both cases a failure of the software is causing the 'system' to malfunction, and in both cases compensation is due.

WestSideRailways said:

VW problem was that they KNEW what they were doing, and were caught out.

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And N3V knew their software contained hundreds of serious bugs but pushed it out the door anyway.

nicky9499 said:

And N3V knew their software contained hundreds of serious bugs but pushed it out the door anyway.

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You could try applying for a refund under this legislation, but I'm not sure that the UK parliament legislates for the Commonwealth of Australia (or Singapore) any more.

We may only buy a licence to use software rather than own it, but we are still paying money to use it. If I chose to lease a car and it failed to perform as specified, then I would expect the leasing company to take it back with no financial penalty - it is still their duty to ensure it is fit for purpose. In the case of software we have paid up front for an indefinite licence so the only caveat which could apply is a charge for use up to termination of the licence. However even that could be moot as you would need to use/test the product in order to establish it is not as described/not fit for purpose. This is presumably why Steam now allow so many hours of gameplay on a product before a cut off to cancel and "return" (delete) the item.

It is possible the new UK legislation could even over-rule Steam's policy if a fault or issue only became apparent after the period of grace had elapsed. Whether the UK legislation could be applied to purchases made from an offshore publisher - N3V in Australia - is indeed a moot point. However it may not be long before the concept is progressively introduced in other countries at which point software publishers need to be far more careful about what they promise, when what is delivered bares scant similarity, 'nuff said...

Here is what you could be looking for,
https://www.qld.gov.au/law/fair-trading/

I believe that the UK courts will take the view that a consumer contract entered into by a consumer in the UK is subject to UK law - although enforcement would obviously be a different issue. The responsible party is always the retailer, it would only be the software house itself if they were selling direct.

This is presumably why Steam now allow so many hours of gameplay on a product before a cut off to cancel and "return" (delete) the item.

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I suspect that Steam may have to change this from 'so many hours' o 'thirty days'

Outside the UK ... UK laws are unenforceable

Have a good read of this, it will answer all your question on weather you can get you money back.
https://www.qld.gov.au/law/your-rig...ies-refunds/consumer-guarantees-for-products/

amigacooke said:

You could try applying for a refund under this legislation, but I'm not sure that the UK parliament legislates for the Commonwealth of Australia (or Singapore) any more.

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I'm not applying for anything, just pointing out that territorial issues aside, N3V's software falls nicely afoul of these new laws.

WestSideRailways said:

Now here is some hard facts.... not all computers are the same , even if they have the same hardware in them.

and software will not always work with other software.

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But that's where the programme developers need to do testing first and make sure it does work with other software surely. A game must work with the OS, it must work with graphics software etc etc. Surely if youre going to develop a game you want to maximise sales and have it workable on as many systems as possible - or you could go with N3V and build it so it works (sortof) on the top 3% of graphics cards and semi-ok on the other 7% of the top 10% and somewhere between crap and unworkable on the other 90%.

cascaderailroad said:

Outside the UK ... UK laws are unenforceable

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I think it will force new terms and conditions of purchase in game stores, some gaming stores may even stop distributing physical games that come from other countries as they could get landed with them which could amount to a considerable loss over time. If I bought a game from a game shop and took it back, the game shop would wear the cost, they couldn't get a refund from the game company (unless the disk itself was faulty) wouldn't they? It may work the other way to, gamers in the UK might be more likely to purchase physical games locally as they will be covered by the law and direct online sales may drop.

It will be interesting to see how this law develops and is enforced over time.

Perhaps they need to go back to the days of shareware / trialware / fully working time locked demos, try it for 30 days or whatever before purchasing it. No harm done then. Those who can't get it to work or are hyper critical can delete it and haven't spent any cash, those who can use the software or can see it has potential can buy it. If no one buys the software then the developers will hopefully get the message that more work needs doing!

So now all software will be sold with this disclaimer. This software is a WIP ( Work In Progress ). All software will now all be designated as BETA forever. Buy at your own peril.