Refund for buggy/glitchy games anyone?

 

If current talks at the EU Commision ever came into legislation, game developers would have to provide a two year guarantee with their games. “Surely this is preposterous?” I hear you ask, and rightly so. If this was to go ahead it would more than likely halt progress instead of pushing it forwards. If developers thought they had to provide a mimimum 2 year guarantee, a more cautious approach would be taken when creating new titles. Games that push the boundaries like Crysis may never happen again, Call of Duty might be a mere memory of what once was.

 

The culprits involved in dreaming up this idea are Commissioners Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva. Perhaps they haven’t fully assessed the situation. If these proposals were to become law then instead of helping gamers the exact opposite would be true. Developers aren’t likely to invest sleepless nights and thousands of pounds to put out a groundbreaking new game only to find that half the copies have been returned under the 2 year guarantee.

 

Endless possibilities for abusing the system are also present. Let’s say I walked into a store, purchased a new game, played and completed it, and then had the nerve to go back to the store to return it because of “a glitch that prevented me from completing the game.” What would happen if I was not the only one? Yes, the potential for thousands of games being returned for this very reason is astounding. In its current form the legislation would make a mockery of the software industry and as such is extremely unlikely to see the light of day.