Gamers in the United States are familiar with the excruciatingly strict video game return policies which retail stores enforce-exchange only, if the package has been opened. While this provides a way for retailers and publishers to protect themselves from pirates, the policy offers no benefit or protection for gamers who have purchased games that turn out to be losers. So for those of us in the States, it is basically a “game over” situation for opened game software, regardless of how inferior the game turns out to be.
Our cousins across the pond have had a better experience in all of this. The retail store chain GAME, which has 700 stores in Europe, allows a ten day return policy as long as all original packaging and content is intact. So even if a game has been opened and used, the software is eligible for return to the store. This generous policy has saved many gamers quite a bit of money in not having to eat the cost of buying substandard game software. This haven for returnable game software is about to change. The UK game publishers are claiming that the current return policy is being abused by customers who use it as an opportunity for a free rental service. These people “buy” the game, with no intention of keeping it, and return the title for full purchase price. Nothing spent; everything gained.
MCV reports that GAME will change its policy and refuse returns on any game which has the official store seal broken. If the seal is intact, the store will offer a refund within a 28 day grace period. This move my GAME is not only an effort to appease the game publishers, but an attempt to stop the sharp downturn in revenues the retail chain has experienced. Compared to last year,s figures, GAME lost 80% in profits. The explained the drop as, “…primarily as a result of cyclical deflation in software selling prices, pricing pressure on older formats and the increased proportion of hardware in the sales mix, driven by the new formats of Nintendo DS, PSP and Xbox 360."
