Nintendo Life recently covered news that some players were able to receive refunds on digital copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet due to the poor performance issues. The kicker here is that Nintendo isn’t known for its flexibility for refunds, so one could infer that they are aware and are acknowledging how “serious” these issues are. However, despite the complains (including from yours truly), the performance issues are primarily graphical and/or involve frame rate issues. Rarely are there game breaking glitches, so one does have to pause and ask, when is it appropriate to receive refunds for a video game?

While not all industries are created equal, here in the US we tend to hear “the customer is always right”. Lots of retailers offer refunds when people are simply not satisfied with the product. With video games, where is that line drawn?

Well, I would say it is up to the publisher and severity of the complaint.

Another famous example was Cyberpunk 2077 when it first launched. The issues were severe in nature–includes game-breaking ones–and Xbox allowed a generous refund policy and even extended that time window. PlayStation also allowed for refunds.

Some have a purchase and/or played window. For example, Steam will consider a refund if a game was purchased within two weeks and with less than two hours of game play logged. Hours of game play make a lot of sense if it can be tracked–or else it would be like a person demanding their dinner on the house because it was horrible…and yet they ate most of their plate.

Circling back to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet…While I certainly am not qualified to determine what is worth a refund or not, I do feel that unless the title is broken–where the consumer has encountered something that is preventing them from experiencing the game as intended–a refund isn’t necessarily warranted. I’ll put this another way, I would hope that gamers do not feel entitled over more minor, graphical glitches. Just some food for thought.

How do you feel about video game refunds? Please share your thoughts with us on our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.

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