It’s certainly no secret that Bethesda has seen its fair share of ups and downs with Fallout 76, a multiplayer title set firmly within the Fallout universe. Frustrations have been numerous from consumers as they’ve attempted to navigate the world (and precedents) of Bethesda in one of their first developed multiplayer games, without the assistance of the modding community.
The Electronics Boutique in Australia seems like they’ll need to take a particular hit, as they’ve been refusing refunds in the past of players that weren’t satisfied with the games constant errors and bugs that have spanned the range from deleting players inventories to simply being unable to log in.
Unfortunately for EB Games, Australia has strict consumer rights.
Complaints were sent to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (colloquially ACCC) regarding EB refusing to offer refunds, and the ACCC has come to a verdict.
EB Games acknowledges that they may have misled consumers regarding their rights in relation to Fallout 76. Consumers that purchased the title and experienced a wide gamut of ‘faults’ within the title attempted to bring the games back, where EG Games then informed them that they would not accept refunds on that title.
Consumers who have attempted to refund the title between November 2018 and October 2019 will now receive the once-requested refunds from the game retailer, ACCC states.
Fallout 76 being legally deemed a major failure by the ACCC comes from this statement from Commissioner Sarah Court:
The Australian Consumer Law provides consumers with the right to ask for their choice of a repair, replacement or refund when they have purchased a product that has a fault which amounts to a major failure
Thus, ACCC has looked into requests from consumers regarding Fallout 76 and has found that it amounts, or has amounted to in the past, to a major failure.
Australian citizens that meet the criteria for the undertaking S.87B regarding EB Games may start the process at ACCCs website.
Many users from outside of Australia are looking at the verdict with envy, stating that their country (typically the United States) has an atrocious consumer-rights advocacy group that is looking out for users in an era where bait-and-switch tactics are far too liberally deployed from various studios, and rights regarding digital ownership are finding themselves under an increasing hail of fire.
While Fallout 76 is apparently faring far better today than it was on its original release, many consumers still feel as though they were intentionally misled by Bethesda themselves through media and marketing. From stating that microtransactions will only be cosmetic to the pro-order canvas bag that turn out to be a plastic-composite, Bethesda has its work cut out for them to mend the relationship between studio and consumers.
