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View Full Version : Proposal by EU for 2 year guarantee

Herman
05-15-09, 07:34 PM
The future of games development has been called into question after the EU Commission suggested developers provide a two year guarantee.

[snip]

At present, licensed software is exempt from EU legislation that forces firms to offer "a minimum 2-year guarantee on tangible movable consumer goods".

[snip]

At present, retailers are not obliged to give a refund on a video game that has a bug or glitch that prevents a user completing a game. If the proposals become law, this could change as users would have the right "to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8044125.stm
CaptainHaplo
05-15-09, 09:59 PM
Gee - make software that actually works? What kind of craziness is this?
If they do this, then some DRM schemes are going to have problems - no more "sorry starforce broke your dvd writer and you can't play the game on top of it, no you can't have your money back and we aren't responsible for your broke stuff..."

Makes too much sense - wont ever happen.
Skybird
05-16-09, 05:09 AM
Good, I always felt there is a contradiction. In ngermany, there are two forms of "guarantees":

the legally mandatory "Gewährleistungspflicht" that is directly founded in law. It is 24 months for new, unused items, and only in some cases could be limited to 12 months by according text in the bill of sale.

The voluntary "Garantie" that traders and producer can give, but must not give, can add even more time to that Gewährleistungspflicht. Usually you see 3 or 5 years of extended Guarantee, all in all.

I always saw it as critical that software producers are allowed to refuse the fixing of broken software and bringing it into a fully usable form with features as advertised. If this move now means that some bad quality producers cannot or will not compete and withdraw from the market, then this can only be good. I favour quality over quantity any time. Too much crap produced these day, in music, books, films, and games. I would say 80-90% of the crap being released today - should not have been produced ever. The remaining 10-20% still would give people a myriad of options to chose from.