As one of the many millions of gamers who have purchased digital versions of various games from the PlayStation Store, I recently started to truly understand the size and impact of the issues surrounding PlayStation's refund policy. As many will have already learned from their own experiences, getting a refund from a digital game bought via the PlayStation Store is only usually possible if the game hasn't already been downloaded, this itself is a huge problem.

The most common problem being that modern day games are ever more frequently being released and sold to us in a completely unacceptable state, the issues range from false advertisment, game breaking bugs and glitches and in some cases the complete inability to actually play the game. You don't have to look far to find examples of these problems and many more that have been plaguing games released over the last few years and longer.

For those who are fortunate enough to have never felt the need to request a refund on a purchase, here is a quick rundown of what to expect if you was to attempt it, in my personal experience and what I believe to be the most common outcome is as follows. You're likely to head over to PlayStation's support website and after going through a few menus you will reach the refunds page, on this page an automated bot will then begin asking basic questions to check your eligibility for a refund, the first few questions simply asks about payment type and if you own the card used for the payment etc. Four or five very simple questions later you will be asked if you have already downloaded the game to which the answer is most likely yes, and this is where the problem begins. The bot will say "Well this is awkward..." followed by a more formal message stating it is against their refund policies to complete the refund request. And that is how that ends unfortunately. 

The most significant problem with this is obvious to any gamer out there, what if my game doesn't work? What happens if my game isn't anything like what was advertised to me? You wouldn't find this type of refund policy in any other business model that I can think of. In almost any other consumer based transaction you are entitled by law to get a refund for a product that lacks the necessary quality and functionality. You send poorly cooked food back, you send faulty electronics back and you can easily return clothing that isn't as comfortable as you had hoped, no questions asked. These are just a few examples and many more can be found with ease.

So now let's look at what could be done and in what I believe to be many people's opinion, should be done. First disclaimer however is I have no background in marketing and consumers rights etc, I simply enjoy gaming. However the course of action seems clear, the refund policy need to adequately match the standards found in other similar business models, even physical copies of games can easily be refunded so there is little to no reason for this to not be implemented regarding digital purchases. 

Secondly, I also believe it is becoming increasingly important for quality control to create a threshold for developers to meet before allowing them to release and sell their games, in the same way that food is not allowed to be sold unless it meets a certain criteria. Although it is unclear how this could be achieved, I believe there is a few options. Option one is for PlayStation to step up and assume responsibility for this, they could have a completely independent team ready to test any and all games thoroughly, by doing this it would show us gamers that they care and are trying to protect us from companies who are happy to take our money and give us broken products. Another option would be to create a law or something of similar nature enforcing developers to release fully functioning games of adequate quality or face punishment, such as a significant fine.

I truly believe things need to change, gaming is one of the largest industries of our time and continues to grow, more and more of us seek out gaming as a form of entertainment, relaxation and a way to spend quality time with friends a family.

We should be treated with respect from PlayStation and the companies who sell their products through them to us, but instead it feels that more and more each year we are nothing more than a paycheck for these businesses, despite the fact that in some instances we genuinely admire the games created. We even go as far as to support them through purchasing cosmetics or DLC in the hopes they will have even more money to spend making our next favourite game.

If after reading this you feel the same way as we do, then please reach out to your friends and family who you often game with and ask them to support us too, with enough traction I genuinely believe that there will be no option for these companies other than to change for us, thank you for reading and hopefully, one day soon we well have the change we deserve.