Due to a recent German court case, in which the European retailer MediaMarkt was taken to Munich Regional High Court because of excessive delays on a pre-ordered product, a new law has now been put in place. If a game or product is available to pre-order, it MUST have a specified date of when it will ship and arrive, and it must stick to that. If a delay occurs, then the consumer is allowed a full refund. Listings that say "coming soon" "tbd" or "unspecified" are fine, so long as they don't take money from the consumer.

Source

 

[Vieela]

I wonder if this new law will eventually accidently reveal some new game's release date. Sounds extremely possible, specially in smaller stores, which there's usually more miscommunication between publishers and sellers.

 

[CallmeBerto]

"Listings that say "coming soon" "tbd" or "unspecified" are fine, so long as they don't take money from the consumer."

Yeah, I can get behind that.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I didn't even know it was common place to take your money before a product comes out. Then again I never pre-order sooooo

 

[zoogie]

Looking forward to a lot of games suddenly coming out Dec 31st now.

Kind of a dumb law.

(edit) Oh nevermind, they would have to stick to a placeholder date lol.

Great. We can now look forward to broken, unfinished games. Even dumber law.

 

[chrisrlink]

so does this ban our Soon tm release date for Atmosphere?

 

[rodryguezzz]

It doesn't solve the problem of the fake release dates that game publishers love to use as marketing tools. Seriously, search on google any AAA title + delayed and you will find that the game was not released at the first release date they announced.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Or we can just have actual release dates and then accept pre-orders.

 

[buda81]

Looking forward to a lot of games suddenly coming out Dec 31st now.

Kind of a dumb law.

(edit) Oh nevermind, they would have to stick to a placeholder date lol.

Great. We can now look forward to broken, unfinished games. Even dumber law.

Seems to me the law is for retailers not screwing over customers and not the studio itself.

 

[wii94]

shipping between 01.01.2018 and 31.12.2019 will be the result, so nothing changes.

 

[YuseiFD]

Ah, looks like german switch owners finally felt reggie's dongle up their bottoms, and wallets of course.

 

[Scarlet]

Listings that say "coming soon" "tbd" or "unspecified" are fine, so long as they don't take money from the consumer.

Thank God. For a moment, I thought my Pokemon Stars pre-order was in jeopardy.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Looking forward to a lot of games suddenly coming out Dec 31st now.

Kind of a dumb law.

(edit) Oh nevermind, they would have to stick to a placeholder date lol.

Great. We can now look forward to broken, unfinished games. Even dumber law.

Nah, this doesn't stop developers and publishers from using "Coming Soon". If that were the case then it would be a pretty dumb law.
But places shouldn't be listing games for preorder that don't even have a release date anyway, what if the game never comes out? Or what if the game takes 10 years to come out and then it's shit? What if we have another Duke Nukem Forever?
There's not much point in preordering a game until it has an actual release date anyway. You just need to be sure you'll get it on release, you don't have to preorder a year or more in advance to do that.
I think this law is perfectly fine.

 

[Chary]

Nah, this doesn't stop developers and publishers from using "Coming Soon". If that were the case then it would be a pretty dumb law.
But places shouldn't be listing games for preorder that don't even have a release date anyway, what if the game never comes out? Or what if the game takes 10 years to come out and then it's shit? What if we have another Duke Nukem Forever?
There's not much point in preordering a game until it has an actual release date anyway. You just need to be sure you'll get it on release, you don't have to preorder a year or more in advance to do that.
I think this law is perfectly fine.

The first thing I thought of was the picture of the dude who took a picture of Duke Nukem Forever and the receipt of his pre-order ticket from 7 years prior.

 

[Deleted User]

Good, I can get behind this. A lot of retailers seem all too eager to start selling pre-orders; IIRC Smash 4 pre-orders were available right after the games were announced.

Hopefully other countries will follow suit with similar protections in place.

 

[ut2k4master]

wont change anything for me. i only really preorder stuff on amazon and you dont have to pay there until a product is shipped anyway

 

[Noctosphere]

View attachment 135799​

Due to a recent German court case, in which the European retailer MediaMarkt was taken to Munich Regional High Court because of excessive delays on a pre-ordered product, a new law has now been put in place. If a game or product is available to pre-order, it MUST have a specified date of when it will ship and arrive, and it must stick to that. If a delay occurs, then the consumer is allowed a full refund. Listings that say "coming soon" "tbd" or "unspecified" are fine, so long as they don't take money from the consumer.

Source

you forgot the ™ after ther word "SOON"

 

[WiiUBricker]

Gateway doesn’t approve.

 

[Thulinma]

Fun fact: this only really affects brick and mortar stores, not online sales.
European law already says online sales can be cancelled by the consumer for a full refund any time, without reason, as long as it is within 14 days of delivery or sooner. So... not shipped yet = always possible to get a full refund.
Effectively, this law (in Germany, at least) now extends some of that consumer protection to real-life stores as well, allowing consumers a refund if the promised date isn't met.
That kind of makes sense, I'd say: it's weird that online sales give more rights than offline sales currently. Rights should be the same in both cases, IMHO.

 

[tomGER]

I wonder if this new law will eventually accidently reveal some new game's release date. Sounds extremely possible, specially in smaller stores, which there's usually more miscommunication between publishers and sellers.

I'm pretty sure it will

 

[samcambolt270]

shipping between 01.01.2018 and 31.12.2019 will be the result, so nothing changes.

It says "specific date" so, no, stores would not be allowed to say "between x date and y date" to get around it.

 

[kuwanger]

Great. We can now look forward to broken, unfinished games. Even dumber law.

If a game studio is taking pre-orders and so fears people demanding refunds for failure to actually deliver on a date they pre-set, I don't think this law really changes anything. I mean, look at all the broken, unfinished games without this law, without pre-orders, and without pre-set release dates.

*says this waiting for Cryamore*