ZeniMax Media Inc along with its subsidiaries ZeniMax Europe Ltd, and ZeniMax Australia Pty Ltd have been ordered to issue refunds to Australian consumers for Fallout 76. The ruling comes after complaints were made to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that ZeniMax was refusing to offer refunds which contravened Australian consumer law. Fallout 76 launched with a lot of bugs and under Australian consumer law, people were entitled to either a repair, replacement or a refund.
Customers who contacted ZeniMax between November 24th 2018 and June 1st 2019 will be eligible to get Fallout 76 refunded if they haven’t already got one. Of course, that will mean losing access to the game. ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court had the following to say on the matter.
“ZeniMax has acknowledged that they are likely to have misled certain Australian consumers about their rights to a refund when they experienced faults with their Fallout 76 game. When a consumer buys a product it comes with automatic consumer guarantees, and retailers must ensure their refunds and returns policies do not misrepresent what the Australian Consumer Law provides.”
ZeniMax will have to also amend all of its consumer policies so they are in line with Australian law. When Fallout 76 was released it was among our worst rated games with Jason saying:
Fallout 76 had a lot to say when it was revealed. It was multiplayer, it had the largest world of any Fallout, it was going to be fun. The trouble is that it just doesn’t work, the world is too big and empty, and the quest design as uninspired as it gets. If the only way for a game to be entertaining is by having your friends make jokes about it as you journey together, then it has failed at one of the things that most games should be. It has failed at being fun, it has failed at being entertaining in its own right. If you want to hang out with some friends in an a post-apocalypse, then just go to a pub and watch the news.
You can read the full review here. Fallout 76 hasn’t managed to quite get away from controversy after announcing the Fallout 1st subscription, charging players £99 a year to access private worlds. However, there have been reports that these worlds aren’t private, and Fallout 1st subscribers are getting targetted by the wider Fallout 76 community.
Source: ACCC
