There is a growing allegiance in the gaming community, which, much like born again Christians; feel it is their duty to spread the ‘good word’. In this case the ‘good word’ is opposed to pre-ordering upcoming video-game releases. The fervor brought on by these announcements “No Pre-Orders!” imposes that one should not support the producer of something they are interested in prior to proving the product is worth the value.
At a glance there is no concern with such a sentiment. You shouldn’t spend your money on things which aren’t worth that money; or more accurately you should not aim not to. It is, in reality, not possible to perfectly spend your money. Regardless of your educational background or disposition. There might be a sour day you buy a fast food breakfast you don’t need. An upgrade on a vehicle or a part of your home. Another piece of clothing. A bad financial choice. No one is impervious from the occasional financial misstep. To be at peace with this is to induce a healthier relationship with money.
It seems, from the perspective of those who petition against pre-orders. That there is a belief that the consumer/client is immune to being duped in their assessment of the quality of things. That as a result of spending money on something, that thing must now meet and exceed every possible metric or it has failed your purchase. As you are perfect in all assessments, suffer no failings of bias or perspective and as a result deservedly could not of made a mistake with your own purchase.
From here further, there will be a divide in the reaction of whomever is reading this. Ultimately, this will defer to whether or not your stance on refunds and refund culture is positive. I do not view this process positively and feel it allows an extended degree of entitlement unto people who are doing nothing more then spending money on something. A mundane, limited challenge which is ultimately existentially meaningless.
I will briefly elaborate into what I mean here, and the specific nature of my concern. It is in refund culture that the customer ends up encountering a degree of power in what should be an exchange without ego or power dynamics. However in allowing the client the potential of being dissatisfied they are given a card to play. Now, this is all to say, that I am not inherently on the side of a company either. There are horrendously anti-consumer practices employed internationally across different industries and while those are not to be considered positively either. They are not entirely at fault. If a company sells something which isn’t what it was; the client should be entitled to a reversal on the purchase. If the client received what they asked for but didn’t like it; that is effectively a them problem.
A popular example, wrapping together refund culture and pre-order panic is the relatively recent release of Cyberpunk 2077. Watching the community react to this game showcased such a depth of narcissism that it affirmed the bulk of the community should have no faith placed in it. At the time of the release of the game I had pre-ordered two copies for Ps4. I gifted a (physical) copy to my friend and at the same time we both began the title on base PlayStation 4 units. I myself had a launch unit which was a couple of years old at the time. We both beat the game, and I proceeded on to receive a platinum trophy in the game (getting 100% of all achievements). In full disclosure I achieved that platinum trophy in spite of so many crashes it became muscle memory to save in-game before any door, transition or elevator was utilized. Despite that, I had an amazing time. I wasn’t surprised by the crashing because as an informed consumer I read the mountains of information releases by developers of the game that indicated the current console era (Ps4/Xbox One) were struggling to handle the game. I pre-ordered in full awareness that the game wasn’t going to run ‘perfectly’ for a couple of years or until I could run it on Ps5/PC. While it isn’t the point of this article, having since played the free Ps5 upgrade of the title; I foresee another platinum trophy in my future arriving in a smooth, crash free package.
Now my reaction to Cyberpunk 2077 at launch was broadly not the case with others. There was a massive push-back of disappointed customers whom ultimately were so disparaged with the deceit of their purchase that they, for a time, pressured Sony to remove the game from its digital store-front for PlayStation users. At first I mostly just thought “wow, it’s a good thing these people never played Skyrim at launch.” but the sentiment has grown to more frustration.
What, exactly, was it that these players wanted and didn’t receive? As someone who has played and beat everything there is to do in the game I can’t really understand. The main mechanics of driving, shooting, leveling up, making choices in story quests and handling sandbox style side-quests was all there, well varied and at a base level enjoyable. The variation in builds and in-game choices is fairly staggering between melee/hacking/gun-play/augmentations and the opportunities to just use these tools as you see fit are quite expansive. The romances and friendships are believable and well acted. Is it an AI supported 1:1 recreation of a cyberpunk city scaled with reality and allowing infinite choices? No, but nothing is and the technology while absolutely on the way hasn’t yet been deployed to anything in the video-game world. To think it would be is to set oneself up for failure; mis-aligning perspectives to view something which isn’t a possibility among the allowed outcomes.
In thinking something is one thing, we blind ourselves to what it is. We suppose items and elements which are obvious to us are essential to the product and this core misunderstanding leads to a mutual frustration. In acting on this misunderstanding, going beyond and demanding that misunderstanding be given respect in the real world. It appears, to me, like one is explaining they made a mistake and demand to be accommodated for it. The premise of which is frankly ridiculous. Given this individual has already received the lesson of knowing not to do it again if they were indeed so disappointed.
This belief in that the client is infallible is growing in the video-game world to the levels which currently smother the high-end retail world. That is a world where someone can purchase something at an incredibly high price, receive it, be displeased with the shade of the garment or how a piece of string sits on it and return it for a full refund. There is no challenge, no argument. These businesses simply allow a client to return a perfectly good item based entirely on taste. It is the baseline assumption that the client is imbued with perfect selection and thus, if a garment does not please them they aren’t on the hook for having thought to purchase it in the first place.
Steam, the popular pc software store and service offers a three hours of play refund policy up to a limit of three titles per account. This is a more reasonable approach to curb ‘taste based refunds’ but, in my opinion, is still too kind. As an author, to compare. I don’t believe any book-store would let you get a few chapters in, walk back to the store and ask for your money back based on the premise of “I wasn’t really enjoying it that much”. I believe the consensus of any reasonable individual or bookstore would be “Well now you’ve purchased a book you don’t really enjoy that much. Congratulations.”
While I think it would absolutely be lovely and by all means should be a goal to work towards as a society. We’re not in a place where any of us always get to purchase exactly what we wanted. I purchased and spent money on every MMORPG under the sun until I discovered FFXIV and while the money spent in the process isn’t technically serving me at this moment; the experiences from the joys and disappointments it showcased to me are. You don’t see me trying to refund my Guild Wars 2 expansion purchases because its class structure feels more limited to me nowadays because I play FFXIV.
All this consideration however brings to mind two items. One being the statement “the customer is always right” and a curiosity “how long has refund culture been human culture? Are the two one-in-the-same?”
The Customer is Always Right
The customer is always right is a phrase pioneered by Harry Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamaker and Marshall Field.[1] From what I can read on the matter it arrived at a time when another sentiment, similar to what I’m describing above, was more common-place. This sentiment was known as ‘caveat emptor’ or “let the buyer beware”. This effectively put the full brunt of assessment unto the client whom was making a purchase and was entirely inconsiderate of their dissatisfaction if it came as a result of a base level failure. This doesn’t seem fair either because it absolves one of two reasonably compromised actors from any responsibility; which will inherently lead towards abuses.
Prior to looking into the actual origin of the phrase I had made my own assumption that the phrase, in an expanded form, meant: the expectations of the market can’t be questioned. Such is to say, if you run a restaurant, and people love eating burgers; serving burgers is a wise choice. If all those burger loving people start wanting beef bulgogi; that demand isn’t incorrect. Whatever the market wants is what the market wants and if you want to sell to the market you need to have what they want. It doesn’t mean someone can march into a burger place and demand they make them beef bulgogi just because they’re the customer and they went to a restaurant; which more often seems to be the application.
Refunding Human Culture
It seems this specific element of our society is not being broadly put to any article I can find. There are references to J.R. Watkins whom apparently implemented a pioneering money back policy in the 1800’s. However I can’t find a tremendous amount of sources on this matter and while wikipedia cites him as a possible progenitor of direct sales as an industry; I can’t pretend that doesn’t dissuade me from further interest.
There is the Japanese sentiment ‘okyakusama wa kamisama desu’ which means “The customer is god” and yet, I cannot find a tremendous amount of writing on the topic. There are some references to origins, manga/anime which use the phrase (likely humorously) and a couple of business sites which utilize the phrase. You would think there would be a few top-lining articles talking about how one-sided that sort of perspective is, yet it just seems quietly accepted. Maybe the writing on the topic simply isn’t in my language which I acknowledge right off the bat as a likely possibility.
Where does one turn when these sources are either discouraging or disparate in their content? Well to a customer complaint authored in 1750 BCE and recovered from the ruins of the city of Ur.[2] The tablet is a customer complaint from someone named Nanni to the merchant Ea-nasir over a recent, and sub-standard, shipment of copper ingots delivered by the merchant.
A translation of the tablet from Leo Oppenheimer’s Letters from Mesopotamia is given below:
Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:
"When you came, you said to me as follows : “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!”
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.
How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.
Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt."
In this translation there is a reasonable request. A producer of copper ingots should produce a product which can solicit all the uses of the product; if it cannot it ceases to be the product in question and is instead something else. To request something, be advised you will receive that and not receive it is a valid concern. Not to mention the reality of the circumstance this complaint was authored within, briefly mentioned in the phrase “-you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory.”
Now the threat of violence simply to pursue a mercantile contract is mostly unknown to the modern world, and certainly isn’t required in Canada to return a simple top. Yet it illustrates reasonably that there is a degree of hostility between customer and company which has always existed.
A Better Return
What can be surmised from all of this, to me, is that it is human nature to attempt to take the greatest advantage of any situation. Both customer and company are aiming to edge out a better outcome then one another and like a competitive marriage; it is a relationship which lives and dies in the conflict it insists upon. It is however revealing in that refund culture may not be inherent and instead simply a reaction to an unbalanced system. In adopting the premise of “the customer is always right” we attempt to undo that balance by shifting the scales in the other direction.
The fix proposed herein this article is titled ‘Mutual Purchasing’ and is inherently going to be uninteresting to those opposed to government oversight. Yet it is my belief that both the client and the company are inherently corrupted actors in this equation and thus cannot be trusted to act in a mutually fair manner. For ‘Mutual Purchasing’ to be implemented it has the prerequisite of an expansion of the financial and taxation wings of the government to create a ‘Purchase Auditors’ office. With the sole intention of acting as an authorizing agent between any number of entities in the process of buying or selling any product.
This would mean no customer pays any company directly. It means all sales are ushered through a central governing body. It calls for the elimination of cash in whole and for every sale to be digitized. In this system all customers would use a centralized application to communicate with a company. They could usher the purchase through the application (in-store or online) and following the confirmation of that purchase. The company is cleared to release the product unto the customer. In the case that the customer encounters a legitimate defect they are allowed to submit the complaint via the centralized application instead of the company directly. Once the complaint is issued to the centralized application both the governing agency and the company are made aware of the concern. The governing agency is in charge of assessing the legitimacy of the defect for the purposes of granting any monetary return, or a replacement of the product.
At the time of purchase, a release must be signed by both the customer and the company which states the explicit terms of refund. Inherently protected rights to refund would (and should) include defects but not allow for a refund on the premise of taste. An element of the release includes an understanding that the customer in agreeing to commit to the purchase of the product is also agreeing that they are currently interested in that product and as a result, whether their opinion changes at a later date; that change in opinion does not allow for a refund. This is an already present invisible ruling in many industries. Given that you can’t return beer you had at a pub the night before just because you regret having had it in the morning; the same goes for a product you thought you were going to like and ultimately didn’t; even though it works as intended.
“What about products you need to test first?!” I could imagine being a concern. And this is a valid ask which is again further served by the ‘Purchase Auditors’ office. In the case of a product which must be physically or digitally assessed prior to a comfortable purchase; the company is required to offer a temporary trial period (facilitated by the Purchase Auditor’s office) for a physical product. However I can’t think of many items which could allow for this trial without also incurring a risk of refund for taste, and as such the cause of the trial and the parameters of the trial must be strictly managed. For digital products a company must offer a demo or designate official product overviews and performance showcases.
A distinction however, should be made in the case of purchasing art or consumable products in that they are not utilized in the same manner one would a mattress or a photo editing suite. A reasonable amount of products need be considered “nonrefundable” under the premise that they are purchased as offered; so long as they are. In an example if you go to a restaurant and order a steak, so long as you are served a steak of the size on the menu, and it is cooked correctly, and safe as a product for consumption. It is nonrefundable regardless of how much you enjoyed it or not. The same would go for a painting you thought you were going to like but ultimately didn’t enjoy in the room, or a video-game you were interested in but lost you in the second act. These are to be considered disparate elements of the client and are not causes for refund. IE: You’re welcome to walk out in the middle of a movie but you aren’t entitled to a refund for electing to do so.
This Was About Pre-Orders?
Yes, indeed. While it is an exploration about what leads to an individual being opposed to a video-game pre-order. It all ultimately arrives at the conclusion of eschewing those who see fit to spend or not-spend the money of other people. Those opposed to pre-orders see themselves as individuals ripping disappointed out of the hands of blinded consumers while companies freely shovel shit into their open arms; yet this isn’t the entire reality of the case. In execution what is happening is individuals whom had their sensibilities disrupted or their own expectations denied and are now projecting that same dynamic unto others.
What is, at the end of the day, a fair gamble (this being the purchase of a full priced video-game) the imposition by those opposed to pre-orders suppose this to actually be an abuse. That they are the servant who traveled through enemy lands for copper ingots only to be mislead and taken advantage of; instead of just being some person who spent 80~ bucks on something they didn’t entirely enjoy.
The reality of the disappointment needs to be put to a scale. Even if you wasted 80 dollars on a new video-game, the calamity of such a thing cannot be the end of the world. One should not spend the last of their money on a luxury, and even in indulging in a luxury. A room in a fancy resort doesn’t make you immune to loud or disruptive neighbors also on the same vacation. A pre-order of a video-game doesn’t make you immune to the game not being what you thought it was. But so what? In a case where your options are being cynical, never being hopeful, never being excited and pushing away any possibility for something to be worthwhile. Or electing to be hopeful about something you want and pre-ordering it. If you’re opposed to the possibility that the unknown won’t be a disapointment you may not be able to enjoy something you didn’t pre-order even if you would because there is an opposition to joy.
When Cyberpunk 2077 crashed for me on a base model Ps4 I was presented a choice. I could focus on that frustration, or I could focus on the reason I encountered the crash in the first place; that being the fact that I was enjoying the game. When the game crashed I could be upset I spent months looking forwards to the title, or that I bought two copies of it at launch. Or, I could turn the game back on, find out where my save was and continue to have fun in spite of less then perfection.
It has only occurred to me just now at the time of writing, but is it possible, that the argument levied by those against pre-orders does not legitimately source from an attempt to quell the disappointment of others but is actually an expression of financial disparity? In that, to someone who has the expendable income or isn’t attached to money. A pre-order whether it leads to a successful or disappointing product is ultimately negligible. Compared to an individual with limited expendable income who thus invests a greater amount of themselves into the entertainment/joy they can get out of something they invested in? While I have no evidence to say anything is either which way, it may be a worthwhile consideration that the dynamic has nothing to do with the subject matter it regards.
For myself, I’ll likely continue pre-ordering anything I feel like I want. As I still like purchasing a physical product especially for consoles. Personally I see no value in pre-ordering a digital product since there is no inventory/availability/shipping concerns to be considered. I like making up my own mind about a game, and a fair amount I want to play at launch before the community gets a hold of them and an established opinion fills in the gaps. Given the recent resurgence of the title ‘Metal Gear Solid: Re-vengeance’ a title which I adored at launch, was critically lauded, and now is reemerging in popular culture with positive reviews. I feel reassured in my preference for just buying the games that catch my interest; and playing them. Hopefully everyone else can reach a place where they do the same!
Sources
1. Morgan, Blake. “A Global View Of ‘The Customer Is Always Right.’” Forbes, 10 Dec. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2018/09/24/a-global-view-of-the-customer-is-always-right/?sh=15691131236f.
2. Duffyjac. “Customer Service in Ancient Mesopotamia.” ANP363: Rise of Civilization, 6 Mar. 2015, web.archive.org/web/20150310133210/http:/anthropology.msu.edu/anp363-ss15/2015/03/05/customer-service-in-ancient-mesopotamia.
Josh Perry: Canadian Author 