Slowly but surely, refunds are becoming more common in the games retail business. First, EA announced the refund policy for their digital games on Origin. Now, GOG is getting in on the action with a new policy that allows for refunds of games that won’t work on your PC.

The new policy allows for gamers to get a full refund on games they purchased that won’t work on their systems despite the fact that their PC meets the minimum specs listed in the GOG catalog. To get a refund, though, you need to go through GOG’s support system first. If they aren’t able to find a solution to get your game to run, they will give you your money back. Gamers will have 30 days from purchase to ask for a refund.

It’s unlikely that the many people will be able to take GOG up on the offer because you have to go through GOG support before being able to claim a refund and hypothetically most problems will be solved there. Still, if ever there was a reason for getting a refund, it would be a defective game. I love BioShock but the sound doesn’t work at all on Windows 7. If I could I ask for a refund for that, I would.

Also, GOG is adding a 14 day, no questions asked refund policy for any game that hasn’t been downloaded. As long as you haven’t initiated a download of the game, you have two weeks to ask for your money back. For the sake of comparison, Origin’s policy allows for refunds within the earliest of 7 days of purchasing the game, 7 days after the release date for pre-orders and 24 hours of launching the game for the first time. GOG’s is pretty damn good by comparison.

It’s always nice to see retailers move in this direction. We’re allowed refunds and exchanges on any other defective product so why shouldn’t we be allowed the same with digital games. Now that we have GOG and EA onboard, it’s time for Steam to step up their game and announce their own refund policy.

Source: GOG