German judge: Nintendo must allow customers to return preorders – Gaming – News

A higher German court has ruled that Nintendo must nevertheless offer customers the possibility to return preorders even after they have actually received the game. This outcome applies to the entire EU and Norway.

Het Verbracherzentrale Bundesverband, or kortweg de VZBV, writes that the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt has ruled that the right of withdrawal must also apply to video games purchased by way of pre-order, but which, as a result, cannot yet be played at the time of purchase. The VZBV is a German federation of consumer organizations and had brought the matter before this higher court.

This is the policy of Nintendo’s eShop. Normally, for online purchases, a right of withdrawal of fourteen days or longer applies. The VZBV successfully argued that there were no valid reasons to limit or remove this right, as the download will not produce a usable game after pre-ordering. Only on the release date does this purchase become valuable. Until then, the game is worthless to the buyer and the contract with Nintendo has not been fulfilled.

Nintendo argued that this right of withdrawal works differently with preorders and preloads of games and was in the first instance right. An lower court of Frankfurt ruled early last year that pre-ordering a game is equivalent to signing a two-phase contract. This is a two-part agreement, with some parts not being clear until later, despite the parties having previously entered into an agreement. That is why the right of withdrawal did not apply to preorders of games, it was ruled. Nintendo maintained a policy of canceling purchases up to seven days before a game’s release. That meant customers couldn’t test their pre-ordered games first.

This procedure can be traced back to objections from a Norwegian consumer organization, Forbrukerrodet. The current judgment of the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt was made on the basis of a request from the Norwegian Consumer Authority. After that, the German VZBV picked up the gauntlet, because Nintendo’s European department is located in Frankfurt am Main. Formally, according to the VZBV, the current judgment only has legal force in Norway. However, it has implications for the whole of the EU, because the relevant EU directive on consumer rights is also leading in Norway. This is also apparent from the fact that, according to the VZBV, Nintendo has meanwhile not only adjusted the Norwegian version of a form in the eShop, but also the German one. Nintendo does not seem to have implemented such a change in the Netherlands yet.

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