Nintendo won’t refund players who purchased the wrong DLC for Pokémon Sword & Shield

[Kenzodielocke]

Nintendo won’t refund players who purchased the wrong DLC for Pokémon Sword & Shield

Keep a Keen Eye at the checkout

www.videogamer.com

All this excitement has led to errors, though. Nintendo has seen a rise in players purchasing the incorrect DLC for their version of the game. Meaning, Sword players have been purchasing the DLC for Shield and vice versa. The company has warned players that they should check which version of the game's DLC they've selected before checking out, because these mistakes won't be refunded.


When I purchased the DLC, I was petrified that I'd somehow selected the wrong one, and to be honest, I'm still worried now. The words "Pokémon Shield" really needed to be bolded, italicised, underlined, and surrounded with neon flashing lights to quell my fear. Well, in any event, players should now be doubly encouraged to double check before they purchase access to the upcoming content.

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I don't get it, what does Nintendo lose by being forthcoming? People who bought it wrongly would just buy the correct version after a refund.

And they clearly need to mark this better and/or have a warning before purchasing.

 

[Ikuu]

Going to be a bunch of people coming here to defend this.

 

[Illusion]

Stupid considering how unclear the DLC is listed in the eshop page.

I almost bought the DLC when I thought I already pre-ordered and saw the listing for the DLC just a few days ago. It took minutes inspecting the page to even tell which version it was for.

 

[FF Seraphim]

This is stupid Nintendo should refund

 

[Principate]

That's some greedy bullshit.

 

[Deleted member 923]

They're a scummy company on these kind of issues, it's sad to see.

 

[Sir Hound]

Wait what the fuck? Each DLC is exclusive to the respective game? Is my brain bleeding? Why not allow either to be played on the other, aren't they totally different campaigns?

 

[Bedameister]

Whoa that's pretty shitty.
So safest way is to purchase it in-game to not make a mistake.

 

[Ravager777]

Bad practice to be honest. Should be fairly easy to implement a fail-safe feature of warning you if you don't have a save file of the correct game

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

Nintendo making life difficult for customers and generally being anti-consumer? Shocking.

I hate how freely the term anti-consumer is used on Era where it doesn't make sense, but Nintendo just embodies actual anti-consumer behaviour to me in the way they approach customer service and their products. JFC.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

I mean, even if they don't want to refund, it wouldn't hurt them in the slightest to swap the licenses to the correct version.

 

[Brutalitops]

Going to be a bunch of people coming here to defend this.

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It's quite literally indefensible. Maybe it's because I live in Australia, but accidentally buying the wrong item and returning it has NEVER been an issue with any store I've bought from in 25 years.

Hell in Australia some stores just let you have a refund for change of mind. Digital purchases should have the same rights as physical. Nintendo are so far behind this particular curve it's not even funny

 

[Deleted member 16876]

See? Shit like this is what people mean when they say "Nintendo" to describe idiotic decisions.


They are getting the money anyway so why not allow people change their orders atleast? Such bullshit.

 

[waugh]

Refunds within an hour of purchase should be mandatory for all gaming storefronts. Like it should be the law. Consumer protection.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Wait what the fuck? Each DLC is exclusive to the respective game? Is my brain bleeding? Why not allow either to be played on the other, aren't they totally different campaigns?

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There's different versions of the each of the same DLCs which have differences in the same way the base games do between sword/shield such as which wild Pokémon can appear

 

[MisterSnrub]

Nintendo are just horrible when it comes to anything online. Truly, bafflingly shoddy, and greedy too

 

[Raigor]

Classic Nintendo, nothing new and it is not surprising at all.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

Refunds within an hour of purchase should be mandatory for all gaming storefronts. Like it should be the law. Consumer protection.

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You can be sure that if the courts tried that, Nintendo would try to fight back too.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I don't get it, what does Nintendo lose by being forthcoming? People who bought it wrongly would just buy the correct version after a refund.

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If they do not have an automated process, and they do not have an outsourced support team, it costs money in human resources to process all the refunds manually.

However, it is dumb and should have gone away last generation:
• Jacking people by selling two versions of the same game
• Further making two versions of DLC
• Having no refund policies
• Having no tools for automated refunds

 

[Cenauru]

Crazy how Nintendo aims for family friendly audiences, yet they're the ones always making all their shit obtuse.

 

[Deleted member 2254]

Lack of refund over faulty products or mistaken purchases in 2020 is just not acceptable. There's an interesting discussion to be had about the loopholes of "unlimited" refunds, but buying a DLC you literally can not use mistakenly should not cause such questions.

 

[Gold Arsene]

There are no words, that's just dumb.

Nintendo I love you but WTF?

 

[TheEchosOfTheCyborg]

Why is the DLC split for the two versions?

Also because I've never gotten an answer for this, why is the base game Region Free like the console itself, but the DLC is region specific? What point in that, that seems like it could screw people over who move (maybe not now but after the pandemic)?

And yes this is screwy and one of the big big dangers we allow companies to have if we don't care about customer protections and ownership laws, the sad thing is as Germany proved, most courts will side with companies if we don't fight to stop BS like this.

 

[Kaivan]

Nintendo:

 

[MoonToon]

Welp, this aint good.

Also, didn't know there were 2 fuckin versions of this DLC. Thought it was "buy DLC to auto add to w/e game you got".

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Stupid considering how unclear the DLC is listed in the eshop page.

I almost bought the DLC when I thought I already pre-ordered and saw the listing for the DLC just a few days ago. It took minutes inspecting the page to even tell which version it was for.

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... Is the US version different to the UK shop page?

Because the purchase page for the UK is literally titled "Pokémon sword expansion pass" and the very first text on the page is a warning that it's only compatible with Pokémon sword and that if you want to use it with shield you need to buy the other version.

 

[BaronVonJof]

Classic Nintendo.

 

[Deleted member 5491]

You can be sure that if the courts tried that, Nintendo would try to fight back too.

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Nintendo doesn’t have to refund digital preorders, according to European court

That policy is also in place in the US.

www.theverge.com

 

[Herb Alpert]

That's dumb and I hope consumer associations will call out Nintendo on this

 

[Marmoka]

This is not acceptable. Just the existence of 2 versions of the game makes these mistakes to happen.

And it should be the company itself who controls if the player has purchased the correct DLC or not. User XXXX wants to purchase DLC for Shield, but this user has Sword. Just a simple popup message avoiding you to buy it and check the other one instead should be enough. And it's not difficult to implement.

Nintendo is a very archaic company in many ways. They seem to hate internet.

 

[Mechaplum]

Welp, this aint good.

Also, didn't know there were 2 fuckin versions of this DLC. Thought it was "buy DLC to auto add to w/e game you got".

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There are people who gets off buying dlcs for games they don't have you know. What about their rights.

/s

 

[Milennia]

Nintendo and bullshit refund practices, nothing new at all. Still bullshit.

 

[Midgarian]

This problem only exists because they wanted to charge twice for the DLC for those that own both games.

So it's not just 1 type of greed.

 

[ReplacementPelican]

It's dumb as shit that the season passes are different anyway.

 

[Elfforkusu]

We'll see how long this dumbassery lasts

 

[Giga Man]

 

[Blue Hedgehog]

I don't know how people are buying the wrong DLC, the eshop has seperate listings Pokemon Sword Expansion Pass and Pokemon Shield Expansion Pass.

 

[Charizard]

The tweets sourced by the original Nintendo Soup article don't say No Refunds. They just say to be careful when purchasing since they have been getting a lot of inquiries, and to use the ingame link to make sure you buy the right version.

 

[unicornKnight]

First of all the dlc should have been one and the same for both versions. If anything it may eventually drive owners of one version to get the other.
Secondly, since above scenario would be too good for Nintendo, they should have given a significant price reduction for buying both, buy one get the other for 50% off.

Anyway regarding the refund thing, this is ridiculous and absurd.

 

[Podge293]

Oh look Nintendo continuing with that terrible business practice

 

[His Majesty]

Nintendo is one of the worst companies when it comes to consumer friendliness.

 

[Edge]

Nintendo has seen a rise in players purchasing the incorrect DLC for their version of the game.

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When you give 6 year olds access to online stores.



______

Should definitely give refunds by the way.

 

[Semajer]

One DLC purchase should cover both games in the first place.

 

[Windrunner]

Why did they split the DLC like this? Game Freak are the absolute worst.

 

[fieldafar]

I don't know how people are buying the wrong DLC, the eshop has seperate listings Pokemon Sword Expansion Pass and Pokemon Shield Expansion Pass.

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People still make mistakes, and there is an expectation to offer a refund if a product is unused and unfit for the purpose.
This problem can be fixed by offering a single eshop listing for both games and then downloading based on the detected save file or game data on an individual's Switch.

 

[KillstealWolf]

I still dunno why there are two packages for the DLC, just make one package that works for both Sword and Shield. The version differences are going to be marginal at best (Hey look, one trainer is going to look slightly different, and in this game you find a Sandshrew instead of an Ekans or something)

 

[dunkzilla]

Hilarious that they actually have two different versions of the DLC.

 

[Gradon]

I don't get it, what does Nintendo lose by being forthcoming? People who bought it wrongly would just buy the correct version after a refund.

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A second purchase of the correct dlc.

 

[Wing Scarab]

This is why I never buy anything off the e-shop. I just don't trust Nintendo when it comes to digital stuff. People may come in here and say I'm being over dramatic but to me I work hard to make my money.

 

[Illusion]

... Is the US version different to the UK shop page?

Because the purchase page for the UK is literally titled "Pokémon sword expansion pass" and the very first text on the page is a warning that it's only compatible with Pokémon sword and that if you want to use it with shield you need to buy the other version.

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Just checked now it looks changed.

A bit ago the DLC expansion was on the front page with no specification on which version it was. Clicking it would lead to the unpurchased version of the DLC and it didn't state what version it was until you scrolled below.

Looks changed and fixed now.