Titan Quest

You're comparing physical stores with stock to digital keys. Gamersgate has a contract with Bethesda to buy keys at a certain price, this is not old stock, these are new items which they'll pay Bethesda for.

There's a difference between fixing a mistake by issuing a refund and stating as such and by simply removing the product and keeping the money. Which has happened to a lot of us. And that's not even taking into account how difficult it can be to determine if something is a mistake in the first place. Borderlands 2 season pass at 75% off, for example. How do you determine that's a mistake and not simply a discount?

It's even worse when they leave such mistakes live for almost an entire day and then wait several more before doing the complete opposite to what they originally stated.

I presume your post refers to the Bethesda 'fiasco'?
I haven't followed the debate here in detail, but the thing that you quoted I think refers to a fairly famous case in UK courts. Cannot remember the name - 1st year contract law. Basically, as far as I recall, the facts were as follows: a printer valued at 200 quid was mistakenly being advertised online for 2 quid. In that case it was 'obvious' that the price was a mistake.

On the other hand, digital goods are very different and cost next to nothing to replicate. Moreover, deep, deep discounts are a characteristic of the industry, so it is not very clear cut here. In any case, I'd imagine that the Sale of Goods Act would be the appropriate starting point and not contract law as such.

What was the price of the bundle?

When have Steam done that? They've openly stated previously that they honor pricing mistakes. In fact the only time I've heard of forced refunds from Steam is when they've been instructed to do so by a publisher who has decided to not release a game in region. (The last I heard of *that* happening, by the way, was with Mafia 2 in Japan).
The Beth bundle was $30. The sort of price you'd expect from one of Amazon's discounts.

Dunno, I thought they buy a certain amount and then restock if needed, so technically they store a stock of keys, or?
EDIT: I can't quote, because every post of mine over 3 lines vanishes...

It's been a year or two - basically, they had a game for a silly amount - $0,03 or so. I forgot the name of the game (I *think* it was Prince of Persia) - in any case, I wasn't too interested in the game but since it was practically free, bought it anyway. Support basically said that exploiting obvious pricing errors fell under abuse and unlocked my account after having told me off.

Also, at one time they sold a game at a negative amount. If people added another game besides it, they actually paid less. That didn't stop Steam from fixing it.

Just out of curiosity here, since you said part of your job is pricing and mentioned that you have the right to rectify the price offer (and I am totally with you here do far), let me ask you aomething, and this is a genuine question. I don't know what it is you are selling but let us assume it is M&M's (mainly because I am craving some right now :P) and you mistakenly price them at $0.5 for the large pack (usually goes for about $5); once you have rectified the price, does the law give you the right to go to the homes of the people that bought the M&M's enter their homes take the M&M's and leave the money they paid with them and leave? (For the sake of analogy assumptions: you know the houses of the people that buy from you.)

Never heard of that before. I know I still have that golf game they accidentally sold in Australia for $0.10. And the recent (summer sale) mistake where they sold a game for 97% off was honored too.

I think this is the beginning of the end of GamersGate . I bet Bethesda and Ubisoft will remove their games from the store soon .

Yes, and I still have the $2.19 King's Bounty Platinum and $2.99 Disciples III and £3.50 Mass Effect 3 and $1.19 Dungeon Siege III and $27 Bethesda pack and apparently a free Borderlands 2. Looks like Gamersgate have been quite good at honoring their price mistakes.

Although it might not look that way if you started shopping there this week...

for something completely different a SALE:

LA Noire is 75% off on Steam for $3.74, Daily deal
http://store.steampowered.com/app/110800/

If there are some people left here interested in sales, that it ...

BTW:
While I was asleep on 27th the Sleeping Dogs DLC was on -50% sale -
DAMN you Japanese Time-Zone and damn you Sleep!!!

I don't think that's a good analogy. You're basically asking if it's alright to commit a criminal offense to rectify a pricing mistake on M&Ms, well of course it's not right to condone break and enter to rectify a pricing mistake for chocolate.

The T&Cs at Gamersgate have two sections which could apply in this case with respect to pricing errors:

11. Indemnification
Your use of the Website constitutes your agreement to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless GamersGate, its parents and affiliates, and their respective employees, contractors, officers, and directors, from and against any actions, claims, demands, liability and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use or misuse of the Website or the use or misuse of the Website by a third party using your account.

12. Termination
These Terms of Use are effective until terminated. You agree that GamersGate may terminate your log in access to the Website, including your user name and password, at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability. GamersGate may change, suspend, or discontinue all or any aspect of the Website at any time, including the availability of any feature, without prior notice or liability.

Section 11 basically means that we've agreed to hold harmless GG from what action they take, such as removing a game from our account. Section 12 basically says, we agree that they can modify our account at any time, including removing games.

So your analogy should be, if I go into a shop and buy something and agree with the shop owner that I agree that they can do anything at all with respect to the goods they have sold me, including entering my house and taking them back, then I can't complain when they actually do come int my house and take the good because, well, I gave them permission to do so when I signed up to the T&Cs.

In the UK, if the price of a product is just simply wrongly labelled you don't automatically get to buy it for that price. For example, if a TV worth £599 has accidentally been labelled as £5.99 you don't, unfortunately, have a right to buy it for £5.99.

Also in the UK, if the sale does take place, the trader could try to argue that it made a mistake with the pricing which could make the contract void. But it would have to show that the price was so low that you must have known it was not genuine: for example, a new leather jacket with a price tag of £2 on it.

I think we can all agree that in this case, the price is obviously wrong, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Cheers

Mark

Don't you think Steam will remove them from your account ?

I suppose you already mailed their support about this and did not receive an answer yet? Maybe some refunds got lost in the chaos (it appears that other people have been refunded in the same situation, after all).

No no no, this cannot be. We have had several people already who reported that the law was very clear on this. I think the projected outome varied, though...
It would be nice to read an actual, professional view on such issues. But maybe this forum is not the right place to look for such a thing :)

On an unrelated note, while I find the discussion interesting, it seems to contain few gaming deals. Wouldn't it be better to create a separate topic?