Well, considering I can't return a buggy POS game like I could any other POS consumer product, I'm not crying for the game companies. Its been proven that they subvert the editorial process on some game review websites forcing them to give crappy games positive reviews, luring consumers into buying an unfinished product.
And since the presupposition already exists that if I try to return a computer program, that my motive is really theft, not simply dissatisfaction with an "broken" product, I can't get my money back.
True, I can't download a new car or a sweater, but at the same time, if the car I bought breaks, I have the ability to return it to the dealership for repairs, and under lemon laws, if the car just cannot be fixed, I can get my money back. Yet software does not seem to fall under this category. If you purchase an unfinished product, the joke's on you.
If we're going to apply the same standard of theft to software as we do to material products, then at the same time we should apply the same standards of consumer protection and manufacturer responsibility to properly test a product and release it when it works. And please stop the same old excuse that there is so much hardware out there you just can't anticipate everything. Most of these games have bugs that are the fault of code, not the hardware. And since there are plenty of games that work as released, oddly a lot of times from smaller developers, I guess someone can do it right.
Once this happens, then I'll side with the developers that look as piracy as theft. But until they start releasing properly tested products, I'll consider downloading games a victimless crime. Nobody feels sorry for Toyota right now, and what they did was no different than what most computer software companies do all the time, the only difference being the magnitude of the problem. Sure, nobody died, but the mentality is the same.
