That's simply not true. Some stuff can't be bought without going online (you ever tried buying men's shoes in size 6? Let alone red patent leather ones?!). Some stuff doesn't have meaningful reviews. Actually lots doesn't. Buying something rated 5* on Amazon doesn't mean it's not got a glowing fault.
Perhaps there are some fringe things, like mens size 6 red patent leather shoes, that are difficult to find in stores. I'm size 11 and favour
Nike Air for running but they come up small so I need a 12 and most places, even Lillywhites, don't carry their full range in size 12. However this isn't an unsolvable problem. My long experience of Nikes for running means I can be confident in buying a size 12 and knowing they'll fit. Crisis averted. Even if they didn't fit, I could return them and try again.
Games are a far cry from shoes.
How on earth can you make an informed decision if you can't actually check your product??
Avoid spending money on unknowns. This is not rocket science. This is a lesson I learned as a child when cartridges for the Atari 2600 were £30 (approx £100 today with inflation) which was most of an entire birthday or Christmas present.
I've been looking at guitar looper pedals recently, watching and reading lots of reviews, and there are people who say they can't get on with a specific model. Not a problem with a guitar pedal as you can sell it for a large portion of retail price and buy the other one that's a better fit for you.
I would never buy something like this unseen, I'd find somewhere where I could go and see it. When I bought my Amiga at fifteen or sixteen I had to travel 80 miles to a store which had both that and the Atari ST and who had told me on the phone that I could use both to see which I would eventually buy. This remains an option for many things. The convenience of online shopping means people have the option of buying unknown products but it rarely completely removes the option to actually travel and see things in person.
It's effort vs. ....
And on Google where you can get a refund. And seemingly on Xbox. And other services that recognise when you can't go somewhere and try it yourself, it makes sense to let you try it yourself at home before committing to a purchase. All of which is apparently the consumer being irresponsible.
With the cost of many refunds being borne by Google and Microsoft, why should they pay for consumers poor decisions? How will people change if there is no consequence to poor decisions; this is literally the opposite of the traits that promote evolution and self improvement.
"
Oh no, I made a poor decision and nobody stopped me, now I've lost money.". Good, you've learned a valuable lesson there. You're now in a better position to make purchasing decision that you were yesterday.
What I'm saying is that if a corporation cares about its customers it should offer some mechanism to protect its customers from unscrupulous sellers on their marketplace.
Corporations don't cares about customers, they're collectives of people. They closest they get are understanding the demographics that make up types of customers. When Apple execs say "we care about our customer's privacy" what they mean is they think their customer's prioritise privacy and,
more importantly, privacy issues are a liability issue that they and their legal team want to avoid.
The decision to offer no question refunds is a conscious decision to engender freer-spending. Consumers are more likely to spend if they can get a refunds. Unfortunately that doesn't remedy the underlying problem of shit software. The cost of many refunds are borne by retailer not the originator of the product. Steam is more complicated because it has different options but I wouldn't assume every refund hits the publisher/developer.
Likewise, here I'm praising Steam and others for offering mechanisms to protect their customers from unscrupulous or just plain incompetent sellers on their marketplace. At the same time, I'm certainly not going to praise Sony or others for not doing the same.
And I'm with you on this. There absolutely are valid reasons for refunds such as the game having technical issues and not being as described, but Life of Black Tiger doesn't fall into this category. Sony literally published footage of it on YouTube (and in their Store). In retrospect I wonder if this was an intentional warning. You see instantly that production quality was bad - the only way you would not know this is if you did literally no research at all. And for that, no I don't think consumers should be entitled to a refund.
Should Sony be exercising some form of artistic/technical censorship beyond TRCs? I'd argue no.
