Right to digital content after purchase

DayneD89

I'm struggling to find information on consumer rights for a digital purchase, but I'm hoping for some advice. 

I purchased a new game as a digital purchase. This game worked fine on my available hardware (this isn't a performance issue, it worked on max quality settings) perfectly for a few months. In July the game makers issued an update that caused the game to no longer work on my hardware (as in, the game fails to open at all). 

People with the same hardware have been raising tickets for months, but have now been told by the game maker that they do not support our hardware so they will not be trying to fix it. They also do not allow the game to be run at the previous version that worked. In effect, the manufacturer of a digital good has made it unavailable to me after my returns period has ended.

I'm not sure if we have any rights at all to the digital content outside of our 30 days, however, this would mean that a company could simply destroy any digital good after 30 days?  Do I have any rights here? Also, who should complaints be directed at? The digital platform where I made the purchase is still making the game available to me, it's just that the game maker has prevented me from being able to access it. 

Any advice is appreciated, this is a major release and the hardware has millions of users so a lot of people are currently annoyed by this situation. 

ciderboy2009

What were the published minimum specs when you originally purchased the game?  Did your hardware meet these minimum specs? 

JJ_Egan

Plus who did you purchase from  and was it a UK company .

Hi_Fidelity

Is this a PC game? (I presume so, given that you mention hardware specs ... if it was a console game - Xbox or PS4 for example - then I suspect such a statement would not be made). Was it delivered via Steam, Origin or similar?

DayneD89

ciderboy2009 said:

What were the published minimum specs when you originally purchased the game?  Did your hardware meet these minimum specs? 

It isn't a performance issue, as I mentioned it went from running on max quality the day before the update to failing to open. The game makers have confirmed this. Essentially its caused by my hardware being virtual. Either way the result is that it wont open and never will as the maker wont fix it. 

DayneD89

JJ_Egan said:

Plus who did you purchase from  and was it a UK company .

I purchased it via steam, but as it was outside of its period and has been played during its first few months they cannot offer a refund. The game maker is R*. 

DayneD89

Hi_Fidelity said:

Is this a PC game? (I presume so, given that you mention hardware specs ... if it was a console game - Xbox or PS4 for example - then I suspect such a statement would not be made). Was it delivered via Steam, Origin or similar?

Steam, however, it is outside of its returns period and has been played. I'm sure they would argue that they are still making the game available to me. 

DayneD89

As a quick note, I'm more worried about the gap this leaves in consumer rights than the £50 I spent on a game. I've wasted more money than that on games that I've never gotten around to playing before. But if you lose all rights outside of the return period, what is to stop companies selling something then excluding people who have paid for it soon after, perhaps forcing them to buy a new version (Which isn't the case here, R* just won't be changing the game back to allow my hardware to work). 

Spank

What game is it?

yksi

DayneD89 said:

ciderboy2009 said:

What were the published minimum specs when you originally purchased the game?  Did your hardware meet these minimum specs? 

It isn't a performance issue, as I mentioned it went from running on max quality the day before the update to failing to open. The game makers have confirmed this. Essentially its caused by my hardware being virtual. Either way the result is that it wont open and never will as the maker wont fix it. 

This doesn't answer the question. If your PC does not meet the hardware specs, it's irrelevent if you managed to get it working via virtual layers. If it does meet the minimum specs still but now doesn't work, the whole deal changes.

DayneD89

Spank said:

What game is it?

Red Dead Redemption 2.