Downloadable content bought with xbox game but doesnt work.

[Nightwish]

i brought a new game called "dead island:riptide special edition" for my xbox. what makes it a special edition is that you get a code included with game that gives you additional item for use in the game. it cost me £43 for it, where a normal edition game costs £40. I tried the code but it doesnt work but the game works fine. my wife took it back and they told her they could do nothing as the game had been opened.( had to open it to get the code out.). They said contact microsoft about the code as it is nothing to do with them. i phoned them and was told the same stuff. my point is i have paid extra money for a special edition game, which is not special edition as the code does not work. so to me the item is faulty and i should be entitled to a refund.

as for contacting microsoft about the code, i dont see why i should waste my time and money running round after them when it was GAME fault.

 

do i have any rights or is there any imformation i could show GAME to help my case?

[Fox Morris]

The majority of consumer protection legislation (CPL) was written in the pre-internet era, which makes the law on downloadable content (DLC) a murky area at best.

 

It's not clear whether DLC could be classed as "goods" because by its very nature, it is intangible and provided as a service. This means retailers, such as Game, will argue the service is not provided by them, but instead by the DLC provider (in this case Microsoft, or sometimes the maker/publisher of the game). Assuming their interpretation is correct, the retailers would be bound by CPL but only when it comes to the tangible products they sell, such as the disc, which must be fit for purpose, of satisfactory quality etc and not the prepaid DLC codes.

 

To my knowledge, the retailer's argument has not been tested in the courts, most likely due to the small sums involved (in your case £3) making any legal action pointless. The government has looked into changing how this works and simplifying the law, but as this is still in its consultation stages, you're probably best off contacting Microsoft as Game have no control over the Xbox Live system.

 

I don't have an Xbox 360 but I've had issues with DLC on Steam and on the PS3. It's usually quickly resolved via email with a copy of the receipt and a scan of the DLC code, so the time and money resolving the issue is unlikely to be prohibitive.

 

Good luck.