The release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has been plagued with bugs, ranging from weird graphical glitches to useful exploits to a more frustrating set of gameplay glitches and performance issues. Along with complaints about the game’s design, some fans have decided to ask for refunds for their copies of Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet.
Shortly after the game’s release, threads began appearing on the Pokemon subreddit with players chronicling their attempts to request a refund from Nintendo’s customer service. While the Nintendo eShop has a flat policy that prohibits refunds due to a change of mind, an accidental purchase, or because players don’t like the game, it will honor refunds for defective products.
Players must go through customer service to request a refund, where they will speak with a Nintendo representative to plead their case. Most of the Reddit users who have posted about successful refunds say that they have used the game’s performance issues and crashes to argue that the game is flawed and requires a refund. User u/Hotdog_Daddy even claimed that “the rep told me that given the situation regarding the status of Pokémon S/V, she would escalate my case to make sure the refund was approved.”
So far, players have reported successful refunds in various regions, and some countries have strong consumer protection laws that entitle customers to refunds in cases where a product is faulty or different from what was advertised. However, not all refund applicants have been successful, and others have said that the process of getting them a refund was intentionally tedious.
Pokemon Violet barely works on my OLED switch, there are bugs everywhere, it runs at 20 FPS or less and the classroom scene just hurts my eyes. I am asking for a refund for this, because it is not directly playable. I guess that’s not something they do. #PokemonScarletViolet pic.twitter.com/HXPr79tBSJ
— SantaSkeffi | Goddess of Dreams (PRE-DEBUT) (@Skeffi__) November 22, 2022
As of now, Nintendo has not issued any official statement regarding Pokemon refunds. While complaints about performance issues have been widespread, it’s unlikely that Pokemon Violet and Scarlet will reach the same level of widespread refunds that prompted Cyberpunk 2077 to offer an unconditional refund window after its release. Despite their issues, Pokemon Violet and Scarlet have sold huge numbers of units since their release, setting records not only for the Pokemon series, but for Nintendo games in general.
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