A user recently asked a question (10k only) about Gamestop's return policy. I've voted to close the question as off-topic, however there are a few other questions of a similiar nature, one of which has 43 up-votes.
I believe that they are about a company's policies, and not about gaming, and should therefore be considered off-topic.
How do we feel about these questions?
Since nobody has actually proposed an answer that amounts to 'no', I'll step up and do so for the sake of voting, since simple downvotes on Badp and Oaks answers aren't really the same as having something to upvote.
So really, there are actually two questions here. There's the one being asked in the title; Are questions about game companies policies on-topic?
And I think the answer to this one, in the general case, is an emphatic Yes. We should be able to answer questions about policies regarding RMT in Diablo 3 and EVE, or whether Steam keys are transferrable. Beyond being questions about the games themselves, there are often technical implications to these policy questions, and occasionally even workarounds that are worth noting (i.e. make a new Steam account for every Steam game or whatever.)
Now, as to the other question here, which is about the specific question that prompted this Meta post: Are questions about game retailers policies on topic?
And here is where I think the answer is No. We are a site for gaming experts. Now, that's a fairly broad topic area, and it involves a fair amount of related knowledge at times about things like recording games, setting up specialized A/V equipment, optics, and even metallurgy. But we have to draw our lines in the sand somewhere, don't we? And I'd say that the line between a gaming expert and a shopping expert is as good a place as any. Questions about the policies of retail game stores are, in addition to being matters of public record, often best explained by the individual in the retail store, or on a customer service line. They are subject to significant amount of legal interpretation, and regional and international variability. They are also often subject to the discretion, judgement, and competence of the retail staffer with whom you interact. I worked in retail for 7 years. We sold software including games. Our policy said we didn't take back open-box software. Our policy was that if someone came in with open-box software to return and made even a token attempt at a good excuse, we would take it back because making that customer happy was more important than the 40 bucks in revenue. At another store run by the same company about 30 minutes away, they'd never do that though.
As a community, we need to define ourselves, first and foremost, based on the things in which we are experts. With that in mind, I'd argue that Yes, questions about the policies of companies we interact with as gamers should in general be on topic. Questions about retail shopping should not be. You want help interpreting that EULA? Absolutely! You want to know why Gamestop is offering you shit for trade-in value? That's probably not going to be constructive.
Thinking about this some more as I drove home today, I wanted to expand a bit on an idea in the comments below. Specifically, what I'm going to refer to as The Pants Test for whether a question is on topic. Essentially, if you could replace the subject of your question with a pair of pants (or other object totally unrelated gaming, if you've got some kind of problem with pants or if it helps a metaphor or whatever), and still have a coherent question, that would recieve a similar answer, then it's probably off topic. Below, I'll provide two examples of the Pants Test in action, using the two questions linked by Wipqozn above, so you can see it in action.
Retail Boxed Steam Activated games: Can they be resold?
I recently purchased retail boxed versions of
Dead Island (which is awesome) Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (not so much) I finished both games and I was thinking of reselling them or giving them to a friend to play. However, these are both Steam activated games that had a required Steam registration code I had to enter -- and validate on Steam -- as part of the installation.
If I give these games to a friend or resell them, will they even work? Is the registration code single use and tied to a single person / computer / Steam account?
Retail Purchased Pants: Can they be resold?
I recently purchased some new slacks for a formal event.
I wore them to the event, and I was thinking of reselling them or giving them to a friend to wear. However, these are both Steam activated pants that had a required Steam registration code I had to enter -- and validate on Steam -- as part of the---
Wait a minute. At this point, the metaphor breaks down. Pants don't have activation codes, and if they do in whatever nightmare world you live in, I'd ask you to please never take me there.
How about another one? **Does Anyone know Gamestop's return policy? (10k)
I own an old Xbox 360, and recently it has been scratching my games. Before I knew that you could download games to your hard drive and play them even when scratched, I had just been re-buying games. I now have multiple copies of games I bought from Gamestop, and I was wondering if I could get a refund because they were ruined solely by my console. All the games are marked with the ring that old 360's gouge into disks when you move the console with the game inside, so there is proof that my console broke them.
In this case, I'm going to replace 'Pants' with 'Silverware', purely because I don't want to engage in semantic gymnastics to come up with some sort of strange scenario in which the questioners pants were being ruined by a faulty belt or something:
Does anyone know Target's Return Policy?
I own an old dishwasher, and recently it has been ruining the edges of my knives. Before I knew that you could sharpen knives, I had just been re-buying knives. I now have multiples of all kinds of knives that I bought from Target, and I was wondering if I could get a refund because they were ruined solely by my dishwasher. All the knives are marked with the same pattern of ruined blades from the dishwasher when you move the dishwasher with the knife inside, so there is proof that my dishwasher broke them.
Okay, so it's somewhat strained, but the point is, the fundamental question here "Can I return a product that I bought because I used it with some other faulty product?" is fundamentally not a question that is in any way uniquely about gaming, nor does the answer in any way intersect with the specialized knowledge we have as gamers.
I think this is an excellent question and I'm not sure myself. Many of the the comments on the question above raise very good arguments. But ultimately I agree with Juan the most. Matthew and Anna are right in that we cannot provide the most authoritative answers on those questions. But we can rarely do that on other question types as well, really. I think our shining star in this case should be helpfulness for other gamers, and by that criteria those questions should be okay.
So I vote that those types of questions should be permissible here.
They're practical questions on problems gamers face. Yes, they're in.
I can't think of any TF2 question that can't be (eventually) answered by enough people emailing Gabe Newell. For instance, I emailed him asking why didn't the dead ringer play a beep when it's full (a bad question for Gaming.SE, I realize), and he "answered" months later by making the dead ringer play a beep when it's full.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't host any TF2 content, though. The same logic applies here.
