Judge Isabel Jahn from the German court presiding over the case against Nintendo for not offering eShop refunds dismissed the lawsuit recently. Nintendo Everything picked up the news from Norwegian outlet Press Fire, who reported that the case was dismissed because Nintendo’s defense that the no-refund policy of the Nintendo eShop complies with European Union laws.

According to Siliconera, Nintendo’s defense was that not allowing for the cancellation of pre-orders or attaining refunds from the eShop complied with European Union standards because if the purchases were made with prior consent by customers that they were acknowledging that they wouldn’t be able to receive a refund, then no laws were being violated since they were letting customers know upfront that they would have to agree to withdraw their consent to a refund before making a purchase.

Apparently the courts agreed with this kind of logic because they dismissed the case.

As reported by Niche Gamer, the issue originally started back in 2018 when the Norwegian Consumer Council took Nintendo to task for a lack of refunds, but Nintendo didn’t budge. This later brought the German consumer rights group, VZBV, into the fold and they sued Nintendo… and lost.

As noted by Press Fire, the courts ordered the VZBV ombudsman from the German protection group to pay for the court costs. However, the group has plans on appealing the ruling in hopes of finally getting Nintendo to do the right thing by offering gamers refunds for eShop purchases.

A similar thing happened years ago with Valve, where the VZBV also sued them for not offering refunds or resale options, but they lost that case, too. However, the ACCC based out of Australia managed to successfully sue and win against Valve, which forced them to implement a refund option into Steam.

Maybe the ACCC can get on the job and attempt to legally persuade Nintendo to change from their evil ways?

(Thanks for the news tip GameZard and Ebicentre)