A player in İzmir buys 500 gems at 02:00, spends 300 of them on a random chest and, the next morning, asks for a refund. Her twelve-year-old bought them; or she changed her mind; or the chest gave her nothing she wanted. Whether the studio must pay is decided not by the store’s refund policy but by Turkish consumer law, which applies to every distance contract with a consumer in Türkiye whoever the seller of record is and whatever the terms say. The rules are in the Consumer Protection Law No. 6502 and the Distance Contracts Regulation (Official Gazette 27 November 2014, No. 29188, as amended, most recently in 2022 and 2025). They give the consumer a fourteen-day right of withdrawal, then take it away for digital content delivered instantly, while requiring the consumer to be told so; they impose a long list of pre-contract information duties that the store page must meet; they extend the withdrawal period to a year if the information was missing; and, since 2022, they make the platform jointly liable for the information. Purchases by minors add the Civil Code. This article sets out the rules in the order a monetisation designer meets them: the information that must be on the purchase screen, the withdrawal right and its digital-content exception, subscriptions and virtual currencies, the platform’s role, the child who bought gems, and the consumer-arbitration route where disputes actually go. It follows our terms of service guide and pairs with the loot box article.
Every in-app purchase is a distance contract
Article 48 of Law 6502 defines a distance contract as one concluded between the seller or provider and the consumer within a system organised for remote sales, without simultaneous physical presence, using remote communication until and including the moment of conclusion. An in-app purchase of a virtual currency, a cosmetic, a season pass or a subscription is a distance contract for a service or for an intangible good, and the Regulation applies to it whether the seller of record is the studio or the store. Article 2(2) of the Regulation excludes some categories (financial services, package holidays, real estate and others) but not digital content. The consumer is a natural person acting for non-commercial purposes; a business buying licences is outside the regime and can be dealt with under the general Code of Obligations rules and the studio’s B2B terms.
What the purchase screen must say
Article 5(1) of the Regulation requires the consumer to be informed, before the contract is concluded or the consumer accepts an offer, of a long list of matters. For a game the operative items are: the essential characteristics of the good or service; the name or title of the seller or provider and of the intermediary service provider, with MERSİS or tax number; contact details enabling quick communication, and any separate complaint channel; the total price including all taxes, or the method of calculation where it cannot be calculated in advance, and, for indefinite or subscription contracts, the total cost per billing period; the delivery or performance time; where a right of withdrawal exists, its conditions, period and procedure; the address or e-mail for withdrawal notices; where the right of withdrawal does not exist under Article 15, the information that the consumer will not have it or the conditions under which it is lost; any technical protection measures that may affect the functionality of digital content; the hardware and software with which the digital content is compatible, so far as the provider knows or can reasonably be expected to know; and the consumer’s right to apply to the consumer arbitration committee or, subject to mandatory mediation, the consumer court. Article 5(2) makes this information an integral part of the contract, Article 5(6) puts the burden of proving it was given on the seller, provider and intermediary. Article 6 requires it to be given in a manner suited to the medium, in at least 12-point type and plain, comprehensible language, and for internet sales requires the essential characteristics, the total price and the information on the withdrawal right or its absence to be shown together immediately before the consumer commits to pay (Article 6(2)); Article 7 requires the consumer to confirm that the information was received, failing which the contract is deemed not concluded; and Article 8 requires the consumer to be told clearly, immediately before confirming the order, that the order entails an obligation to pay. A purchase button that reads “buy” with a price and nothing else fails several of these items; the fix is a pre-purchase screen or an always-available store terms page that the button references and that the store’s design lets the consumer read before paying.
The right of withdrawal and the digital-content exception
Article 9 gives the consumer fourteen days to withdraw without giving reasons and without penalty; for services the period runs from the conclusion of the contract, for goods from delivery. Article 15(1) then lists the contracts in which, unless the parties agree otherwise, the consumer cannot withdraw. Two items carry the games industry: item (ğ), services performed instantly in an electronic environment or intangible goods delivered instantly to the consumer, and item (h), services whose performance began with the consumer’s approval before the withdrawal period expired. Gems credited to the account on payment, a skin unlocked on purchase and a chest opened immediately are instantly delivered intangible goods or instantly performed services; the withdrawal right does not exist for them, but the consumer must be told so under Article 5(1)(h). Where the consumer is not properly informed about the withdrawal right, Article 10 removes the fourteen-day limit and lets the consumer withdraw at any time up to one year after the period would have ended; if the information is given late, the fourteen days run from then. The Regulation does not say expressly that a missing Article 5(1)(h) notice revives the withdrawal right for instantly delivered content, but the consumer has a strong argument under Article 10 that it does. The practical consequence is a paradox studios often miss: the exception that protects the business is secure only with the disclosure that many purchase flows omit. Where withdrawal does apply, for example to a subscription that has not started or a pre-order of content not yet delivered, Article 12 requires the refund within fourteen days of receiving the withdrawal notice, and Article 11 allows the notice by any written or durable-medium means, with the burden of proof of exercise on the consumer.
Subscriptions, virtual currencies and price presentation
Subscriptions are distance contracts of indefinite duration or for a fixed term; Article 5(1)(d) and 5(4) require the total price per billing period, and the general consumer rules on unfair terms in Article 5 of Law 6502 apply to auto-renewal, price-change and cancellation clauses, which must be transparent and not create a significant imbalance to the consumer’s detriment. Virtual currencies raise a presentation question rather than a withdrawal question: the Regulation requires the total price in money, so a store page that shows only a gem count for an item without the real-money equivalent is a weak disclosure, and the Advertising Regulation’s dark-pattern item (Annex A-22) reaches bundle sizes and pricing designed to obscure the real cost. Consumable currency spent within the game is instantly performed; unspent currency in a closed account at termination is a contract-law question the terms should answer, and a clause forfeiting large unused balances without cause is exposed under the unfair-terms rule.
The platform’s role
Since the 2022 amendment, Article 5(7) of the Regulation makes the intermediary service provider through whose platform the distance contract is concluded jointly and severally liable with the seller or provider for the pre-contract information, and responsible for deficiencies in the mandatory items where it entered the data. Where the store is the seller of record, as the App Store’s terms generally provide for paid content, the store owes the consumer duties directly and handles refunds under its own procedure, and the studio’s exposure is contractual towards the store; where the developer is the seller of record, the studio owes the duties and the store is the intermediary. In both cases the store’s refund decisions do not displace the consumer’s statutory rights, and a consumer refused by the store can take the studio to the consumer arbitration committee. Studios should therefore know, per store and per country, who the seller of record is, mirror the store’s refund windows in their own support policy and keep the Article 5 information on a page they control.
The child who bought gems
Under Article 16 of the Civil Code No. 4721, minors with capacity to discern cannot incur obligations by their own acts without the consent of their legal representative; a purchase by a child using a parent’s stored card is, absent that consent, not binding on the child and the family can demand restitution of what was paid, while the platform or studio can reclaim what it delivered. Parental consent may be implied by leaving the device and payment method with the child, and disputes turn on the facts, but a studio that markets to children or knows its audience is young cannot rely on that implication. The store-level tools (purchase PINs, family sharing, ask-to-buy) are the first line of defence and the Article 5 information should recommend them; a refund policy that treats a plausible unauthorised child purchase as refundable within a reasonable window is cheaper than the chargebacks and the Advertising Board complaints that follow refusals. Marketing to children adds Article 24 of the Advertising Regulation, and processing children’s data adds the KVKK questions in our children and age assurance article.
Do we have to offer refunds on gems at all?
Not by statute, provided the gems are delivered instantly and the consumer was told before purchase that the withdrawal right does not apply (Article 15(1)(ğ) and Article 5(1)(h)). Without that disclosure the consumer can argue for withdrawal for up to a year under Article 10. Store policies may be more generous and bind you contractually.
Where do disputes go?
To the consumer arbitration committees for claims under the annually adjusted monetary thresholds, and to consumer courts above them, after mandatory mediation. Committees decide on documents; the Article 5 disclosures and proof of the consumer’s confirmation are what wins or loses the case.
Our game is English-only. Does the Regulation still apply?
Yes, to consumers in Türkiye. The information must be comprehensible to them, and a Turkish version of the purchase terms is the safe course; Law No. 805 on the use of Turkish by enterprises also points that way for Turkish-incorporated studios.
Related: B2C · freemium model · SaaS terms of service · ETBİS and Law 6563.
Sources. Consumer Protection Law No. 6502 (Articles 5, 48, 66–73/A); Distance Contracts Regulation (Official Gazette 27 November 2014, No. 29188; Articles 2, 5–12, 15); Turkish Civil Code No. 4721 (Articles 10–16); Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices (Article 24, Annex). Statute links open the official Turkish texts on mevzuat.gov.tr.
This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Please seek legal support for an assessment of any specific matter.
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