When my friends and me were teenagers without funds (as opposed to students without funds :P) we used to do this all the time. Buy a game, play through it within the deadline to return it, and return it.
I think they might have changed the law in the meantime.

Regardless we also just learned to pay, if something is worth the price. If I like a game I buy it. To support the developer. I think the rise of Indies was a good time to learn that because suddenly you weren't sticking it to big, faceless coorperation that were swimming in money anyways, but supporting actual people, creators of awesome games by buying their games.

There are a lot of more important ethical dilemmas in the world to spend brainpower on than this lol.

Nothing illegal.

Hes smart to take advantage of rules.

All power to him.

Your friend is being a dick. I'll pick up RoTR when it hits PC or PS4. It's the not developers fault that the publisher made an exclusivitiy deal.

Fact is that our capitalistic society and legal systems all about getting the most you can for as less as possible.
These companies have teams of lawyers dedicated to finding loopholes so they can earn more profits here, and pay less taxes there.
No one should feel bad about using loopholes to get something for free out of these companies. Infact it should be encouraged.

The issue is with stores. It's too damn easy to return things these days. If you buy a console, you should only be allowed to return it if it can be proven that the console is defective. When it's returned, a qualified employee (someone like us) should take it into a room, plug it all up, test it and then determine if it's truly defective or if it's just being returned for the reasons stated in the OP. If there are any signs of tampering, or if it's being returned due to a change of mind, or whatever reason... no refund.

This would remove 80%-90% of the riff raff.

Can't argue with your friend's logic.

And yet you took the time to read the post and respond.  Fascinating.

of course its unethical, but still legal (if the retailers are stupid enough to take it back).

Given that companies screw consumers over, the reverse is fine.