1503AD and the Rapid Erosion of End-User Rights?

Agram asks: "I bought the Sunflowers' 1503AD game practically as soon as it came out, since my wife and I loved to play the old 1602AD together via LAN. 1503AD's expanded multiplayer feature was touted all over the internet, yet when I bought the game, for a costly $52, I was very unpleasantly surprised that it had no multiplayer mode at all. Despite the continuous claims that the company is working on the MP patch, we're now over 7 months away from the initial release, the game now sells for a measly $15, and I have yet to play a single second of it, as I have no interest in the single player experience. My attempts at communication with the company led to nothing but dead-ends and unprovoked mistreatment. Unfortunately, this is not a unique occurrence in today's software entertainment industry, where atrocious lack of support is growing rampant and is increasingly coupled with ridiculous EULA's. I have therefore decided to finally exercise my end-user rights and pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. I am now asking you, fellow Slashdot reader, for help in seeking answers to the following questions as, well assistance in assembling signatures for the class-action lawsuit."

"Here are my questions:

• How does one go about locating a reputable and internationally active law firm that could handle this case?
• What is the required number of the participants for a class-action lawsuit to be instantiated?
• Do you think that this course of action will yield any results?

If you have this game and feel the same like I do, I would like to urge you to please join the class-action lawsuit. Also, if you feel that you can and are willing to help out in any other shape or form (i.e. website maintenance etc.), please do not hesitate to contact me and/or visit the website stated below. I believe that this can be used to leverage further attempts at forcing the other entertainment software companies to support their product(s) as they ought to, as well as hopefully abolishing the obfuscated EULA's that relinquish them of any responsibility towards consumers. 1503AD is by no means an exception, but rather it is part of an unfortunate growing trend among the entertainment software companies.

For more details regarding this issue please visit this site."

Comments

I'm appalled!

[meta-monkey]

So, you spent $50 on a video game, and found out it wasn't very good.

I'm sure that's never happened before in the history of the world! Better sue, or this might become commonplace!

You might remember me....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such tech-support dramas as "73 Hours on Hold" and "Can't Stop the Muzak".

Re:Might as well pirate the games

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Were you about to post my Half-Life key?? Type the rest so I can check.

"Consumers" have no "rights"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rights, such as they are, are outlined in the license agreement that you accept. If you do not accept the license agreement, you have no right to use the software. If you use it anyway, you are a felon. This crime is far worse than rape or murder, because it strikes at the heart of the system of natural incentives which drives our free economy. Any "rights" that the vendor chooses to grant you are gifts, pure and simple, and you certainly have not earned them. The vendor has sunk millions of dollars of capital into developing the product. They have every right to expect a return on this investment, and the fact they are generously allowing you to use the software at all is more than you probably deserve. Your role in this culture is to pay them for the work performed by their employees, who are damned lucky to have jobs (and almost certainly don't appreciate it). Pay up and shut up.

These "rights" of the "consumer" are like the "rights" of women or animals; it's an absurdity on the face of it. Slashdot has no business wasting our time with this leftist garbage. It says up there "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Is that what this is? Decidedly not. Competent "nerds" (technical people) are by definition conservative Libertarians, for two reasons: First, they are productive individuals and the principle of rational self-interest proves that they will not support the socialists. Second, they are by definition intelligent and logical people (they work with logic all day, do they not?) and therefore they cannot be fooled by liberal myths and nonsense like so-called "heliocentric" cosmology, "evolution", or the redistribution of wealth (organized coercive parasitism). A leftist nerd is a contradiction in terms, and therefore cannot exist.

that's nothing...

[theMerovingian]

I bought a first generation Xbox ($300) just so I could play Nightcaster.

I should get an award for pain and suffering, in addition to my $350 being refunded.

Here is a quiz for you:

[green_crocadilian]

one of these lawsuits is completely frivolous. Can you guess which one?

1. You sue the police department because in a case of mistaken identity, they knock down your door and release the dogs, who badly maul you and your sleeping wife.
2. You sue the hospital because they totally fsck up a routine operation and make your right arm unusable for a year, and then pretend nothing happened.
3. You sue a game company because you like bought into the hype and wasted $50 on a bad game, just like the last 3 times when you bought games without actually checking a reliable review site.